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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 1146531" data-attributes="member: 3087">Wow, thanks for at the input. Lots of interesting comments.My goal in making the system wasn't to reward high Dexterity races, just to fill in a perceived gap in a simple way. I feel that if a DM really wants elves to be faster runners than humans they can just give them +5 to movement.The alternatives were a lot of work for what I perceive as little reward. If racial modifiers aren't ignored every monster would need to be to be recalculated, and weird abnormalities like the Pixie would develop, where the entire race has a different speed than is listed in the MM. Likewise a limited application is unappealing: If it only applies to player characters that ruins the verisimilitude of the world and creates a lot of weirdness.For that matter both elves and halfings are shorter than the other races in their movement category. I can easily see the slightly higher speed being offset by their shorter legs.I was more interested in looking for a simple system to lay out which characters are faster than others. I was especially leery of introducing another skill. D&D has a small number of skills, especially 3.5, and that's deliberate. Before a ranger could be perfectly good at running around without a skill, now suddenly they need to take skill points away from another skill or else they are slow compared with other characters. It's particularly crippling for classes like fighters, which already have limited skill choices, but aggravating for everyone. Playing with a DM who loves to introduce complex optional systems that effectively limit PC abilities have soured me on Optional systems that penalize PCs. I've also never been a tremendous fan of rolling checks for simple actions everyone takes every single round. I feel that D&D doesn't have Defense checks, or Parry rules, for precisely this reason. While a system like that might be great for a foot race I don't really want to have to make every single monster make a dex check every time it moves. Especially if a system provides significant payoffs that players -have- to use it (and thus monsters and NPCs do to) can absorb a lot of time and slow the game down. 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?Tywyll's interpretation is the one I had in mind when I thought the rule up. Elves don't move faster despite their dex bonus, nor do halfings. I think I explained why in my response to him above.This confused me. Where does 5.6 come from? The system ignores size if that's what your thinking. 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.If your games only use 22 points (or a straight 3d6 stat rolling system) then a 15 becomes a much more significant barrier. On the other hand my presumption is that people who play in those sorts of games are not interested in having characters who are exceptional, at least in terms of game stats, compared to normal people in the world.One more thing: the system, though I didn't specify, is -only- for land speed, ie. walking, running, etc. Other forms of movement common in D&D often use other attributes (like strength for burrowing, climbing and swimming) and have their own systems of checks for how to increase someone's speed. Or else they involve complex stuff that I don't want to get into like flying. I know little of aerodynamics, nor can I think of a reason why creatures that probably couldn't fly without magic according to modern physics (dragons, beholders) ought to be moving faster than each other.</blockquote>

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