Crawling & Haste

[Artoomis]

For what it's worth:


Also, note that Haste specifies that the enhancement bonus increase your Jump bonus as normal for an increase in speed. An "increase to a mode of movement" would have no effect on Jump bonus; only an increase to the speed of a mode of movement; more evidence that the enchancement bonus from Haste increases speed, and thus has no effect on Crawl.

-Hyp.

Note that "Originally Posted by Customer Service... Haste only affects the targets base movement speed. So a creature with a movement of Burrow:20ft would have a movement of Burrow:50 feet with haste..." is an error - Movement would be 40, of course.

Take that as FWIW, too.

They also neglected to talk about Walk, Run, Hustle as modes of movement.

All in all an incomplete and inaccurate answer. That's a shame, really.

Also, we don't see the question. Question phrasing often influences the answer, so it would be nice to see the question.

Basically, Haste was poorly written, as were the two (PHB and MM) references to "modes of movement."

 

[Hypersmurf]

Note that "Originally Posted by Customer Service... Haste only affects the targets base movement speed. So a creature with a movement of Burrow:20ft would have a movement of Burrow:50 feet with haste..." is an error - Movement would be 40, of course.

True

They also neglected to talk about Walk, Run, Hustle as modes of movement.

Yup. It looks like the two are distinct and separate uses of the phrase; Burrow, Climb, Swim, and Fly (plus land movement) are one use of the phrase "modes of movement", as referenced in the Monster Manual, plus spells like Longstrider, Haste, and Expeditious Retreat. Walk, Run, and Hustle is another use of the phrase "modes of movement", completely unrelated to the other, and referenced nowhere else in the rules.

Basically, Haste was poorly written, as were the two (PHB and MM) references to "modes of movement."

The use of one phrase to refer to two different concepts was ill-chosen.

Haste only requires three extra words to fix the problem - 'the speed of' - and those words are implied by the other phrasing of the spell anyway.

And neither results in a reasonable case for Haste increasing the distance one can crawl as a move action.

The original question to Cust Serv:

The term "Modes of Movement" is defined in two places in the Core Rules.

Under "Movement" in the "Carrying, Movement, Exploration" chapter of the PHB:
Modes of Movement: While moving at the different movement scales, creatures generally walk, hustle, or run.

And under "Speed" in the "Reading the Entries" section of the Monster Manual:
If the creature has other modes of movement, these are given after (or in place of) the land speed. Unless noted otherwise, modes of movement are natural (not magical).

In several places in the rules, it refers to "other modes of movement (including Burrow, Climb, Fly, and Swim).

The Haste spell provides a 30 foot increase to a mode of movement.

Is this intended to mean a 30 foot increase to the speed of a mode of movement?

For example, a human, with a speed of 30, can run 120 feet as a full round action. Run is defined in the PHB as a mode of movement. If we increase the mode of movement by 30 feet, he can run 150 feet. If we increase the speed of the mode of movement (from 30 to 60) he can run 240 feet. (To make matters worse, the increase to the mode of movement is capped at double the normal speed for that mode of movement. If we increase 120 by 30, it's capped at double the normal speed... and double 30 is 60.)

Also, unless the enhancement bonus is intended to apply to the *speed* of the mode of movement, it seems it would stack with enhancement bonuses that *are* to speed, such as the Longstrider spell, Expeditious Retreat spell, or a monk's class enhancement bonus to speed.

This has arisen from a discussion about the effects of the Haste spell on the crawl action, which allows one to crawl 5 feet.

If crawl is a mode of movement (though not defined as such anywhere), it is not one that has a speed; changes to land speed have no effect on the distance crawled. Expeditious Retreat, Longstrider, or the monk or barbarian abilities, for example, do not result in more than 5 feet travelled while crawling.

Does the +30 from Haste apply to land speed while crawling (resulting in no change in distance crawled); to distance crawled, capped at twice land speed (resulting in 35 feet crawled); or to distance crawled, capped at twice 5 feet (resulting in 10 feet crawled)?

-Hyp.

 

[erucsbo]

Dear me!

Take a step back folks. Crawling isn't crawling.
Crawling is a move action that you can take from a prone position. This is the one that is limited to 5'.
If you want to "crawl" at speed, as per imitating a baby in motion or a four legged animal you will want to be starting from a position on all fours, not prone.

I recently had a hasted prone person want to crawl away from combat (and hoping that they didn't provoke an AoO from the creature that had just dropped them - they were then cured to +ve HPs). After much toing and froing and searching of the rules we agreed that "crawl from prone" was 5' total, in the same way that other actions that can be done as a move-equivalent action also aren't sped up by haste.
If you want to move on all fours though, make it a climb along a surface of 0 degrees incline or something like that - you are probably doing it because you are searching for a dropped contact lens (er - eye of minute seeing) or the ceiling is only 4' high - in which case - most of the time - it will say that you are forced to move at half or quarter speed.

Look at the context that the original question was framed in (crawling from prone) and you'll see that most of the (excellent) arguments that have been raised on all sides do not apply in this situation.