Removing speed/movement restrictions in combat?

[Ozreth]

I posted this over at RPG.net as well but it hasn't gotten much love yet. Thought I'd bring it here.

Many people ask what you would need to do in 3e to facilitate getting rid of miniatures and a battle mat. You'll get a lot of answers along the lines of "Drop AoO handwave a lot. Don't be so picky about positioning." This is all find and dandy but I think that the single thing that makes miniatures so useful in 3e+ is the fact that PC's are restricted to 20 or 30ft of movement per turn (typically). Now, I'm a big fan of 3e but this has often irked me. I only played 2e a few times and the DM used miniatures but he only dropped them on the table for a general idea of positioning. Otherwise we were free to move about as we wanted. You couldn't move after attacking or casting, but before then you could get pretty much as far as you wanted in a room.

Did 2e have a restriction on movement per turn that he was ignoring? I don't remember, but I don't think it did, and it makes more sense to me. So what if you were to do this in 3e? I'm saying keep the one move and one attack philosophy, just not limiting your character to only being able to run 30 ft across a 100 ft room for some reason.

Have the short movement restrictions been placed for balance reasons? Would characters just wipe the floor if they could move around that easily? The monsters would be able to do it as well so it may be fair. Also 3e spells are pretty much replicas of 2e spells.

Thoughts? And for the record, this is less about the use of minis and more about movement restrictions.

[ThatLovin'Elan]

If movement is not restricted at all, everyone should wear the heaviest armor possible and run right to the squishiest mage and smash them in the face.

The point of movement restrictions is to create tactics in combat; if you can find another way to represent that, go for it.

[Ozreth]

If movement is not restricted at all, everyone should wear the heaviest armor possible and run right to the squishiest mage and smash them in the face.

The point of movement restrictions is to create tactics in combat; if you can find another way to represent that, go for it.

I'm saying I don't see why it couldn't be done the same as it was done in Basic and both AD&D games?

[Jeraa]

2nd edition did have a limit on movement during combat. A character could only move his movement rate x 10 feet each round. Note that rounds then were 1 minute, so your typical human could only move 120 feet each (one minute long) combat round. (That is on page 128 of my 2nd edition PHB)

3.0 changed the time for a round down to 6 seconds. That 120 feet per minute in 2nd edition would be only 12 feet per round in 3rd edition.

Also, a 2nd edition character was limited to only moving half his maximum distance if he still wanted to make an attack that round. A 3.X character gets two move actions (or a standard and a move) in each round, so your typical human hase a max movement of 60 feet. However, if he limits his movement to half that (just like a 2nd edition character), he can still take a standard action to attack (Also just like a 2nd edition character). 3.X movement speeds was just changed from "maximum distance possible per round" to "maximum possible distance per move action".

[ThatLovin'Elan]

I'm saying I don't see why it couldn't be done the same as it was done in Basic and both AD&D games?

Ah... never played AD&D. I would assume your DM was just using house rules.

[Ravens_cry]

Restrictions create meaningful choices. A Rogue, for example wants protection while still being agile. If they could put metal plates and rings between their squishy bits without having to worry about being able to fly through the air with the greatest of ease, they would so they can't. An arcane spell caster would also be grateful for such protection if it didn't make them a commoner with potentially worse proficiencies.