Movement and Bulk

 

Your base move is your character’s normal walk speed in (h/t). This value determines how far your character can move in combat as a basic action. Base move is equal to your Adaptability attribute multiplied by 2/3 and rounded to the nearest whole number. This is then adjusted for your species, and for any other bonuses or penalties caused by various Life Events, or by improvement through mastery in different skill fields. Your base move is then adjusted by your bulk factor to ultimately determine your movement rate at any give time.

Base move is calculated using the following equation:

Base Move = (0.66 x Adaptability) + [Species Move Adjust] + [Total Move Bonuses] - [Bulk Factor]

Bulk Factor

Everything your character is carrying, from the clothes on their back to their weapons, armour, packs and potions, has a certain amount of bulk. You can carry up to twice your Physical stat worth of bulk before suffering any penalties to your movement. After that, for each full increment of your Physical Attribute worth of carried bulk, your bulk factor increases by 1.

Bulk Factor = ([Sum of Bulk of everything carried] - Physical) / Physical

(Round down to the nearest whole number. Any result less than zero is zero.)

Bulk and Movement

Because your base move is impaired by bulk, and because all of your other movement rates are derived from your base move, it is critical that you always know how much bulk your character is carrying, and what your bulk factor is.

Bulk and Combat

In combat, you will probably want to be able to move as freely as possible. Therefore you should keep track of how all of your gear and equipment is packed, and what you need to drop when combat begins in order to free yourself for battle. The Mythmaster Character Sheet supports sections for personal items, weapons and armour, as well as backpacks, satchels, scroll tubes, potion belts, quivers, and a money belt, making it easy for you to keep track of what you're carrying and what you've dropped.

Bulk and Skills

In addition to impacting your base move, a large number of skills are also affected by your bulk factor. For skills that are so affected, you always roll them at a penalty equal to your bulk factor, which is a significant limitation. Skills affected by bulk include: Acrobatics, Athletics, Climbing, Dancing, Distance Running, Escape, Legerdemain, Pickpocket, Reposition, Sneaking, Sport, Swimming, Vanish and Wall Run.

Bulk and Bodies

Unconscious or dead bodies - whether allies to be rescued, or evidence to be disposed of - are not easy to carry. The bulk of a person is equal to their weight in kilograms plus the bulk of anything they are wearing or carrying. This makes it very difficult for any but the strongest of individuals to carry someone at all. However, if multiple people work together to carry a body, the bulk of the body is divided by the number of people doing the work, to a maximum of four, which will often make the load manageable. Thus four characters working together to carry a wounded 80kg ally off the battlefield are each considered to be carrying 20 bulk. Movement speed while carrying a body is that of the slowest person.

Additionally, if a stretcher is used, the weight of the person (but not their equipment) is halved for purposes of determining their bulk, and again, up to four people can work together to carry a stretcher. In this case, four characters with a stretcher could carry the same wounded ally off the battlefield while only needing to carry 10 bulk each.

A stretcher can be constructed in 1 hour by rolling a 21 Challenge using the basketry, carpentry, climbing, first aid, mechanics, medicine, survival, or thatcher skill.

Other Movement Rates

While your base move is the your character's normal walking speed, there are many other ways to move, and many other factors that determine your movement speed in a given context. Movement speed will change if you are sprinting, climbing, swimming or crawling, and will also vary based on how much you are carrying. How all of these factors effect your movement is defined below.

Sprint Move

Your sprint move is your character's maximum sprinting speed in (h/t). During a single turn, there are a prescribed set of actions any character can perform. A character can take either two basic actions or a basic action and a combat action. Sprinting is defined as using both of your basic actions in a turn to move - therefore, your sprint move is simply defined as 2x your base move. The Dash perk (normally reserved only for certain creatures) allows the possibility to double movement speed.

Down Move

Your down move is your character's movement speed while in the Down state. This includes all movement while crawling on your hands and knees, while prone on your belly, or while rolling. Your base move while down is equal to 1/6 of your base move. If you use both your actions to move, you will move at 1/3 of your base move.

Climb Move

Base move while climbing a ladder, or any structure specifically designed to facilitate climbing is at 1/4 your base move. If you use both your actions to move, you will climb at 1/2 of your base move. Speed of movement while using the Climbing skill is based on the difficulty of the climb, starting at 1/10 base move for Normal Difficulty, 1/20 base move for Unfavorable, 1/30 for Somewhat Difficult and continuing up to 1/80 base move for an Impossible diffculty climb. Using the climbing skill to move uses all of your actions for the turn, so you cannot sprint or perform any other action if you move while using the climbing skill.

Note also that this is the rate of movement per turn when you succeed your 21C using Climbing Skill - if you fail the roll you don't move at all. Critical failure leads to a slip and a regression, requiring another Climbing roll to avoid a fall, and potential falling damage.

    Example: a strong climber and a difficult climb
  • A character with a 15 Climbing skill and zero Bulk is attempting a Somewhat Difficult (-2) climb.
  • The character has a base move of 10, so each success moves them 1/30 x 10 = 0.33 hexes.
  • Each turn, the player needs to roll 8 or higher on 2d10 to succeed their 21C and progress.
  • On average, the player will succeed their roll about 80% of the time.
  • On average, it will take 15 turns for the character to climb 4 hexes in this context.

Swim Move

In order to move while swimming at all you must have the Swimming skill. If you have the swimming skill, your movement while swimming is equal to 1/6 of your base move. If you use both your actions to move, you will move at 1/3 of your base move. Uniquely, merfolk and lizari can move at at their base move while swimming and can also move at their sprint move while swimming by expending Stamina, just as others can sprint on land.

Flying Move

Some creatures and animals can fly. Flight is an extremely fast form of movement, and naturally flying creatures have a base move while flying equal to 6x their base move. If they use both their actions to move, they will move at 12x their base move. The same values apply to anyone using the Fly spell. At speeds this fast, acceleration and deceleration must be taken into account. Acceleration and deceleration while flying is equal to Sprint move - so a creature with a base move of 5, a sprint move of 10 and a Fly move of 30 can fly at 10 the first turn, 20 the second turn, 30 the third turn, etc. Deceleration is the same. Collisions at high speed are dangerous, and will do damage to the the flying person or creature, and anyone or anything they, hit based on the relative speed at the moment of impact.

Flying creatures or characters can attack while flying, but this causes them to decelerate

Travel Distance

Your travel distance is your character’s average daily on-foot travel distance in kilometers (km). To calculate travel distance, multiply your character’s base move by 3.5. The daily travel distance assumes 10 hours of foot travel over even terrain, including time for regular stops to rest and hydrate, allowing for a full recovery of stamina each day.

Actual Speed

Because base move is given in (h/t), with a hex representing 2 meters, and a turn being 5 seconds in length, you can calculate your character's speed in m/s simply by dividing their base move or sprint move by 2.5.