How big of a deal is unusual movement speeds?

[CyberThread]

How big of a deal is it for a player character to have things like 60 movment speed or get even all the way up to 90 or 120 ft.

[Ravens_cry]

How big of a deal is it for a player character to have things like 60 movment speed or get even all the way up to 90 or 120 ft.
Given that higher movement speed isn't a terribly big advantage, I must ask, what's there to deal?

[Curmudgeon]

Situationally, it might sometimes be a big advantage. But compared to what any spellcaster can do (Haste is +30' speed, and that's only part of the spell's benefits), it's pretty minor in D&D terms.

[Coidzor]

It's not useful for things like charging in combat or joining combat from across a wide distance if you need the backup of the party to avoid dropping, for instance.

It is useful in combat for being able to tumble more without having to do a higher skillcheck for tumbling your full move speed rather than half.

Great for jumplomancers, but those are silly anyway.

[Ravens_cry]

Situationally, it might sometimes be a big advantage. But compared to what any spellcaster can do (Haste is +30' speed, and that's only part of the spell's benefits), it's pretty minor in D&D terms.
High speed + an obstacle bypassing movement form, now that's an advantage.

[Humble Master]

Some classes like Scout can benefit from the ability to move around the battlefield rapidly. Other than that movement speed isn't that much of an advantage.

[TuggyNE]

How big of a deal is it for a player character to have things like 60 movment speed or get even all the way up to 90 or 120 ft.

In most cases, not much of a deal. Strategic movement is usually limited by the slowest party member, and tactical movement is only rarely of any real value beyond 30-40 feet. There are exceptions, but you have to optimize around the idea of moving fast, and it takes some effort to get decent returns.

With the exception of a few TO applications (jumplomancer, Chuck E. Cheese, one or two others), it's not game-breaking.

[Tvtyrant]

If you can get a movement of over 1,000 ft. it is useful because you can move from outside of a caster's range to within your own range in a turn. If you get it crazy TO high you can move from outside of someone else's vision all the way to them.

[Ravens_cry]

If you can get a movement of over 1,000 ft. it is useful because you can move from outside of a caster's range to within your own range in a turn. If you get it crazy TO high you can move from outside of someone else's vision all the way to them.
And even that assumes you can do so. If you are in a building or dungeon, quite common adventuring locations, you can't really take advantage of said super speed.

[Emperor Tippy]

If you know what you are doing and build it right it can be a huge deal but most of the time it's not that great because most people don't manage either facet of it.

[MukkTB]

Most of the time that speed will let the player decide if the fight continues at least as far as they go. The faster guy gets to decide when to run away and when to let the bad guy run away. This can be important. Unfortunately #1 the rest of the party probably isn't that fast and #2 things can go to **** really quickly. I've had situations crop up where a guy gets torn down and that's the first time the party realized it didn't want to be there.

[Templarkommando]

The thing that occurs to me about a high movement speed like this is to couple it with spring attack. If you're in a winding dungeon, you might be able to prevent someone from hitting you at all if you can manage it. I don't know where that runs on the scale of optimization, but it occurs to me that it could be a neat trick in a few specific spots.

[CRtwenty]

It's useful, but not as useful as you'd think at first. The majority of things in D&D have a move speed around 30, so combat is usually at those speeds regardless of outliers. In certain situations (especially in wide open areas) it can be very useful though. For instance being able to outrun and tackle a guy galloping away on a horse.

I'd take a swim, burrow, or fly (especially fly) speed over a regular move speed increase any day.

[mangosta71]

A really high movement speed is devastating on a high level Setting Sun swordsage - Tornado Throw lets you make unlimited throw attempts as long as you move at least 10 feet between attempts, and you get a bonus to your check for each square you move, and more damage the larger your margin of success. You choose to only toss your opponent 10 feet, run up to him and toss him again, and again, and again... Think of the way the Hulk rag-dolled Loki in The Avengers - it's basically like that, except you're running around the room while you're holding onto his ankles and slamming his face into the ground.