Move Silently Question

[kreynolds]

I'm talking about the guy doing overland movement here, walking 30' per round. In order to walk 30' per round you have to take two move actions per round, which leaves exactly 0 time left for anything else. Do we agree on this?

If that is indeed your opinion, then yes, it looks like we agree.

The penalty for moving silently isn't "unable to move faster without penalty", it's "has to move slower". Says so in the rule.

Yes, the rule says you have to move slower. The part that seems so obvious to me is this: Say you and I both have a movement rate of 30. For simplicity's sake, let's say we're in combat. You can move 30 feet and make an attack. If I want to move silently without penalty, and I want to keep up with you, I can't make an attack at the end of my move. Why? Because I have to use my whole round to keep up with you. Why? Because I'm moving slower. It takes me twice as long to cover the same distance that you do. So, I am, in fact, moving slower, as the rules demand.

 

[The Souljourner]

If that is indeed your opinion, then yes, it looks like we agree.

It is my opinion. Ok, glad we got that out of the way.

Yes, the rule says you have to move slower. The part that seems so obvious to me is this: Say you and I both have a movement rate of 30. For simplicity's sake, let's say we're in combat. You can move 30 feet and make an attack. If I want to move silently without penalty, and I want to keep up with you, I can't make an attack at the end of my move. Why? Because I have to use my whole round to keep up with you. Why? Because I'm moving slower. It takes me twice as long to cover the same distance that you do. So, I am, in fact, moving slower, as the rules demand.

Except that I'm jogging, which is actually moving faster than my normal movement rate. ...but then again, we come back to the heart of the problem... What exactly is "normal speed"? You say it's the speed you're going when you make a "normal move" in combat - 30' in 3 seconds. We say it's the speed you're going when you're walking around town - 30' in 6 seconds. And thus we cannot resolve this problem because as far as any of us can tell "normal speed" has no concrete definition in the rules. There are inferences and so-called common sense, but the long and the short of it is, there is no hard and fast passage that says "this is what normal speed means".

So... I'm done. There's no use arguing any more. If someone wants to ask the Powers That Be, I'd be all for it, if only to know what They intended. Maybe there will be an update to the FAQ sometime.

-Nate, aka The Souljourner

 

[Stalker0]

Whether you are in or out of combat makes no difference at all. The rules don't change. That's my point.

Actually that seems to be one of the main points of this argument. One man's walk is another man's hustle in and out of combat.

I'd say the easiest and most logical way to handle this is to apply the balance scenario to move silently. Both represent a similar kind of movement, a careful placing of feet.

That would mean you move silent as a move equi action. But just how much distance that entiles depends on whether you want to take a -5 to your check. Normally you could move 15 feet, 30 if you take the -5.

Also, you can move silently as a double move as well. From the balance rules, you simply make 2 checks. So you could move 30 rolling twice, or 60 with a -5 rolling twice.

 

[IceBear]

My main question is - who cares?

Really, if we're all consistent it's not going to break anything.

You want to use the walking speed as the SPEED that is reduced in half while we want to the character's base speed as the statistic. As long as we consistently cut it in half (we have a combat speed of 15 when moving silently, you have a 7.5) then it all comes clean in the wash.

IceBear

 

[drnuncheon]

I had a long post replying to kreynolds, but I'm not sure it's worth it. K, I apologize if you felt I was rude. I'm feeling a lot of frustration right now for various reasons, and that can come out in my writing.

Anyway, to summarize. The central question of this entire discussion is this: "What is 'normal speed', as defined in the Move Silently skill description?"

I (and Souljourner, and the other folks on 'our side') think that 'normal speed' is clearly meant to be 'walking speed', for several reasons:

1. It is the speed that can be kept up for a full day of travel.
2. It is the speed that one is assumed to be moving at when not in combat situations (and most move silently checks are not performed during combat situations).
3. When looking at the DCs for the Listen skill, the speeds given as examples are half of the target's walking speed.
   [/list=1]
   kreynolds, if I understand your argument correctly, you believe that 'normal speed' is 'hustle speed' because that is the amount of distance you cover when moving (that is to say, jogging) for one MEA in combat time. I'm not sure how that could ever be considered 'normal', unless people in your world jog everywhere, but to each his own. If Move Silently was primarily a combat skill, I might be able to be convinced that a hustle is considered 'normal', but in my experience it is generally performed outside of (usually before) combat, where 'normal' = 'walk'.
   
   Like Souljourner, I'm done here. I've convinced myself, and that's the only thing that really matters.
   
   J

 

[IceBear]

But again I ask - is this REALLY worth getting upset about.

The skill says your SPEED is reduced by half. As with the balance skill, as pointed out above, the people in our camp see this speed as your base speed. Thus, your 30ft speed is reduced to 15ft. That means you can walk 15, hustle 30, etc. However, since speed is normally only tracked in combat we tend to think in "actions" and not rounds. Thus, to us, half speed is 15ft on a move action and not 30ft.

In the end, it doesn't make any difference in the world as long as we're consistent. We're not going to have someone moving silently keeping up with someone who is walking in either case. In your case, the person walks 30ft and the sneaker moves 15ft. In ours, the walker takes two moves and moves 60ft and the sneaker takes two moves and moves 30ft. I'm cool with that, and the only reason I'm going that way is because to do it your way (sneaker must WALK at half speed) ends up with a 7.5 ft speed for actions which I don't like.

Again, it's not worth getting upset over. I tend to agree that, by the rules in the book, your arguments are stronger, but I like this for gameplay better.

IceBear

 

[Khorod]

I agree with kreynolds. In fact, I never interpreted the rules any other way. But I can understand the alternative.

I have always felt that their was a discontinuity between overland travel and combat movement. Something just doesn't feel right, and that's where this problem seems to become debatable.

What's normal speed? Mechanically, normal speed is your standard speed, or 30' in the case of a typical human.

But more importantly, has anyone else read a book about a sneaky guy and tried moving quietly in his backyard? Aside from looking real goofy, I find that given a little more skill, I could probably move pretty darn quietly 7.5 feet in a few seconds, and that I can move a bit quieter if I move say 15 feet. But if I try to do that while moving any faster I need to take pains to get any benefit.

So what does that mean? Throwing aside every other point of the debate, when does the penalty come in? At 15 feet when its a little harder? Personally, I think if someone is moving 7.5 feet from a 30 ft standard that should be a circumstance bonus. That's the fighter moving extra, extra slow to keep the noise down. How about take 10 and move 15 ft in a double move action?

But as IceBear said, as long as the ratio's are constant in a given game, its all good. But how slow do you want the characters moving?

 

[drnuncheon]

In ours, the walker takes two moves and moves 60ft and the sneaker takes two moves and moves 30ft.

...except that if someone is taking two moves and going 60', they aren't walking, they're jogging.

J

 

[IceBear]

As I said before, yes, I agree with your interpretion as per the overland movement rules. However, the 7.5ft movement action that this gives in combat is just too clumsy. Yes, if I sit here and imagine trying to move silently while jogging it's stupid. Thus, I don't imagine what's going on, I just know that the player is moving at half speed - as per the skill description.

Look at balance - according to the skill description they are jogging while balancing too

IceBear

 

[maddman75]

I (and Souljourner, and the other folks on 'our side') think that 'normal speed' is clearly meant to be 'walking speed', for several reasons:

1. It is the speed that can be kept up for a full day of travel.
2. It is the speed that one is assumed to be moving at when not in combat situations (and most move silently checks are not performed during combat situations).
3. When looking at the DCs for the Listen skill, the speeds given as examples are half of the target's walking speed.

I feel that normal speed is the speed you can normally move in a MEA, for the reasons
- this is the speed listed in the racial descriptions
- This is the speed listed for every creature in the MM
- This is the speed that every player has written on the top of their character sheets.

If the designers didn't intend for a medium sized creature to move silently 15' on a MEA, they should have said MS is at a quarter of your speed.

Overland movement to be honest I don't give much thought to. It isn't used in our games. The dungeon/ruins/next town is typically so many days or hours march away, and that's enough for us.