JoeCarr28

I've uploaded a first draft (here) of an alternative movement system that should provide more satisfying miniatures play in OpenQuest. I've essentially presented it as a direct substitute for OpenQuest's existing 'Summary of Combat Actions' table. It draws on some of NDCowdy's suggestions (scaled-back movement), as well as Tom's free attack for running away from combat. It's also draws somewhat on a miniatures supplement that I prepared for my favourite d20 system (here). The key modifications to the existing rules are as follows. 1. Movement is no longer a free action. A character not engaged in combat may still move a distance up to their full movement score (15 metres for humans), but they may perform no other action that round. 2. In general, if a character wishes to move AND perform an action in a given combat round, they may only move up to half their movement score (7.5 m for humans). 3. For actions that require a degree of careful aiming or concentration, including ‘Ranged Combat Attack’, ‘Cast Spell’ and ‘Intimidate/Persuade’, no movement is permitted in that round. 4. The total distance moved during a round in which a character uses a ‘Charge’ or ‘Sprint’ action has been reduced from three times their movement score to twice their movement score (30 m for humans). 5. For a given character, it is assumed that any movement takes place before any action. This is a primarily a personal preference. I don’t think it would break things if action before movement was permitted. 6. If a character attempts to withdraw from close combat without using a ‘Fighting Retreat’ then they expose themselves to a parting shot from any melee opponents at +25% to the opponents’ close combat attack. The upload is just a first draft, so comments and criticisms are most welcome.

I pulled together an OpenQuest character sheet in a spreadsheet format for a game I'm preparing, so I thought I'd share it in the downloads section (here) in case anyone else finds it useful. It has a very similar layout and format to the standard OpenQuest character sheet, but I've tweaked the structure to more closely follow the character generation process described in the rulebook. It also performs some of the basic calculations (points allocations, base skills, encumbrance, etc.). Hopefully this makes it a bit more player-friendly than the standard sheet. The version posted is in an Excel file. I also have it as a Google spreadsheet, but the site wouldn't let me upload it in that format. A word of caution - it was designed primarily for use in an online game, so it therefore probably isn't very printer friendly in its current guise. If you do intend to print from it, you may need to optimise the page layout.

Also, the 3 m squares/hexes that people are using above are pretty big. For those using more conventional 5' (1.5 m squares), 45 m in one round equates to a movement of 30 squares! I'll need a bigger table .

As another miniatures and floor plan user, I've also been grappling somewhat with OpenQuest's movement rates. The 45 m in 5 second speeds that can be achieved by using a Charge or Sprint action in addition to the free Movement action do seem implausible. As a simple fix I might be tempted to reduce Charge and Sprint to just 1x a character’s movement (in addition to the free Move). This would bring the maximum movement rate in a 5 second round down to 30 m, rather than 45 m. This still seems very fast to me , but not quite Olympic speeds. I think it's the fact that the basic Move action in OpenQuest is free which leads to these high movement rates. For example, the basic movement rate in RQ3 of 30 m in a 12 second round is similar is to OpenQuest's 15 m in a 5 second round. But in RQ3 you could only achieve those speeds if you did nothing but move in a given round. Any other action would eat up strike ranks, limiting the movement range. Perhaps something simple like having an action "cost" 5 m (or something) of movement might be a way of accommodating this in OpenQuest.