Switching Up Speed Mid-Turn?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Can you switch between moving and half-speed and normal speed during your same turn?

For example, Tumbling has an additional -10 penalty when moving at normal speed. Can you Tumble past an opponent at normal speed and then Tumble through an opponent at half-speed all on the same turn? Or once you select your speed is it fixed for your turn?

 

[PolterGhost]

Yes, though I'm not sure what you mean by "Tumble by an opponent at full speed".

Or what I should say is, I see nothing contradictory to that.

 

[HoboGod]

That's an interesting question. If one has 50 land speed and you spend 20 ft moving over 10 ft of ice at half your land speed, I wouldn't see what's stopping you from moving 30 ft at full speed. Those are move actions, however. I would never allow such things for full round actions. If for example, you used a withdraw action for 20 ft and ran at 4x speed the remaining 30 ft, I'd not allow it.

 

[Jhaelen]

I have no idea if it's supposed to work by RAW, but I don't allow it in my games since I feel it's too complicated. So, in my games, it's:

'announce if you're using half-speed or not before moving and stick with it'.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

'announce if you're using half-speed or not before moving and stick with it'.

I like that but what do you do if someone is moving and midway through the move they enter into a square of darkness, difficult terrain, etc.?

Although I guess you could differentiate between the player's speed (which can be selected as half- or full-) and the movement cost of the terrain they are moving through (which is imposed upon them by the space they move into). In other words, you're differentiating between speed and movement cost. A subtle difference but a difference nevertheless.

 

[PolterGhost]

Yeah, but that's another one of those things the books like to use interchangeably. More than once, you can pick out places where 'half speed' means the same as 'double movement cost'.

 

[Jhaelen]

In other words, you're differentiating between speed and movement cost. A subtle difference but a difference nevertheless.

Yup, that's what I do. To be honest, it never occured to me to do it differently!

 

[Persiflage]

I don't get it; I've always run movement costs by the numbers and it has never seemed to add complications or slow down play. It's absolutely normal in my group to hear someone at the table say "I Tumble for 10 feet past the [grue] and then move another 10 feet".

If you move at half speed for some reason (like going through a greased area and wanting to avoid the Balance check penalty), you just count two squares for every square of movement; it's not complicated and it doesn't unfairly penalise the players. I actually can't imagine how we'd handle it any other way: as a group, we're big on battlefield control tactics, and reducing someone's movement beyond the affected squares just to save some simple adding up would make those tactics even more powerful than they currently are.