I was looking the movement rate for people in combat and could not find it. Is it a part of the book outside of the combat cpt..
So i make a brtter infored decision on staying with 3rd or moving to 5th ed.

Teramaze

I believe mvement rates in combat were left out intentionally, to keep things simple and abstract. When there are group combat rules, it would seem detailed tactical movement rates do not make much sense. It's not easy or simple to keep track of every character milling around as a group fights.

If you really want combat movements rates, I would suggest you download the free PDF of Fourth Edition and print out the page with the movement rates. They should work pretty well in 5th Edition - things do not seem to have changed so very much that the 4th Ed. movement rates would not work.

I can see how people could be unhappy about the lack of movement rules in 5th Edition, but I don't think that alone should be a reason to avoid the edition altogether. One can patch the "holes" one sees in the rules (different people will find different things missing) by borrowing from past editions/supplements, until new 5th Ed. supplements come along.

If you want a tactical combat game, I would suggest GURPS. There are even conversion guides on the web to help adapt Ars Magica's magic system to it.

I don't believe tactical combat rules are necessary for Ars Magica and any movement based questions should be able to be fudged by a competent story guide.

While I agree that the storyguide and troupe can come up with their own movement rules, I feel it is a little disingenuous to say, "play another game if you want movement rules".

It is not, in my opinion, unreasonable for a combat section to describe how to handle combatants moving across the field of conflict. It is, however, unreasonable to expect new players to have to turn back to older editions to find the appropriate benchmark.

This was another of the "intentional omissions" that have niggled an otherwise superb new edition of my favourite game.

Why did i need to find a new system. when i just talking about a hole i found in the new system. and ask for a little help in solving the problem.
I have been playing this system for 13 years and like a lot of things i read in 5th ed. i don't seen a problem with having a combat system that is simple and works that has movement in.

Teramaze

I don't see it as a hole and I don't see the need for complicated rules for combat movement.

If you have simplistic rules, they will be completely unrealistic. People will complain, etc... It's better to just let it be up to the storyguide. I don't see it as a problem to have the storyguide make an educated guess. That's why you have a storyguide.

If the rules are to be realistic at all, they are going to have to take umpteen factors into consideration: size, quickness, burden, etc... If you want to have to look up something in the book, spend ten minutes trying to figure it out, doing complex algebra, debating what the rule means and then applying it, try GURPS. It's made for that.

If you're playing with minatures, then I can see why you would need the rules. But if you are doing just about anything else, the storyguide is just picking distances out of a hat when deciding how far various individuals are from each other. So the strict rules on movement are going to be applied to a random set of distances to begin with, and I think that's just silly, but YMMV.

Any house rules have a danger of being more arbitrary than the system rules but I've plumped for:
walk: 5 paces
hustle: 10 paces + quickness
sprint: 20 paces + quickness + athletics

Feel free to take encumbrance off of those and there you have it.

I was toying with an athletics roll to see whether a round of sprinting results in a fatigue level being lost.

See, I told you they were arbitrary. But, at least, if these are agreed up front, they would be common.

Mark

"If you're playing with minatures, then I can see why you would need the rules. But if you are doing just about anything else, the storyguide is just picking distances out of a hat when deciding how far various individuals are from each other. So the strict rules on movement are going to be applied to a random set of distances to begin with, and I think that's just silly, but YMMV."

I think that's terribly unfair. And I'll give a simple situation as the reason why there should be movement rules in Ars Magica:

A man with a sword is ten yards away from a wizard. They're talking. Things go poorly. The man with the sword charges. Does he cover the ground before the wizard can cast a spell.

There are no clear rules in Ars Magica 5 to resolve this. At the moment it is left to SG discression. Which means that as a player, I have no way of knowing if I am too close to the guy with the sword.

I agree that Ars Magica doesn't need a complex combat system. I am fairly pleased with the one it has ended up with. But this specific scenario is enough that I want one more level of detail... how far can you move and attack in a round.

I'm a little stunned that this never came up in playtesting, in fact. It seems to happen in my games a lot... but then I might play more characters that piss off people with swords than others do.

"A man with a sword is ten yards away from a wizard. They're talking. Things go poorly. The man with the sword charges. Does he cover the ground before the wizard can cast a spell.

There are no clear rules in Ars Magica 5 to resolve this. At the moment it is left to SG discression. Which means that as a player, I have no way of knowing if I am too close to the guy with the sword."

OK, imagine you're ten yards away from me. You have a water pistol in your fanny pack and I have a NERF sword. You have to decide whether to go for your squirt gun or run. What do you do when I start to advance? Do you estimate the distance between us? Do you estimate what my move is? Do you do the math in your head and then decide whether I'll get to you before you can pull out your water pistol?

The problem I have with the whole movement thing is that although the information is valuable to the player, it is completely unrealistic for the character to have it. Players have five to ten minutes to sit around and think, do the math, count hexes, estimate their odds of success, whatever... Characters only have a couple of seconds to decide and to act.

If you have players with a good knowledge of the game mechanics, they will have complete information--ability levels, body levels, move, damage range, etc--after about three rounds of combat. In a realistic situation, only the most experienced combat veteran would be able to determine even a fraction of that information.

Ignoring a childish desire to snigger about "fanny packs" ;) surely what matters in a rule system is what is valuable to players? Presumably any rule system about moving in the example you describe will involve a dice roll of some sort to add the uncertainty found in real life. Thus a player couldn't be 100% certain but would reasonably expect to have a fair idea. It's much easier to judge such situations in real life than when you're sitting in a room listening to verbal descriptions of what's going on.

For example, if I'm playing football (soccer) I can judge pretty accurately when chasing for a ball whether I'm going to be able to make a tackle in time, I don't always get it right of course, but if I were to be roleplaying doing the same thing I'd want some rules simulating the whole thing so I could make an assessment as to whether to dive in or not. Obviously experience of such situations matters, but how players have their characters react after having loooked at the OOC numbers is a roleplaying not a rules issue and thus a separate issue to this debate IMHO.
YMMV of course...

What Astrius said.

My personal preference would be one where the amount someone moves is modified by a die roll and their stats so you can't be sure. But that doesn't really matter.

What matters is in the real world we have some understanding of how things work... how fast people are (usually) able to move, how long it takes to raise a supersoaker's barrel and squirt someone. And if I have a supersoaker and you have a boffer weapon, I have some sense of how far I need to be from you in order to get you wet before you bop me on the head.

In the physics of Ars Magica we have a very vague information on how fast someone can produce a magical affect. Combine that with the everyday misunderstandings between two people and a player could easily think that he has plenty of time to cast a spell on a target and the GM think that there's no way in hell it can work.

The joy of rules is that they resolve inconsistencies of vision such as this.

Now before someone starts yelling, "well then make them up!" I have been thinking about it and I will. I am merely mildly disapointed that the World Famous Game Designers (to borrow a phrase) haven't done it for me, and more than a little surprised that this situation doesn't come up often enough to have been spotted before.

//... and more than a little surprised that this situation doesn't come up often enough to have been spotted before.//

Rest assured that it has been spotted months ago - on the Berklist.

Kind regards,

Berengar

This is what i was thinking about in regeards to movement in combat.

Walking in combat cauiously 6 Paces + quickness.

Running in combat 12 paces + quickness - encumbrance - fatigue penalties.

All- out run or flee for your life 30 paces + quickness + Athletics - Encumbrance - fatigue and wound penalties.

that is just my thoughts on movement so far.
Now lets see if this idea gets tourn apart.

Teramaze

>In the physics of Ars Magica we have a very vague information on how fast someone can produce a magical affect. Combine that with the everyday misunderstandings between two people and a player could easily think that he has plenty of time to cast a spell on a target and the GM think that there's no way in hell it can work.

In Ars we have two things that measure this - the question to the GM "Will he reach me this round?" and initiative.

And initiative is that usually rules the day.

"In Ars we have two things that measure this - the question to the GM "Will he reach me this round?" and initiative.

"And initiative is that usually rules the day."

Oh! Fantastic... so, would you mind pointing out to me where movement is factored into the initative rules then? That would completely solve my problem.

A page citation would be appreciated too.

The numbers you've used seem pretty good.

I guess the central question by which movement can be worked out is how long does it take to cast a spell?

I reached mine by reasoning:

If I could cast a single spell in the same time it takes you to take six paces then we have a rough benchmark. If I can "hustle" or jog twice my walking speed (plus a bit for being athletic) then again, that kind of works. If I can then sprint double (plus a bit more) my jogging speed, then that would complete the equation.

"Walking in combat cauiously 6 Paces + quickness.

Running in combat 12 paces + quickness - encumbrance - fatigue penalties.

All- out run or flee for your life 30 paces + quickness + Athletics - Encumbrance - fatigue and wound penalties."

Good numbers I say, but how this relates to the other combat actions?

* How much you can move and still be able to attack in the same round?

* Every 2 paces moved reduces Attack Total by one?

* Every 3 spaces charged (in a straight line) adds one into Attack Advantage (if attacking with a weapon which can be used for piercing, like a spear)?

Just thoughts...

529.18 in reply to 529.14

"Walking in combat cauiously 6 Paces + quickness.

Running in combat 12 paces + quickness - encumbrance - fatigue penalties.

All- out run or flee for your life 30 paces + quickness + Athletics - Encumbrance - fatigue and wound penalties."

Good numbers I say, but how this relates to the other combat actions?

* How much you can move and still be able to attack in the same round?

* Every 2 paces moved reduces Attack Total by one?

* Every 3 spaces charged (in a straight line) adds one into Attack Advantage (if attacking with a weapon which can be used for piercing, like a spear)?

Just thoughts...

The first two allow attacks the 2nd one being a charge. I don not mess with the other parts. because I didcide to stay with 3rd ed for my play group. they all seemed to like 3rd better any way.

Sorry about takeing so long to responed.