Quickstart/RQG: Movement

[AlbertG]

I have a question about Movement. Ok, it's not as much a question as a statement that I did not understand a word of the rules for movement in page 8.

Quote

MOVEMENT
Movement is rated in flexible units, called Move (MOV). Each
point of MOV is usually considered to be 1 meter in combat,
much more when not in combat. An unencumbered adventurer
not engaged in melee combat may move 8 movement units in a
melee round, or 24 meters. For each unit (3 meters) of movement
an unengaged adventurer makes during the melee round, add 1
to their strike rank if they wish to take any action. An adventurer
engaged in melee cannot move until disengaged.

For starters, how does the Move of the character play into this? I see no reference at all.

Why does a character get to move 8 movement units in a melee round, each one adding 1 to the SR, if he may have more spare SR? If an unengaged character starts moving at SR 2, does he stop at SR 9 after spending the 8 SR for the 8 movement units? Why not keep moving the rest of his SR?

 

[Psullie]

2 hours ago, AlbertG said:

I have a question about Movement. Ok, it's not as much a question as a statement that I did not understand a word of the rules for movement in page 8.

For starters, how does the Move of the character play into this? I see no reference at all.

Why does a character get to move 8 movement units in a melee round, each one adding 1 to the SR, if he may have more spare SR? If an unengaged character starts moving at SR 2, does he stop at SR 9 after spending the 8 SR for the 8 movement units? Why not keep moving the rest of his SR?

 

First off there is a typo in the QS, it should read 'considered to be 3 meters in combat' not 1 meter. 

Move is the basis for how far one can travel and how many move action they get. Humans have a Move of 8, which is 24 meters per round. the Rock Lizards have a Move of 4, which would limit their movement to 12 meters per round If an adventurer moves more than half their Move it takes up the entire round. So a human could run 12 meters, adding 4SR and still act in the round. Moving any further occupies the whole round. The rock lizard can only move 6 meters, 2SR and still engage, 

All movement is 3 meters per 1 Move, just that faster creatures get more move allowance per round. 

[AlbertG]

Thanks, makes more sense now. Weird how a single 1 instead of a 3 can obscure so much the meaning of a text.

[styopa]

Er...my understanding is different.

For humans, (MOV 8), they can move:

24m/round if out of combat.

8m/round if in a combat situation, but doing nothing but moving

4m/round if in a combat situation, but want to reserve your ability to attack/parry/dodge (likely including spellcasting other than rune spells, I expect)

So 1 MOV = 0.5m in combat, 1m in combat but not doing anything but move ("sprint?"), or 3m if out of combat entirely.

What's "in combat" is open to interpretation, or is likely better described in full rules.  Could an archer, firing in combat at targets that cannot harm/reach her, in the next round put away the bow, declare she's 'out of combat' and run 24m?  Unknown.

 

And to answer AlbertG, my understanding is yes, if you move 4m in a round, then that's the limit of your move, even if you have more SR.  It's hard to wrap one's head around the concept, but SR aren't meant to be taken literally as a clock ticking through the round where they each equal 1 second of time, it's merely an ordering mechanism to calculate what actions happen before others - it's purely relative.  So that '4m' of movement over 12 seconds really is taking 12 seconds to accomplish.

At least, that's my understanding.

[daskindt]

Yeah. The MOV discussion didn't make any sense to us in the QS and I just sort of ignored it and added some strike ranks if characters were closing.

[Steve]

On 27/06/2017 at 11:56 AM, AlbertG said:

For starters, how does the Move of the character play into this? I see no reference at all.

 

The bit where it says:

"An unencumbered adventurer not engaged in melee combat may move 8 movement units in a melee round"

could equally be worded:

"An unencumbered adventurer not engaged in melee combat may move a number of movement units equal to their Move value in a melee round"

and would mean the same thing, just be more wordy. Given that all the starting PCs are human and all have the same Move value, I can see why they went with the less wordy option in the QS. In the full rules it might be different.

 

[ragngand]

I don't like the movement rule in RQG, if there is no calculated movement score and it is determined by your species I think that it should be more like RQ3 where movement was 3 for humans and 2 for ducks and dwarfs and 4 for elfs and that was the movement you could do in one SR.

With this rule everyone moves equally fast in a combat situation as you only have a few SR to use for movement if you want to make an attack or similar and each SR you move 3 meters regardless if you're a duck, a horse or a dragon??

[styopa]

2 hours ago, ragngand said:

I don't like the movement rule in RQG, if there is no calculated movement score and it is determined by your species I think that it should be more like RQ3 where movement was 3 for humans and 2 for ducks and dwarfs and 4 for elfs and that was the movement you could do in one SR.

With this rule everyone moves equally fast in a combat situation as you only have a few SR to use for movement if you want to make an attack or similar and each SR you move 3 meters regardless if you're a duck, a horse or a dragon??

FWIW it IS a vastly-simplified rule set specifically for the scenario included.  The whole movement thing is much more fleshed-out in the actual rules, I'm certain.

[ragngand]

Hi Styopa, I hope you are right and that the logic becomes clearer when you see the whole enchilada!

[trystero]

On 7/4/2017 at 11:36 AM, styopa said:

The whole movement thing is much more fleshed-out in the actual rules, I'm certain.

I'm just hoping that characters actually get different movement rates computed from their stats, rather than a single rate per species; this was another 7th-edition Call of Cthulhu change that I really liked (though admittedly movement rate is more important in CoC as a predictor of which character will live longest)..

[styopa]

4 hours ago, trystero said:

I'm just hoping that characters actually get different movement rates computed from their stats, rather than a single rate per species; this was another 7th-edition Call of Cthulhu change that I really liked (though admittedly movement rate is more important in CoC as a predictor of which character will live longest)..

That I doubt.  There will be different move rates per species, but unless there's a radical change from historical canon, I doubt there will be any variation in move rates between individuals within a species.

[trystero]

10 hours ago, styopa said:

There will be different move rates per species, but unless there's a radical change from historical canon, I doubt there will be any variation in move rates between individuals within a species.

I'm fairly sure you're right. But what I hope for and what I expect are different things. :-)

[styopa]

3 hours ago, trystero said:

I'm fairly sure you're right. But what I hope for and what I expect are different things. :-)

Fair point, as long as you in turn recognize that what I believe the rules say (or will say) and what I prefer might be two different things too.

[g33k]

On 7/5/2017 at 7:40 PM, styopa said:

That I doubt.  There will be different move rates per species, but unless there's a radical change from historical canon, I doubt there will be any variation in move rates between individuals within a species.

Well, if the infamous RQ "lost limb" (on hit-locations 1-4 or 5-8) phenomenon occurs, the individuals bloody-well SHOULD have a lower MOV !!!   

===

By and large, in-species differences seldom IMHO justify varying MOV... if your species MOV is "8" I don't want rules for MOV "8.1" or "7.95" !!!

But it's true enough that some individuals will be a bit faster, some a bit slower.  In most game systems (when relevant), I've always modeled this "who is a bit faster" either according to combat-based "who goes first" rule, or as "who would win a foot-race?" with stat or skill as-relevant.  Short race I'd probably do DEX-based, longer as CON-based.

I actually hope we do NOT see more-complicated per-individual MOV rules; the existing rules suffice for this question!

YGMV.

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by g33k
mis-edited original. left a word in by mistake.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

On 27 June 2017 at 3:23 PM, styopa said:

Er...my understanding is different.

For humans, (MOV 8), they can move:

24m/round if out of combat.

8m/round if in a combat situation, but doing nothing but moving

4m/round if in a combat situation, but want to reserve your ability to attack/parry/dodge (likely including spellcasting other than rune spells, I expect)

So 1 MOV = 0.5m in combat, 1m in combat but not doing anything but move ("sprint?"), or 3m if out of combat entirely.

What's "in combat" is open to interpretation, or is likely better described in full rules.  Could an archer, firing in combat at targets that cannot harm/reach her, in the next round put away the bow, declare she's 'out of combat' and run 24m?  Unknown.

My interpretation of mov in the QuickStart is that it is exactly the same as RQ2.

The passage is very badly worded, and I think includes an error - 1 unit of MOV should be 3 meters,not 1 meter. 

My reason for that interpretation is that the last sentence states: 

"An adventurer engaged in melee cannot move until disengaged"

If that is the case then why state "MOV is usually considered to be 1 meter in combat" when movement in engaged combat is not possible?

I feel it's much more likely that the general nature of that statement was intended to be "each point of MOV is usually considered to be 3 meters in the melee round" 

That would be in keeping with RQ2, and avoid the overly complicated pitfalls of Movement in RQ3.

 

 

[soltakss]

I much preferred movement in RQ3, nice and easy to use.

However, I have not yet had the chance to study the RQ QuickStart rules.

Edited July 8, 2017 by soltakss

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

41 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I much preferrd movement in RQ3, nice and easy to use.

Wow -  I found the opposite. Its certainly more granular, but because of that you had the possibility of 3 different rates of movement to track per SR -  0.5m, 3m, and -1. Whereas in RQ2 and the QS you just have a constant 3m per SR rate to track, with the limiting factor being maximum of half movement if you want to engage in combat or perform an action as well.  I feel RQ2/QS gives space for me to role-play and have a satisfying crunchy game, whereas with RQ3 I find a lot more focus is taken away from role-play , and onto the greater granularity of the rules. A bit of a headache after recently reading the more granular strike rank rules of RQ3, I'm so relieved that they've gone for the more streamlined approach of RQ2. But thats just my take. 

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[d(sqrt(-1))]

I'm never sure about movement. The section on "Multiple Activities outside of melee" (p7) gives the example of someone casting Disruption (3 SR) moving 9 m (3 SR) and then readying a bow (5 SR). So far so good (I think this is the same example as from RQ2).

But the Melee Round sequence (p13) expressly says Unengaged characters move up to their Move, or up to half that if they want to melee, cast a spell etc. Only after that do actions in SR order happen. So how do you reconcile these two?

As a GM I want to avoid SR by SR movement etc, that is a real pain with any significant number of NPCs. It's not even that good for the players as they have to track SR by SR actions.

Previously I ended up using the Stormbringer DEX initiative instead. When I ran Snakepipe Hollow with 6 PCs, some NPCs and about 15 Broo it became unwieldy to use the SR method. 

(Additionally, the Evade rules vs Missiles seems to be hidden in the Spot rules whereas they should also be covered under movement)

Edited July 8, 2017 by d(sqrt(-1))

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

4 hours ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

But the Melee Round sequence (p13) expressly says Unengaged characters move up to their Move, or up to half that if they want to melee, cast a spell etc. Only after that do actions in SR order happen. So how do you reconcile these two?

My understanding is that it should balance on the side of simplicity. At least thats how I would play it.

I believe its intended that if you make a move in a melee round its done in one chunk, you can perform an action before, and after the movement, you may even be allowed to combine moving with readying the bow (GM discreation), but its not intended that a character can move a bit, perform an action, move bit more, perform another action. SR's aren't supposed to represent seconds even though there are 12 of them, keeping it simple and moving in one chunk , avoids treating movement as a complicated SR by SR calculation. 

At least thats how I see it.

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[d(sqrt(-1))]

Sure. I would be happy to say "Unengaged characters move first, up to half MOV maximum if you want to do anything else this round, +1 SR per Move unit then we swap over to SRs for actions". That seems pretty clear to me. RQ 3 tried to make it into an SR by SR segment system which was way OTT.

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by d(sqrt(-1))

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

58 minutes ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

That seems pretty clear to me. RQ 3 tried to make it into an SR by SR segment system which was way OTT.

Yes, Ive been revisiting the old RQ3 & RQ2 rules recently in light of the new RQG, trying to clarify my own understanding regarding movement in RQ2 and RQ3. 

To satisfy my own curiosity where does RQ3 imply the SR by SR segment system for movement? I believe it does I just haven't pinpointed it yet.

Edit: Ah ha! think I've got it. - The varying move rates per Strike Rank  of RQ3 implies that SR's represent real time. In RQ2 SR's were just an abstract convention to decide who goes first, not a real time simulation, hence the reason in RQ2 / RQG we treat movement at the constant unchanging rate of 3 meters per SR, and move in one chunk. 

Edited July 8, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp
Answered my own question.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

Yes I think you are right re RQ3, plus the idea that "you don't start moving until DEX SR" etc.

I don't mind if we go with moving in one chunk and track the SRs, or move first and then go by SRs, but the rules and examples should present these consistently.

 

Edited July 8, 2017 by d(sqrt(-1))

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Yes that "don't start moving until your DEX SR" of RQ3, was a bit more then necessary rule wise. Got fiddly and a bit confusing with all the other instances of SR modifications. SR in RQ 3 became  a bit unwieldy, particularly for newbies. That and the movement issue is why I prefer RQ2.

i think in both RQ2 and RQ3 there have always been ambuiguities in the rules, where there needn't have been. 

[d(sqrt(-1))]

Sure, some other interesting ones I've found in RQ2:

- It's unclear whether HP are actually subtracted from location HP, or location HP are just a threshold for damage (Everyone plays that they are subtracted, but it's not explicit. I quite like the idea of location HP being merely a threshold to see how serious the wound is).

- Are weapon skills Attack & Parry, or just one rating for both (it's kind of implied both)

- Criticals and Specials are introduced wrt combat but are never mentioned in the Skills chapter (everyone uses them that way but it's not explicit)

- Does a negative Defence apply? I always thought it did, but there are no monsters (e.g. Giants or other high SIZ creatures) with a negative defence. It's much easier if min Defence = 0, TBH especially if you have players that forget that sort of thing all the time. 

[Atgxtg]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

I much preferred movement in RQ3, nice and easy to use.

Me too. There was a lot of good stuff in RQ3 that, unfortunately, seems to have been abandoned in the new RQ. I wonder if INT and SIZ are going back to 3D6?