D&D 5E Reasonable Movement and Athletic Feats?

[doctorbadwolf]

You're going to find that pretty much always is and has been a controversial opinion.

I’m aware.

 

[Tonguez]

i expect elves and orcs would be similar but just with an even longer endurance (possibly only true for orcs if we assume some carry weight.)

just a guess though.

why elves and orcs? I’d guess that Elves have rubbish stamina really - they live in dense forest rather than open grasslands, they’re not known for Con and they’re too pretty to sweat

id guess Orcs would be the only ones with human like stamina due to similar evolutionary niche. BTW hominids evolved as scavengers not predators,their endurance allowed them to follow other ‘true’ predators (dogs) over long distances and steal their prey.
It’s only with tool use that humans become Uber predators.

Dwarf Con I guess is more focussed on enduring climate extremes than on stamina when running.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Elves, I'd imagine, are ambush predators and scavengers. So, lazy and opportunistic.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

why elves and orcs? I’d guess that Elves have rubbish stamina really - they live in dense forest rather than open grasslands, they’re not known for Con and they’re too pretty to sweat

id guess Orcs would be the only ones with human like stamina due to similar evolutionary niche. BTW hominids evolved as scavengers not predators,their endurance allowed them to follow other ‘true’ predators (dogs) over long distances and steal their prey.
It’s only with tool use that humans become Uber predators.

Dwarf Con I guess is more focussed on enduring climate extremes than on stamina when running.

humans generally developed their bipedal state on tertiary regions between forests and grasslands. they weren't initially a prairie animal. they were more of an animal that developed around places with a mixture of light forested and grassy terrain where they could easily get food from fruit and nut trees as well as mixed game from lightly wooded areas and moreso grasslands. they weren't strictly an all grassland animal. that's a common misconception.

also i'm going off of what entities the elves were initially based on in d&d it seemed more appropriate to go from that angle with this topic than the lazy statblock approach. immortal or semi-mortal fey who never or at least rarely ever tire. period. some of which are actually larger than humans too. some not. i wasn't going with the dnd stat block. i was going with the lore. lore tends to favor elves rarely tiring. actually a lot of instances of dnd lore even mention them rarely tiring. this is one of those examples where the stat block is honestly a bit misleading.

for orcs its a similar situation where the stories associated with the game disagree with the statblock.

dwarves are almost never known for going long distances without tiring.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

why elves and orcs? I’d guess that Elves have rubbish stamina really - they live in dense forest rather than open grasslands, they’re not known for Con and they’re too pretty to sweat

id guess Orcs would be the only ones with human like stamina due to similar evolutionary niche. BTW hominids evolved as scavengers not predators,their endurance allowed them to follow other ‘true’ predators (dogs) over long distances and steal their prey.
It’s only with tool use that humans become Uber predators.

Dwarf Con I guess is more focussed on enduring climate extremes than on stamina when running.

i would actually assume elves have the ultimate stamina (as far as being a persistence predator). also, even without tool use humans would be the most deadly predator on the planet just on the merit of how good we are at being a persistence predator alone tbh. even without group cooperation. our persistence tactic along with our extreme endurance is that good with absolutely no exaggeration involved. its pretty insane. to non-human land animals we are practically inexorable. perhaps the reason why certain animals flee from us so much more readily than from other animals is because for the longest time one of the only half decent ways to avoid being eaten by a human has been to leave the area before the human has noticed your presence. even that only works if the human isn't actively tracking you too because our biological equipment for tracking isn't exactly the best but its pretty good, a very long list of usable biology for tracking perceptually speaking (no actual dump stat senses) and because our brain allows us to track very intelligently (making it difficult to remove the trail completely due to the combination of the brain, decent senses, and wide range of decent senses)

case in point. most people assume that canines have a better sense of smell because we use them to track a lot of things. not true. our sense of smell is far better in literally every single measurable way save for one. canines can sense a scent at a lower threshold and only slightly lower.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That’s pretty simple and probably easy to remember. I might want to like...round up the result of the athletics check in feet or something, so it feels like you’re running faster when you’re on your A game than when not.

How do you handle opportunity attacks against sprinters? My instinct is keep it a flat roll because it’s advantage against a target that isn’t moving carefully, and disadvantage against a target that is moving very quickly.

But one thing I find satisfying in my WIP game that 5e does poorly, is the ability to put effort into physical movement.

OA against sprinting and running is handled normally. If the OA is because of the initial move out of an opponent's reach, you are just starting to run so not moving any more quickly than normal (i.e. it is your first step or two). If the OA occurs during the movement later on, it is again handled normally. This is because IMO factors cancel out. You are moving quickly (OA has disadvantage) but you are more focused on movement than defense (OA has advantage). Net result: no change.

I forgot to include, when sprinting, you cannot take reactions. Your focus is entirely on moving yourself as quickly as possible.

 

[Garthanos]

i would actually assume elves have the ultimate stamina (as far as being a persistence predator).

IF elves are realistic then the thin muscles are likely stamina muscles and dwarves have bulky burst speed flavor. However there is fae/magic myth where appearances are deceptive and the inside determining the outside and so forth. Perhaps worse based on Tolkien they are just as awesome in whatever way as they are individuals Tolkien Elves might replace Constitution with Wisdom for most purposes due to some philosophy. Legolas and Aragorn were long distance trained and Gimli could be seen as forcing himself to new awesome.

In other words as much as we like science nerding over this stuff its probably not true to sources to be science correct teehee.

 

[Beleriphon]

case in point. most people assume that canines have a better sense of smell because we use them to track a lot of things. not true. our sense of smell is far better in literally every single measurable way save for one. canines can sense a scent at a lower threshold.

Depends on what you mean by better. I'm fairly certain dogs can detect odours we cannot, and more importantly distinguish between them in ways we cannot. I can't tell the difference between my cats based solely on smell, and I can detect their scents. A dog however could tell the difference, because they can detect the minute differences between the two cats.

On that note, pigs apparently can taste and smell a similar range of scents/odours as humans, but at even lower levels than dogs. They'd actually be ideal as tracking search animals, except they get tired easily, and are supremely food motivated. Truffle pigs are a thing, but they have a bad habit of eating the truffles before their owners can get the loot.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

OA against sprinting and running is handled normally. If the OA is because of the initial move out of an opponent's reach, you are just starting to run so not moving any more quickly than normal (i.e. it is your first step or two). If the OA occurs during the movement later on, it is again handled normally. This is because IMO factors cancel out. You are moving quickly (OA has disadvantage) but you are more focused on movement than defense (OA has advantage). Net result: no change.

I forgot to include, when sprinting, you cannot take reactions. Your focus is entirely on moving yourself as quickly as possible.

I'd say Advantage against mellee attacks (particularly OAs) while sprinting: You're pretty much going along an easy to predict vector and cannot change direction or parry easily.

However ranged attacks are resolved normally. You're moving predictably and without defence, but you're still moving fast.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Depends on what you mean by better. I'm fairly certain dogs can detect odours we cannot, and more importantly distinguish between them in ways we cannot. I can't tell the difference between my cats based solely on smell, and I can detect their scents. A dog however could tell the difference, because they can detect the minute differences between the two cats.

it does not. dogs can detect a few odours we cannot. we can detect a MASSIVE number of odours they cannot. we demolish them. secondly, we distinguish between odours far better as well. and yes, at the correct threshold you would differentiate two cats better than a dog as well, with training. literally the only thing dogs have on us is threshold. by a bit. i wasn't exagerating when i said EVERY measurable way. all of them. we have a better sense of smell in all ways than a dog except threshold. we even do the task of finding the source of a similar smell between two or more sources when two or more similar smells are present in the same area better too. but all of the smells have to be a concentration high enough. if its in range canines cant even compete.

On that note, pigs apparently can taste and smell a similar range of scents/odours as humans, but at even lower levels than dogs. They'd actually be ideal as tracking search animals, except they get tired easily, and are supremely food motivated. Truffle pigs are a thing, but they have a bad habit of eating the truffles before their owners can get the loot.

pigs are indeed one of the animals that truly can compete against humans in the smell arena unlike dogs. no argument there. they even outclass us in some ways. obviously threshold, but some others too.