Lame rule or streak of utter genius? (Movement related)

[A'koss]

Originally posted by Graf:

Btw: I'm not saying your rule is bad, or that you shouldn't play the way you want, but the net costs of the system seem to outweigh the benefits to me. I assume rogues/rangers & high skill classes in your games move significantly faster than other members of their race, is that true? Do your players like rolling every round? Do you make them roll before they declare their actions? If afterward how do you deal with unknown penalties? How do you handle big fights?

This skill is open to everyone (but it is trained only remember), and clearly, those who have more skill points tend to be better at it. If you read what I wrote, you'd see that you do not have to roll every round, you only use the skill as the situation warrants it. Plus, you can Take 10 in any situation where you are not threatened. If you're travelling with a group, you can only move as fast as the slowest member in the party anyway.

This skill is mainly used when you want to initially close the gap between yourself and your enemies and get into flanking positions if necessary. Other than that, if you have lots of ranks in this skill you can move farther and still make full attacks. It's good for fleeing as well and for increased movement in harsh terrain, but again, you don't have to roll unless you're threatened.

You do have to declare using the skill as you would with any other and big fights tend not to be an issue as it's a trained only skill and not everyone takes it or has enough ranks to really make it effective.

Cheers,

A'koss

 

[AeroDm]

They did soemthing similar in 2e skills and powers. However, my concern is that you are granting yet another bonus to dexterity, which is arguably the best stat to begin with.

Armor Class
Reflex Saves
Initiative
Missile Attack
Melee Attack (w/ finnesse)
Some of the best skills

If you add speed to that list, it will just further improve an already awesome stat.

 

[Graf]

If you read what I wrote, you'd see that you do not have to roll every round, you only use the skill as the situation warrants it. Plus, you can Take 10 in any situation where you are not threatened

You do have to declare using the skill as you would with any other and big fights tend not to be an issue as it's a trained only skill and not everyone takes it or has enough ranks to really make it effective.

Hmm. Looking at the skill I think I see a different set of effects from the rule, maybe I've missed something:
1. Raising your base speed is a very valuable thing. In the core books you can basically only do it with items, spells or taking levels in one of two classes.
2. Wiht your system for 1 skill point or two, if you're cross-class, you can become trained and raise your speed by 5 at least 55% of the time. (assuming no dex bonus or penalty).
I'm assuming that the skill isn't hard to find a teacher in or limited in some sort of roleplaying way.
3. Given the importance of movement it seems likely to me that most everyone would get a rank of the skill.
4. Since there are no penalties why would anyone trained in it not roll every round that they would want to move more than their base speed?

Sorry if this wasn't the response you were expecting....
So long as the DM allows the PCs to take the skill but assumes NPCs won't I could see it being a popular addition to any game. My rule of thumb is generally that if a PC can take something an NPC is about as likely to as well, but I realize that a lot of games don't work like that.

Do you have any particular objection to the system that I suggested?

They did something similar in 2e skills and powers. However, my concern is that you are granting yet another bonus to dexterity, which is arguably the best stat to begin with.

Well you seem to have made up your mind.

I can't really agree that Dexterity is "the best stat" in D&D. In D&D combat is generally the place where you make most decisions about the power of an ability. I find that in combat Dexterity is often overshadowed by other stats.

In general the only characters I see with high dexterity are rogues. The few fighters and monks I've seen who go high-dex seem to spend a lot of time complaining about how hard it is to keep up with their strength based companions.

I played a character recently with an extremely high dex (elf with max dex for level) who was built to maximize the advantages of the stat and I found that I would possibly have been better off with a lower dexterity and improved constitution or strength. Unless you're very precise in your planning and feat selection Dexterity lags the other physical stats for utility (rogues excluded).

To break out a few comments

Armor Class

A high dexterity doesn't really guarantee you a higher ac than anyone else. It just lets you have a higher score while retaining certain advantages (higher movement, tumble, etc), even then you loose it when you're flat footed, stunned, surprised, grappled, etc.
You can achieve the same armor class with mundane armor as you can with a high dex and unless you have very specific magical armor your armor class is unlikely to change significantly because of your dexterity score.

Basically so long as you use armor your armor bonus to your AC is limited to around 18 or 19 regardless of your dex score. And you need to have a dexterity score in of 26 before you can reach that naturally. Mage armor, Barkskin and a few other spells mean you can get away with a dex of 18 or 20 and keep pace with the party fighters, but that's an extremely specific build.

Example: The best you can do without employing serious magic is having elven chain (AC +4, max dex AC bonus 8). Assuming you're human with a dex 18 that's an AC of 22. A fighter with full plate and a shield has an AC of 21 for basically the same cost and can put that 18 in strength or Con.

Reflex saves

Certainly something important. Important, I think you'll agree, primarily to avoid damage from traps and from evocation spells. Of course most save or die spells are Fortitude, or Will. Poison, Energy Drain and most of those other really really nasty effects aren't Ref saves.
Not that a high reflex save isn't great, but it's not the end-all be-all.

Initiative

Honestly I've never understood the obsession with having a high Init bonus. Everyone gets one action a round. Over the course of my campaigns I noticed a reasonable tenancy for people who move first to manage to get themselves into a bad tactical situation.
For a chunk of characters (rogues speicifically) you want to go after the front line troops, using tumble or spring attack to move into a flanking position.

Missile Attack

As someone who recently played a psion with a bow and a dex of 20 I can tell you that a high dex does not assure you will be a brilliant missile combatant. The vast majority of combats require Precise shot (and it's prequistite point blank shot) to be effective. Otherwise that +4 or +5 to hit from a super high dex doesn't really make you a stellar shot when you've got targets with cover (-4) and you're firing into melee (-4).
You could argue that this is more a function of ranged combat than Dex but the fact remains that being a good ranged combatant requires significant outlay of feats just to match the damage output of an average character of your level.
Which is how it should be, but I digress.

Melee Attack (w/ finesse)

I've seen more than a few characters with weapon finesse. They aren't better combatants than characters with high strengths. They're AC is the same, they have the same ability to hit, their weapon choice is greatly limited, do less damage, AND they're short a feat.

Some of the best skills

Like what??
I would suggest that spot and listen are generally the most rolled, and probably have the biggest overall effect on combat (surprise rounds being what they are).
The most important rogue skill is probably search, knowing a trap is there is of paramount importance. Given that most Dungeons are riddled with magical items that can be only discovered by search checks the skill is also essential to getting the treasure.
Hide and MS are certainly useful, but that's a rogue function, given the penalties of failure when sneaking around by yourself it's not something non-rogues have the luxury of.

Don't mean to sound caustic, but I'm not really sure you have a leg to stand on when you say that Dexterity is "the best stat".

 

[Zerakon]

Let me know what you think.

Lame rule.

Too much incentive for a character to hit the "sweet spot" and have a 16 Dexterity.

 

[pyk]

The problem I see with this rule, as well as the skill, is that Dexterity does not influence the speed a character moves. Strength is the attribute which does this. Look at any runner. They are not particularly dextrous, but they are very strong, especially lower body strength. It is the strength of the lower limbs which propels the body forward, and maintains that speed over distance.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I can't really agree that Dexterity is "the best stat" in D&D. In D&D combat is generally the place where you make most decisions about the power of an ability. I find that in combat Dexterity is often overshadowed by other stats.

[...]

Don't mean to sound caustic, but I'm not really sure you have a leg to stand on when you say that Dexterity is "the best stat".

In my experience, Dex is considered the most powerful stat, generally right above Str. I find that this is fairly accurate...

For a melee character, a high Dex allows tactical mobility (light armor vs. medium/heavy armor), skills (low check penalty, plus key stat for ambushes (Hide, Move Silently), mobility (Tumble, Balance), and many otehr skills. Compare Strength which has just skills like Climb and Jump... useful, perhaps, but not nearly as good as the Dex skills.

Dex modifies a save (unlike Str). For nocturnal/imprisonment encounters, a high Dex character has a much higher AC. With Weapon Finesse, a character can further substitute Dex for Str, widening the gap further.

Dex is always the stat for ranged combat, and even fighters who prefer melee find themselves in ranged situations from time to time. Idf they spend feats they can get good at it... but even if they don't, they'll be better than the other melee fighter with lower Dex.

Finally, the importance of initiative is great. It's difficult to raise initiative, and Dex is the easiest way to go. The shorter a fight is, the more initiative matters, and most fights in my experience last only a few rounds.

 

[CRGreathouse]

5. Movement and speed is extremely important in D&D. There is no system in the core books, or any other book I'm aware of, to deal with characters who are racing each other, or moving more or less quickly.

The problem I see with this rule, as well as the skill, is that Dexterity does not influence the speed a character moves. Strength is the attribute which does this. Look at any runner. They are not particularly dextrous, but they are very strong, especially lower body strength. It is the strength of the lower limbs which propels the body forward, and maintains that speed over distance.

Interestingly, the core books say that characters with the same speed determine races by a Dex check (over short distances) or a Con check (overland).

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Quote:Originally Posted by Tilla the Hun (work)

I think I like this rule quite a bit, but I do foresee a problem when applied to monstrous races. A pixie gets, I believe, a full +8 to her dex, or +5.6' (5' rnd dwn). That's the same as the elf at +2.

This confused me. Where does 5.6 come from? The system ignores size if that's what your thinking.

5.6' = 8' in your system, the character gains +5.6' of movement if you deal exclusively with 5' blocks, i.e 5' + 3' (3/5 = 6/10 = .6)

Initially the system was based around dexterity modifiers but I realized that 1. this rewards an even score instead of an odd one 2. it's simpler this way. Also using the score instead of the stat allows for a finer distinction in speeds, if two characters are running in a flat field in a race someone with a slightly higher dex might as well be moving slightly more quickly, so long as it doesn't make the game mechanic too complex.
The system is deliberately not a significant change. Before the system was "all humans move speed 30". Now it is "humans generally move 30, only exceptional individuals are fast enough for it to have an impact over short distances". But I play in 32 point games 14s are common. Your average NPC thief has a dex of 14. By comparison 15s, where you give up a rise in two points of another score for no game benefit, are exceedingly rare. I say give the character with a 14 dex a +2 to dex skills, ref saves, AC, weapon finesse, etc. and save the movement boost for the exceptional 15. The rule isn't really supposed to reward higher dexterity scores so much as have a mechanism for creatures of the same race to be faster and slower than each other.

And I think you're system accomplishes your goal quite well.

As for me, now that I've seen the concept, (and now that I've also tried changing it where your dex mod is your speed mod, +1 dex = 30' + 1' for everything) I think I tend to agree, although I allow race mods to affect it. I do so actually to keep things balanced.

An elf +2 means that an elf move 1' faster per round than a human - not a bad benefit for being a graceful elf. A pixie's +8 allows them to move 8' faster - or 1 square faster - per round.

To me this worked best when I applied it equally to everything. Made for an interesting discussion about horses getting it as well .

Thanks for the idea.

 

[Graf]

Too much incentive for a character to hit the "sweet spot" and have a 16 Dexterity.

15 the sweet spot is 15, not 16. Or 20 if you have medium or heavier armor.
<sigh>

In my experience, Dex is considered the most powerful stat, generally right above Str. I find that this is fairly accurate...

WotC has repeatedly stated they belive that a racial strength bonus is more powerful than a bonus to any other physical stat. All my experiences confirm this.
It appears you play in a game where you are frequently deprived of the use of your equipment and/or ambushed in compromising situations, where most of the characters have access to rogue/ranger skills, where people primarily use light armor, and ranged-only combat is frequent.
The games I've run-played in are more typically D&D-esque (for lack of a better word). The games feature heavily armed and armored combatants, rogues and rangers are not the most prevalent classes, few characters have high enough skill checks in things like hide, tumble, etc. to actually use them, and battles-that-can-only-occur-at-a-range are vanishing rare (often because someone has access to transportation magic, items, mounts, spells that deflect or stop missiles, etc ).
In these kinds of games characters with a higher strength are more effective combatants than people who put the same points into dexterity.

The problem I see with this rule, as well as the skill, is that Dexterity does not influence the speed a character moves. Strength is the attribute which does this.

What runners, precisely, are we talking about here?
Many champion athletes are tremendous physical specimens who are better than most people would be at any given physical activity. They live in a world where fractional improvements in performance can make or break a career. This system, and my D&D game, have little to do with that world.

Most of the people I know who can lift and carry large amounts, break things easily, etc. are large, they aren't particularly fast runners despite being able bench twice as much as the next person.
Most of the people I know who run quickly are lean and fast. They can't carry or lift much relative to the speed they have over other people.
There's nothing more complex than that underpinning the system.

 

[AeroDm]

Well you seem to have made up your mind.

I can't really agree that Dexterity is "the best stat" in D&D. In D&D combat is generally the place where you make most decisions about the power of an ability. I find that in combat Dexterity is often overshadowed by other stats.

Well to begin with I'd point out that I did say "arguably," not definitively. Had I said 'definitively', 'beyond a shadow of a doubt', or 'clearly superior' I could see your confusion as it is not necessarily any of those things. It is, however, arguably the best stat.

In general the only characters I see with high dexterity are rogues. The few fighters and monks I've seen who go high-dex seem to spend a lot of time complaining about how hard it is to keep up with their strength based companions.

This has not been my experience. Rangers, monks, and even most fighters in our games have at least a +1 dexterity. Of course, we play in low stat games (around standard array) so a 14 is pretty high.

A high dexterity doesn't really guarantee you a higher ac than anyone else. It just lets you have a higher score while retaining certain advantages (higher movement, tumble, etc), even then you loose it when you're flat footed, stunned, surprised, grappled, etc.
You can achieve the same armor class with mundane armor as you can with a high dex and unless you have very specific magical armor your armor class is unlikely to change significantly because of your dexterity score.

No it doesn't indeed. It does, however, allow you to retain your speed, have low armor check penalty, have a comparable AC to armed allies/opponents, and all of this in addition to granting all of the other things I said it does.

Example: The best you can do without employing serious magic is having elven chain (AC +4, max dex AC bonus 8). Assuming you're human with a dex 18 that's an AC of 22. A fighter with full plate and a shield has an AC of 21 for basically the same cost and can put that 18 in strength or Con.

I am actually confused here. Elven chain (I assume you mean chain shirt at +4 and not chainmail at +5?) and an 18 dexterity is an 18 ac. Regardless, you forget that a high dexterity does not preclude you from using a shield as well. My 20 vs your 21 but I move much faster and can climb, swim, jump, run, balance.....

Honestly I've never understood the obsession with having a high Init bonus. Everyone gets one action a round. Over the course of my campaigns I noticed a reasonable tenancy for people who move first to manage to get themselves into a bad tactical situation.
For a chunk of characters (rogues speicifically) you want to go after the front line troops, using tumble or spring attack to move into a flanking position.

You forget that you can delay. Going first is great because you can decide not to be flat-footed, you can move without AoO, you can attack them without their dexterity, you can do a host of things. It is a perk, not an end all of goodness.

As someone who recently played a psion with a bow and a dex of 20 I can tell you that a high dex does not assure you will be a brilliant missile combatant. The vast majority of combats require Precise shot (and it's prequistite point blank shot) to be effective. Otherwise that +4 or +5 to hit from a super high dex doesn't really make you a stellar shot when you've got targets with cover (-4) and you're firing into melee (-4).
You could argue that this is more a function of ranged combat than Dex but the fact remains that being a good ranged combatant requires significant outlay of feats just to match the damage output of an average character of your level.

Again, this entire list was things that dexterity affects. Not things that dexterity makes you a god at. Regardless of the fact that your psion didn't have any bow feats but then fired into melee, dexterity does indeed make you a better missile combatant.

I've seen more than a few characters with weapon finesse. They aren't better combatants than characters with high strengths. They're AC is the same, they have the same ability to hit, their weapon choice is greatly limited, do less damage, AND they're short a feat.

But their strengths in other places make up for this loss. Sure they do less damage, sure they lost a feat, but they have initiative, reflex, missile attack, and higher skills bonuses to make up for it.

Like what??

Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, Tumble. I cannot begin to emphasize how useful Hide, Move Silently, and Tumble have been for me. Nor could I explain how fun Sleight of Hand is for me. Escape Artist and Balance, just gravy.

Don't mean to sound caustic, but I'm not really sure you have a leg to stand on when you say that Dexterity is "the best stat".

Seeing as I said that dexterity was "arguably the best stat" I am quite sure I have two legs to stand on. Even had I said it was _the_ best I would still feel I had at least one leg to stand on. I have read countless threads arguing that dexterity is too powerful. Finally, you have to take into consideration that stats can be useful outside of combat as well. Dexterity, ime, is one of the most versatile stats around as it is often attributed to aim, finesse, grace, and even speed-- a great segway back on topic if I don't say so myself