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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6253493" data-attributes="member: 42582">This seems wrong to me.At the end when you say &quot;only way for them to arrive at the same point at the same moment in time is for the smaller creature to increase it's velocity&quot;, that doesn't seem quite right. For S and L to bother arrive in the same place at the same time (assuming the same starting position) requires that they have the same velocity.I think what you meant to say is that if S has a shorter stride than L, S needs to take more steps per given period than L to maintain an equal velocity to L ie S needs to increase its frequency.Which then takes us from maths to biology: the definition of walking or running is not simply in terms of frequency of steps. It's to do with motions in the various joints of the leg, and how many feet are on the ground at once. It's absolutely possible for some small things to have faster walking speeds than some large things, because their anatomy and physiology mean that their legs are capable of a greater frequency of movement. A practical example: my cat has always been small than my daughters, at least since they could walk. But it was certainly faster than them when they first started walking, and while I haven't done any proper experiments I'd find it easy to believe that it still is!Even if we confine it just to bipeds, I have had friends who are taller than me but don't walk as quickly as me, because I'm fitter than them and hence can get my hips, knees etc to move at a greater frequency of steps.I don't have a view on whether it's good or bad for the game that dwarves and halflings be as fast as humans - it strikes me as a pretty minor point, and in B/X and AD&amp;D I don't remember dwarves, gnomes and halflings being slower (if they were I've clearly forgotten) - but there's nothing mathematically or biologically objectionable about it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6253493, member: 42582"] This seems wrong to me. At the end when you say "only way for them to arrive at the same point at the same moment in time is for the smaller creature to increase it's velocity", that doesn't seem quite right. For S and L to bother arrive in the same place at the same time (assuming the same starting position) requires that they have the same velocity. I think what you meant to say is that if S has a shorter stride than L, S needs to take more steps per given period than L to maintain an equal velocity to L ie S needs to increase its frequency. Which then takes us from maths to biology: the definition of walking or running is not simply in terms of frequency of steps. It's to do with motions in the various joints of the leg, and how many feet are on the ground at once. It's absolutely possible for some small things to have faster walking speeds than some large things, because their anatomy and physiology mean that their legs are capable of a greater frequency of movement. A practical example: my cat has always been small than my daughters, at least since they could walk. But it was certainly faster than them when they first started walking, and while I haven't done any proper experiments I'd find it easy to believe that it still is! Even if we confine it just to bipeds, I have had friends who are taller than me but don't walk as quickly as me, because I'm fitter than them and hence can get my hips, knees etc to move at a greater frequency of steps. I don't have a view on whether it's good or bad for the game that dwarves and halflings be as fast as humans - it strikes me as a pretty minor point, and in B/X and AD&D I don't remember dwarves, gnomes and halflings being slower (if they were I've clearly forgotten) - but there's nothing mathematically or biologically objectionable about it. [/QUOTE]

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