The Price of Speed

[GreenETC]

Everybody loves to have higher movement speed in D&D, as it allows you to reach enemies easier, tumble faster, and get away from fights that you're losing. But even with everything I've looked at in 3.5, I can't find any items that give static bonuses to movement speed higher than +10ft enhancement, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to figuring out the cost of adding higher speed amounts as a DM.

Boots of Striding and Springing give a good starting point, which reverse engineered gives a speed cost of around 2000 gp, since the abilty would be multiplied for being attached to another bonus. Of course, like all items, I'd expect that higher bonuses would have exponential costs, so I came up with the formula of (bonus squared*20) giving a cost of 2k for 10ft, 8k for 20ft, and 18k for 30ft. I'd like an opinion on if this seems reasonable, and if I should allow higher than 30ft bonuses.

In addition to this, I've run into the problem that one of my players wants to reverse engineer the 3.0 Ghostwalk Rapid Wrath's speed doubling ability, which even if I houserule it to require being on a weapon he physically holds (like a Gauntlet), seems absolutely bonkers at 3.4k gp, which leads to the problem that I don't want to deal with the logistics of every character (because why would you not spend 3.4k to double your movespeed) being able to move around at speeds faster than the range increment of a longbow. I'm thinking of just banning it, since an untyped speed bonus is nearly unheard of, the book is 3.0, and it's FAR too cheap for my tastes, but I'm wondering if this seems unreasonable for something that is relatively mundane.

[Seerow]

+30ft move speed is legitimately a 1st level spell with minutes/level duration. A custom continuous item of Expeditious Retreat is 4000gp.

[Irk]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106406) is a thread on it. Scroll down a bit

[GreenETC]

+30ft move speed is legitimately a 1st level spell with minutes/level duration. A custom continuous item of Expeditious Retreat is 4000gp.
Of course, those item creation guidelines are completely all over the place, ranging from far overpriced to completely underpriced based on the particular choice of spell. A continuous item of Mage Armor is 4k gp, compared to the exact same item (Bracers of Armor +4) being 16k gp, though obviously that's not the best example as Bracers of Armor are vastly overpriced, but I think it emphasizes that a sweeping acceptance of those rules may create their own problems.

I understand that I may be coming at this from a mundanes can't have nice things angle, considering how easily a Wizard can cast Expeditious Retreat, but that requires a Standard Action to cast and then they can move, meaning they have to do it in advance, rather than having it always active, and I'm just concerned about the implications on the world if everyone has continuous items of Expeditious Retreat, because anyone who can afford it should probably have it, and suddenly the game becomes rather adversarial everyone is charging at 120ft at the players who don't want to be in melee, like the archers or casters.

[Lightlawbliss]

Irk: mind giving a post to look at, all I see is templates and a few spells.

and one must be careful with spells and other abilities as a lot of bonuses to speed don't stack (example: monk and haste)

[Kamai]

To put it in perspective, Winged Boots and a Flying Carpet (type 1) are both about 16k, and they both offer 60ft flight, albeit with different restrictions. On that note, 18k might be a bit expensive (or maybe just right) for +30ft land movement.

[Seerow]

Of course, those item creation guidelines are completely all over the place, ranging from far overpriced to completely underpriced based on the particular choice of spell. A continuous item of Mage Armor is 4k gp, compared to the exact same item (Bracers of Armor +4) being 16k gp, though obviously that's not the best example as Bracers of Armor are vastly overpriced, but I think it emphasizes that a sweeping acceptance of those rules may create their own problems.

I understand that I may be coming at this from a mundanes can't have nice things angle, considering how easily a Wizard can cast Expeditious Retreat, but that requires a Standard Action to cast and then they can move, meaning they have to do it in advance, rather than having it always active, and I'm just concerned about the implications on the world if everyone has continuous items of Expeditious Retreat, because anyone who can afford it should probably have it, and suddenly the game becomes rather adversarial everyone is charging at 120ft at the players who don't want to be in melee, like the archers or casters.

I'm really not seeing the downside of squishy casters having to actually worry about melee characters charging them. It's not like they don't have their own ways of negating that.

Frankly, if you're looking for RAW answers, you're going to find a lot of overcosted templates, bad feats, and class features (ranging from burried under a half dozen levels of a class you don't care about to a 1 level dip). Going fast by RAW requires serious character investment and gimps you in every way possible, just to be completely worse than a caster at it every step of the way (by the time your melee character hits 60ft move speed, your caster has fly, dimension door, probably even straight up teleport).

So the answer is "Take the cheap way out" or "Utterly gimp yourself to be good at one thing that isn't particularly relevant the majority of the time".

[Rubik]

Add the horseshoes of speed quality (from the SRD) to a pair of boots for a 50% markup (a la MIC) at 4,500 gp to add +30' to your base speed. Then double your speed for 3,400 gp via the Rapid Wrath weapon enhancement (from Ghostwalk) on a gauntlet, boot blade, or armor spikes. It's a quick and easy 120' movement speed for most Medium characters for less than 10k. Just make sure you can emulate race (horse) with a DC 25 UMD check once per hour.

[Mithril Leaf]

Alternative answer:
Be small and buy a magebred donkey.

[Irk]

Irk: mind giving a post to look at, all I see is templates and a few spells.


Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854524&postcount=8), here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854588&postcount=9), here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854618&postcount=11), and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5858530&postcount=28)

[Valwyn]

You could always dip classes that give Fast Movement at early levels. I once made an elf who had a base speed of about 130 ft that way (using some ACFs, not wearing armor and using grafted legs), but I can't remember the exact build. I think it was Monk 3/Scout 3/Ranger 3/Barbarian 1/Druid 1/Forest Reeve 1/Fist of the Forest 1/Dervish 5/Wild Runner 1/Thief Acrobat 1

It had BAB 16, could Tumble/Climb/Balance at full speed, and with grafts and a feats, it also had a swim and fly speed. It took a lot of feats, though, but I don't think I used flaws.

[GreenETC]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854524&postcount=8), here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854588&postcount=9), here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5854618&postcount=11), and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5858530&postcount=28)


You could always dip classes that give Fast Movement at early levels. I once made an elf who had a base speed of about 130 ft that way (using some ACFs, not wearing armor and using grafted legs), but I can't remember the exact build. I think it was Monk 3/Scout 3/Ranger 3/Barbarian 1/Druid 1/Forest Reeve 1/Fist of the Forest 1/Dervish 5/Wild Runner 1/Thief Acrobat 1

It had BAB 16, could Tumble/Climb/Balance at full speed, and with grafts and a feats, it also had a swim and fly speed. It took a lot of feats, though, but I don't think I used flaws.


Alternative answer:
Be small and buy a magebred donkey.


Add the horseshoes of speed quality (from the SRD) to a pair of boots for a 50% markup (a la MIC) at 4,500 gp to add +30' to your base speed. Then double your speed for 3,400 gp via the Rapid Wrath weapon enhancement (from Ghostwalk) on a gauntlet, boot blade, or armor spikes. It's a quick and easy 120' movement speed for most Medium characters for less than 10k. Just make sure you can emulate race (horse) with a DC 25 UMD check once per hour.
I don't think everyone in this thread is on the same page. I'm trying to PRICE speed increasing items as a DM, not create the fastest character alive, as I fully understand the methods for getting lots of speed. Namely, I'm discussing pricing of +30ft enhancement boots with no other attributes, as well as Rapid Wrath's untyped speed doubling ability.

Seerow: I understand that these people would be devoting character resources to going fast, and I don't think that him getting a +30ft enhancement bonus would be too egregious, but I think it should come at a relative cost appropriate so that it doesn't become an item that is "too good to be true," leading to everyone in the party grabbing one because it's something they can't pass up. Not to mention that this item existing would make it less likely that casters would want to do buffs like Haste, as the extra speed would be wasted if the party already has +30ft enhancement bonuses.

Kamai: The Carpet of Flying is a good measurement, as the Boots of Flying come with the timer built in. Of course, land speed is relatively mundane, and easily circumvented through many different means, so I'm not sure if 18k is going to be worth it for what amounts to a meaningless bonus.

How does this sound: 2/6/10k for 10-30ft enhancement, and Rapid Wrath doesn't exist. Is there any way to make Rapid Wrath not be completely silly in terms of pricing, as doubling speed (I don't believe it specifies land speed either) for 3.4k still seems utterly ridiculous.

[Rubik]

Remember that you can get very large speed bonuses from low level spells, so spending more than 3-5,000 gp on a very large speed bonus (along with flight no less) is far too expensive, since you could just get the spell for really cheap. (Remember that a CL 6 scroll of Extended Alter Self costs a mere 180 gp, and it lasts for a whole 2 hours. Yay flight.)

[Phelix-Mu]

I don't think everyone in this thread is on the same page. I'm trying to PRICE speed increasing items as a DM, not create the fastest character alive, as I fully understand the methods for getting lots of speed. Namely, I'm discussing pricing of +30ft enhancement boots with no other attributes, as well as Rapid Wrath's untyped speed doubling ability.

Seerow: I understand that these people would be devoting character resources to going fast, and I don't think that him getting a +30ft enhancement bonus would be too egregious, but I think it should come at a relative cost appropriate so that it doesn't become an item that is "too good to be true," leading to everyone in the party grabbing one because it's something they can't pass up. Not to mention that this item existing would make it less likely that casters would want to do buffs like Haste, as the extra speed would be wasted if the party already has +30ft enhancement bonuses.

Kamai: The Carpet of Flying is a good measurement, as the Boots of Flying come with the timer built in. Of course, land speed is relatively mundane, and easily circumvented through many different means, so I'm not sure if 18k is going to be worth it for what amounts to a meaningless bonus.

How does this sound: 2/6/10k for 10-30ft enhancement, and Rapid Wrath doesn't exist. Is there any way to make Rapid Wrath not be completely silly in terms of pricing, as doubling speed (I don't believe it specifies land speed either) for 3.4k still seems utterly ridiculous.

I usually handle Ghost Walk as a different campaign setting, as it introduces rules specifically for a campaign involving ghost characters. It's certainly got tricks in it that don't mesh well with the average table.

If you could assign a bonus type to the doubling of speed, to keep it from stacking with other speed improvements) that might help keep some of the madness under control. But probably not really. Maybe it "doubles natural land speed" or something, keeping it from being applied last in the player-determined order of operations.