[Namikaze]

Carried over from the House Rule thread.

The IP system had a lot going for it, in terms of board movement rules.  The current system doesn't really allow for this to translate as well.  We still end up with the equivalent of IPs though, in Action Phases.  What we can do is determine the maximum number of Action Phases at start, then give every player the ability to move during every Action Phase, regardless of their Initiative.  Divide the character's walking speed by the number of Action Phases, and you've got a baseline movement rate per Action Phase.  Barring something stopping you from moving (death, knockdown, a bear-hugging troll) you can move on each of your Action Phases.

Considerations that need work:
What happens when you're out of Initiative?
What happens when your Initiative gets boosted?
What happens when someone decides to run in one Action Phase and walk in another?

[FasterN8]

Also carried over from the House Rule thread.

We divided movement by 3 and gave every character a free action to spend in each initiative pass regardless of initiative score.  So every player got to move in the first 3 initiative passes, but (obviously) not every character had the initiative score to actually act productively throughout all that movement.

The result of our house rule was that on the first initiative pass, people did lots of running for cover and sometimes had to make sprint tests to do it, which sounds a lot like what the start of a firefight should look like.  Rarely was anyone in combat ever just walking.  It also meant that low initiative characters were constantly engaged if only to a smaller degree.

So to translate that houserule to 5th edition, a character with a 3 agility would have a run rate of 12, so 4 meters per initiative pass without a sprint test.  That's more than 13 feet in about 1 second starting from a dead stop.   That's enough to cross a small room or get to cover in most cases, and that's just a guy with average agility and no running skill.  Things get a lot more interesting with higher agility and sprint tests.  (I also think that sprint tests should remain simple actions)

Now, I understand that melee characters benefited greatly from the "teleport" type movement of RAW 5th edition, but the cases where an agile melee character cannot close to melee range with this system should be relatively rare (10+ meters).  And I have no sympathy for players who complain about not being able to attack with their sword from 25+ meters before the enemy can even get a single shot off.

To expand upon this, we always rounded toward the earlier IPs, so a character with a 10 meter per combat turn would move 4/3/3 meters per combat turn.  If that was his running rate and he wanted to add to it with a sprint test, he just added his bonus meters till he was at 4/4/4 and then continued to add more back at the first IP.

As far as a variable number of IP/action phases, we only dealt with 3 IPs. Really though, never had characters (PC or NPC) with 4 IPs, so we never had to breech those rules, but I could be onboard with giving that character extra movement at the standard 1/3 rate OR simply giving them whatever movement they had left over from the turn, short of their max move.  If they already moved their max, then they're done moving.  They'll probably go first again next turn anyway.

Honestly I don't remember how we ran the movement penalties for a running shooter, but I know that the targeting penalties (trying to hit a fast target) were based on the speed of the target, not the action type he took.

[Michael Chandra]

A problem you get is that when someone has a high Initiative, you suddenly end up getting less movement than in another fight. If in one fight you can reach the opponent from 5m and in another you can't, you get rather iffy situations. Which is why the system FasterN8 is using is nice: It always gives you the same movement per IP. It runs into trouble when people are getting past 3 IPs, but that won't easily happen and you could design a rule for letting someone pass some of their movement rate on to their >3 IPs.

When you divy it up, you do have to compensate for the whole "Running/Sprinting entire turn" idea. Right now, once you start running, you take the penalties and bonuses for it the entire turn. That would drop out if running and walking is per IP. On the other hand, with every IP being 1 second, it's still plausible. So perhaps you could just break the "entire turn" rule. Or you could make up a different rule, since right now one person is harder to hit at 6m movement than another at 18m movement.

[Namikaze]

I see nothing wrong with assigning a flat 3 movements per Combat Turn.  You're right, this would prevent some weird numbers from happening.  So there are always 3 movement phases per turn now.  Let's say this too: every Action Phase a character gets 1 Movement Action, 1 Free Action, and either 2 Simple Actions or 1 Complex Action.  They can use these in any order they wish during their Action Phase.  The Movement Action is either: Stop, Walk, Run, or Sprint, with the distances based on the existing rules, but divided by 3.  Everyone gets 3 Action Phases for the purposes of Movement in a Combat Turn.

[FasterN8]

In an effort to keep things as simple and not deviate farther than necessary from core, I wouldn't create another action type called a "Movement Action".  Walking would simply be "no action" like it was in 4th and still is in 5th.  Running would be a Free action, just like in both editions and Sprinting is a simple action like in 4th. 

Since the sprint action adds to your total run rate per combat turn, you only need to make one of these per combat turn to change your parsed movement rate for the combat turn.  If you don't like your results, you can make another sprint test, for another simple action, but it just replaces your previous results, not adding to them.

So if your agility is 4 and you make a sprint test and only scored 1 hit on your sprint test in IP 1, your running rate would be (4x4)=16 +2 meters per combat turn for 6/6/6 meters per combat turn.   That only takes a simple action, so you still have another simple action that you use that to shoot with appropriate penalties for running, (unless you took your shot first and then started running).

In IP 2, you could just keep the 6/6/6 you already rolled in IP 1, but let's say you need a little more juice to make it to cover, so you try to run a little faster and make another sprint test and score 2 hits this time, making your run rate 16 +4 or 7/7/6 meters per combat turn.  So you run 7 meters in IP 2 and make it to cover where you take another simple action to shoot with appropriate running penalties.

(Pursuing Michaels suggestion of breaking the "entire turn" rule)

In IP 3, you sit tight and go nowhere and just decide to shoot.  Here's my question: Should you still have penalties for running in the previous IP?  I'm not sure if the running penalty should persist from the latest run action throughout the whole next IP or if declared non-movement in IP3 cancels the penalty.  I'm open to suggestions here.

[Namikaze]

That all sounds reasonable and easy enough to deal with for bookkeeping.  In the RAW, which we'd be changing substantially by doing this, the penalty for running/sprinting applies to all the actions taken in that Combat Turn, so you should probably keep the penalty for that theoretical third Action Phase in your example.  What I'm curious about would be knockdowns and other movement stoppages.  Let's say that if you lose Initiative (due to electrical attacks, Interrupt Actions, etc.) then you immediately stop moving.  But how would we handle the ability to start moving again?  The lowered Initiative works great for the RAW system, but not so well for board movement.

[FasterN8]

Are you talking about getting your initiative lowered during your turn?
Actually, I'm not sure how that works with the RAW system either.  Like if you take a simple action and then during your move, you get zapped by a tazer that lowers your initiative, would you not get your second simple action till your new (lower but still in this IP) initiative comes up again?  Or would you just let the player finish their action phase and then deal with the lowered init on the next pass?

As far as movement stoppages, I'd say that unless it's a persistent stoppage like a grapple, then it would only end their move in the current pass.  This actually makes more sense since (by RAW) the stopped character would otherwise still be able to get their full move (just later in the turn) if that had any actions remaining.  Using the segmented board movement, the stopped character would actually get robbed of some of their move for the whole turn, which seems appropriate if they were interrupted.

[Namikaze]

Yeah, if you get hit by electrical attacks you immediately lose 5 Initiative.  This stacks with other attacks that lower Initiative, like suppressive fire.  It can really ruin someone's day.

The way RAW works, let's say you have 21 Initiative.  You go on 21 and you go again on 11, and finally on 1.  Somewhere between 21 and 11, you get hit with a taser that lowers your Initiative by 5.  You've already acted on 21 in the first Action Phase, so that doesn't change.  But instead of acting on 11 in the second Action Phase, you now act on 6.  And you lose your third Action Phase completely, since it's now -4.

For board movement, lowering your Initiative would have the same effect as to the number of actions you get, etc.  But do you still get to move in that third Action Phase?  I'm not really sure how to handle this.  If we are breaking this up into the following:
Walking - no action, move (Movement Rate) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Running - free action, move (Movement Rate) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Sprinting - simple action, move ((Running test hits * Movement Rate) + (Movement Rate)) / 3 meters in an Action Phase

Then the only option would be to allow the character to keep walking or running, but no other action is possible.  This would make sense with the idea of making the movement all take place over the course of three Action Phases (regardless of Initiative).

So with that in mind, and how complicated it can get, I want to propose something completely different.

Metatype	Walking rate
Human, Elf, Orc	3/4 Agility (round up)
Dwarf, Troll	1/2 Agility (round up)

To move requires Initiative, if you have no Initiative remaining, you can only go prone.  When walking, you move a number of meters as shown on the table above (minimum of 1).  Running requires a Free Action, and doubles your Walking Rate.  Sprinting requires a Running test, giving one additional meter of movement per hit.

And we just leave it at that.  Change the movement rates, change the frequency of movement, and then we've got a movement system for boards that shouldn't interfere with the rest of the game at all.

[Michael Chandra]

I'm not sure how fair penalizing Dwarves and Trolls on Agi-based movement is. Especially for Trolls it makes zero sense. It'd be more reasonable to stick to the same-base-movement and either 1m or 2m per Sprinting hit.

[FasterN8]

For board movement, lowering your Initiative would have the same effect as to the number of actions you get, etc.  But do you still get to move in that third Action Phase?  I'm not really sure how to handle this.  If we are breaking this up into the following:
Walking - no action, move (Movement Rate) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Running - free action, move (Movement Rate) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Sprinting - simple action, move ((Running test hits * Movement Rate) + (Movement Rate)) / 3 meters in an Action Phase

Then the only option would be to allow the character to keep walking or running, but no other action is possible.  This would make sense with the idea of making the movement all take place over the course of three Action Phases (regardless of Initiative).

That's exactly how I'd run it. Every player gets a free action to move in the 2nd and 3rd IP regardless of if they have a positive initiative score.
If I may offer some clarification to the formulas: (the Hits* movement rate part of your sprint formula could be interpreted wrong)

Walking - no action, move (Walk Rate) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Running - free action, move (Walk Rate*2) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
Sprinting - simple action, move ((Running test hits * Sprint Rate) + (Walk Rate*2 Rate)) / 3 meters in an Action Phase
(With Walk Rate = Agility *2 and Sprint Rate = 1 or 2 meters depending on Metatype)

It's worth pointing out that the Walk Rate, Run Rate and Sprint Rates here are the same (per combat turn) as RAW, so at least that much stays the same.  And you only have to do that math once (for walk and run anyway) and write it on your sheet.

Metatype	Walking rate
Human, Elf, Orc	3/4 Agility (round up)
Dwarf, Troll	1/2 Agility (round up)

To move requires Initiative, if you have no Initiative remaining, you can only go prone.  When walking, you move a number of meters as shown on the table above (minimum of 1).  Running requires a Free Action, and doubles your Walking Rate.  Sprinting requires a Running test, giving one additional meter of movement per hit.

And we just leave it at that.  Change the movement rates, change the frequency of movement, and then we've got a movement system for boards that shouldn't interfere with the rest of the game at all.

I could go with a fixed movement rate per Action phase (if I were a player), but if you use that you'll want to compare how that affects a characters total movement across the combat turn compared to RAW.  At 3/4 agility, a character with only 1 action is SERIOUSLY nerfed compared to RAW.  Even someone with 2 actions is still getting a glancing blow from the nerf bat since they get 2*Agility move by RAW, but only 1.5 here.  I think 2 actions should probably be your baseline comparison to RAW, allowing each character to move (1*Agility) in each action phase.  That also has the added benefit of not requiring 1/2 or 3/4 calculations to figure your move.

And I'd have to agree with Michael, that reducing Dwarves and Trolls base move hinders them from a a playability and game balance perspective.  The reduced sprint-ability seems like a fair compromise for those metatypes.

There is one more feature of this sytem that will change the balance of things.  Allocating fixed movement per action phase rather than per combat turn changes (fairly significantly) the value of initiative boosting wares and magic.  They're already pretty powerful, but with this houserule, they not only add actions, but they provide increased ability to move in the span of 3 seconds.  While that may be thematically appropriate, it changes game balance materially.  You'll have to decide for yourself how significant that change is and if it's worth altering game balance.

[Namikaze]

I'm not sure how fair penalizing Dwarves and Trolls on Agi-based movement is. Especially for Trolls it makes zero sense. It'd be more reasonable to stick to the same-base-movement and either 1m or 2m per Sprinting hit.

You're right - I had mistakenly thought that Dwarves and Trolls got a lower base, but kept the same Sprint modifier.  This was backward.

So it'd be 3/4 Agility (Round up) for base movement, then +1m per hit for Dwarves/Trolls on sprint tests, and +2m per hit for everyone else.

[Xenon]

Whats prevent you from using movement as it is stated in SR5 core...?

[Namikaze]

The problem with the movement in core for board movement is that when you're playing with a board, you're handling movement on a per-Action Phase basis.  The movement in the core rules is on a per-Action Turn basis, which is not really conducive to board movement.  Personally, I find that a board is nice to have but it's not necessary.  However there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of players who likely use boards for their games.  It'd be badass if Run & Gun introduced some board movement rules, but that doesn't help people in the interim.

[Zilfer]

I'm confused, I think movement was improved from 4e to 5e........ now you just 'keep track' of how far you've moved between action phases and if you "go over" the run limit form that point on you are considered running. Further if you reach the limit of your running then you have to "sprint" for any extra movement you may want.....

Trolls I'm not quite sure why they are slower.... it's like saying you can outrun a bear because it's twice our size so it must be slow. xD

[Namikaze]

Movement in the normal game improved, certainly.  However, we're talking about movement for people playing with miniatures and maps.