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Liquid Awesome
I just spotted this thread this morning and it gave me a laugh because it was my character that started it. I'm in the same game as Speaks With Stone (the thread starter whom I've noticed has pointedly avoided returning to offer comment 
).
Although it is completely tangential to the debate (which is, in my opinion, a great example of the sort of enlightened discourse which keeps me coming back to ENWorld) I thought I would share the circumstances which engendered the initial rules question.
Our party of 3 was trapped inside a temple with a small army of our enemies standing outside the only exit. They knew we were in there but knew little about our capabilities. We quickly decided that our best chance for escape was to have the Wizard use Invisibility on the three of us and try to sneak out without them noticing. This would be difficult because none of us were very adept at Moving Silently.
I was desperately afraid that I might make a noise and this would prompt one of the enemy Wizards or Clerics (of whom there were a total of 4) to cast a Detect Magic and reveal our escape. But I also knew that my best chance probably lay in trying to get as far from the exit as possible as quickly as possible while trying to remain as stealthy as possible. So, I opted to "double move at half speed", putting me 30 feet away from the exit at the end of my move. While checking the rules to insure that this was legal and did not incur any Move Silently penalties, we had a brief debate about it and after a couple of minutes, the GM made a spot ruling that what I was doing was legal and caused no penalties. This set a precedent and the other two charaters more or less followed suit and we managed to successfully escape from the temple (actually a couple of the guards heard us based on our abysmal Move Silently checks and tried to follow us but their leaders rolled even worse on their Listen checks than we did and ordered them to get back to their posts).
Having read this debate in full, I can see both sides of the issue. I'm still unsure of what the designers would say the "official" interpretation would be but I've drawn some conclusions as to how I will interpret things when I GM (and as a brief aside, I completely agree with Ice Bear which is almost always the case).
I see the discrepancy in the way movement is handled in and out of combat and I would opt for maintaining that discrepancy in how I handled Move Silently. By which I mean that when it refers to "half of normal speed", I interpret "normal" speed in combat to be 30' per move for a human. Outside of combat this would mean 30' per round for a human.
My reasoning for this is the same as what Ice Bear proposes. Outside combat I would assume that the ambient level of noise is fairly low and it is much easier to hear someone moving around, thus forcing them to move slower in order to avoid penalties. In combat, the general din caused by the combatants is enough to allow the faster level of "normal" movement without causing penalties. This also avoids that ugly 7.5 foot move if (for example) the Rogue wishes to Move Silently and still attack in the same round. That wouldn't play well on our battlemat and that alone is good enough reason for that interpretation.
All of that said, in retrospect I think I would have made my character take the penalties for moving faster than half speed in the encounter that prompted this. My reasoning is that although we were technically using the round system to track everybody's movement, we weren't really in combat and the prevailing conditions were not typical of a combat (i.e. people were not running around, shouting orders and smacking each other with weapons). Ergo, "normal" movement under such circumstances would be the same as the "out of combat" rate of 30' per round and to avoid taking penalties would require not moving more than half of that.
Even so, I would probably have opted to take the penalties and the extra movement. It was critical that I get enough room to make a dash for escape if necessary and would have been worth them detecting the noises I made. Besides, it might have drawn attention away from the other characters trying to make a getaway and that is the sort of thing my character tends to do.
In any event, it has been interesting reading this debate and kudos to both camps for the manner in which they have conducted themselves.
).Although it is completely tangential to the debate (which is, in my opinion, a great example of the sort of enlightened discourse which keeps me coming back to ENWorld) I thought I would share the circumstances which engendered the initial rules question.
Our party of 3 was trapped inside a temple with a small army of our enemies standing outside the only exit. They knew we were in there but knew little about our capabilities. We quickly decided that our best chance for escape was to have the Wizard use Invisibility on the three of us and try to sneak out without them noticing. This would be difficult because none of us were very adept at Moving Silently.
I was desperately afraid that I might make a noise and this would prompt one of the enemy Wizards or Clerics (of whom there were a total of 4) to cast a Detect Magic and reveal our escape. But I also knew that my best chance probably lay in trying to get as far from the exit as possible as quickly as possible while trying to remain as stealthy as possible. So, I opted to "double move at half speed", putting me 30 feet away from the exit at the end of my move. While checking the rules to insure that this was legal and did not incur any Move Silently penalties, we had a brief debate about it and after a couple of minutes, the GM made a spot ruling that what I was doing was legal and caused no penalties. This set a precedent and the other two charaters more or less followed suit and we managed to successfully escape from the temple (actually a couple of the guards heard us based on our abysmal Move Silently checks and tried to follow us but their leaders rolled even worse on their Listen checks than we did and ordered them to get back to their posts).
Having read this debate in full, I can see both sides of the issue. I'm still unsure of what the designers would say the "official" interpretation would be but I've drawn some conclusions as to how I will interpret things when I GM (and as a brief aside, I completely agree with Ice Bear which is almost always the case).
I see the discrepancy in the way movement is handled in and out of combat and I would opt for maintaining that discrepancy in how I handled Move Silently. By which I mean that when it refers to "half of normal speed", I interpret "normal" speed in combat to be 30' per move for a human. Outside of combat this would mean 30' per round for a human.
My reasoning for this is the same as what Ice Bear proposes. Outside combat I would assume that the ambient level of noise is fairly low and it is much easier to hear someone moving around, thus forcing them to move slower in order to avoid penalties. In combat, the general din caused by the combatants is enough to allow the faster level of "normal" movement without causing penalties. This also avoids that ugly 7.5 foot move if (for example) the Rogue wishes to Move Silently and still attack in the same round. That wouldn't play well on our battlemat and that alone is good enough reason for that interpretation.
All of that said, in retrospect I think I would have made my character take the penalties for moving faster than half speed in the encounter that prompted this. My reasoning is that although we were technically using the round system to track everybody's movement, we weren't really in combat and the prevailing conditions were not typical of a combat (i.e. people were not running around, shouting orders and smacking each other with weapons). Ergo, "normal" movement under such circumstances would be the same as the "out of combat" rate of 30' per round and to avoid taking penalties would require not moving more than half of that.
Even so, I would probably have opted to take the penalties and the extra movement. It was critical that I get enough room to make a dash for escape if necessary and would have been worth them detecting the noises I made. Besides, it might have drawn attention away from the other characters trying to make a getaway and that is the sort of thing my character tends to do.
In any event, it has been interesting reading this debate and kudos to both camps for the manner in which they have conducted themselves.
Thanksgiving holidays sort of limited my computer time, but I'm back now.
)
