Movement and Facing

Gaits

Movement is broken down into three primary 'gaits' which are Walking, Running, and Sprinting. Worn armor incurs a penalty known as the Armor Penalty which can reduce a gaits movement rait. Armor Penalty is calculated by taking the total ENC of all worn armor divided by five, rounded up.

Walking

Walking is the average speed a member of a particular species ambles along at when in no particular hurry. This is normally referred to as a creature's base Movement Rate. Armor does not interfere with walking movement, although it can cause the character to become Fatigued over time if the encumberance is too high.

Running

Running is a trot or jog, at a speed which can be maintained over long periods. Basically, anything faster than a walk. Maximum running speed is triple the Movement Rate, which may vary according to the bonus granted by the Athletics skill. Subtract the Armor Penalty from the running speed.

Sprinting

Sprinting is flat out movement at top speed, which can only be maintained for brief periods. Peak sprinting speed is five times Movement Rate, which again may be increased according to whatever bonus is granted from the Athletics skill. Subtract the Armor Penalty from the sprinting speed.

Movement During Combat

At the start of their first turn of the combat round, a character must choose what gait they plan on moving at. Each gait has its own movement rate, which is the limit of how far that character can move during the combat round. Characters can move up to half the chosen gait's movement rate during their turns, so long as the total movement during the combat round does not exceed the movement rate of the chosen gait. Characters cannot move on oponents turns.

Some actions can not be performed at certain gaits, or require movement. The specifics movement restrictions are listed in the description of each action in the Combat section.

Once a character is out of action points, their turn will still be skipped in a cycle, this holds true even if the character could move more.

Situational Movement

Some situations call for moving in other ways than on foot. In these scenarios, an alternative situational gait must be chosen rather than one of the primary gaits. For example when near a cliff, a character could choose their climbing speed instead of the Walk, Run, or Sprint gaits. Most situational movements restrict actions or otherwise cause penalties when trying to do things.

Situational gaits have have alternative movement rates (usually defined by a skill such as Athletics or Swim. Unlike primary gaits, a character may switch to using an situational gait at the start of any turn, rather than just at the start of a combat round. When the situational gait no longer applies (for example when a character pulls themselves out of water or over the cliff edge), they revert back to the primary gait they were using before.

All movement rates count all the movement done during the round, not just the movement done using a specific gate. If a character had a movement rate of 18 while running and movement rate of 6m while swimming, and ran 12m before jumping into a pool, then they could not continue to swim that round as they already had moved more than the movement rate of their swim gait.

Climbing

A character's movement rate for climbing is dependent on how hard the climb is and is defined in the Athletics skill.

Climbing rough surface (branching trees, ladders, scaffolds, and so on): Half the Armour Penalty (rounded up) is subtracted from the base Movement Rate. If the result is zero or less, they are too burdened by their armour to climb.

Climbing a steep surface (pitched roods, steep hills, and so on): The Armour Penalty is subtracted from the base Movement Rate. If the result is zero or less, they are too burdened by thier armour to climb.

Climbing a sheer surface (walls, cliff faces, etc): Double the Armour Penalty is subtracted from the base Movement Rate. If the result is zero or less, they are too burdened by thier armour to climb.

Crawling

A character that begins the turn prone automatically choose this gait. Crawl speed is equal to half of the character's walking speed (rounded up). Creatures that naturally crawl as their normal mode of movement such as T'ha or snakes instead use the rules for Walk, Run, and Sprint set forth above. Armor does not interfere with crawling movement.

Swimming

A character's movement rate for swimming is defined in the Swim skill.

Take the character's swimming speed divide by two (rounding up), and subtract the Armour Penalty. If the result is zero, the character cannot move, and barely keeps themselves afloat. If the result is negative, then the character sinks. A nativelly aquatic creature (such as a fish) may substitute Athletics for Swim for determining if their armor causes them to sink, and can use their primary gaits to move in water rather than using the Swim skill, allowing them to charge and make running jumps among other benefits.

Jumping

A character can jump a distance as define in the Athletics skill. Reduce the distance in meters the character can jump by half the Armour Penalty (rounded up). For standing jumps this impairment is halved. If the character was using a gait of Walk (or some other situational gait that is not fast), use the standing jump distance rather than the running jump distance.

Flying

A character's movement rate for flying is usually defined by their species (if they can fly at all) or by some feat of magic. In this case simply use the movement rate defined for flying by the species or magical effect.

Take the character's flying speed divide by two (rounding up), and subtract the Armour Penalty. If the result is zero, the character cannot move, and barely keeps themselves aloft. If the result is negative, then the character descends in a controlled manner. If the result is below -1 times their flying speed then they fall in an uncontrolled fashion.

Charging

Charging requires the character to be using the Run or Sprint gait. If the character moved at least half of their maximum movement rate the previous turn they may make an attack during the charge, even if they did not move this amount, the action still counts as a charge, the character just may not attack.

Attacks made while charging have the following properties:

• The attack roll is made with a 1 difficulty grade penalty if running or a 2 grade penalty if sprinting.
• The damage modifier of the attack is increased by one. If using a gait with a movement rate of 30 or more the damage modifier is increased by two instead.

Opponents facing a charaging character have three options: parry, evade, or counterattack. Parrying and evading work as normal per normal combat rules. Counterattacking sacrifices the defender's opportunity to defend themselves but allows them the oppoprtunity to make a strike back. The character with the weapon with the longest Reach attacks first. Some weapons such have the Set trait which allows the defender to use the attacker's damage modifier (which notably has been increased due to charging) instead of their own for the counterattack.

Normally, a character ends their charge near the person they were charging, ending up engaged in melee. Significantly large or fast creatures such as charging horses or elephants can charge through contact however, freeing them from engagement. Due to the speed of the charge, this does not allow for the normal attack of opportunity given when changing range to withdraw from an engagement.

Facing

The below images show how front, side, and back squares are defined on a grid for creatures of varying sizes.

Characters may not change the direction they are facing at will. Instead, they may change their faces while they move and using the Change Facing free action (which can be done after being attacked).

While walking the character may change facing as often as desired during the course of moving (or standing still) without penalty.

When running, characters may move into any of their front squares as often as desired and are not restricted to moving in a straight line, while each 90 degree facing change uses up 3 meters of the character’s total movement.

A sprinting character may move into any of their front squares but cannot change facing.