[PF] Movement in combat

[The Insanity]

What, in your opinion, should be the advantages and disadvantages of moving during combat? What, do you think, should be its purpose or justification? Mind you, I'm not talking about the current rules, but about a theoretical set of good designed rules. So it's less about "how should it work mechanically" and more about "how should it look narratively" (hope "narratively" is a good word for it). I think that once we have decent grasp on the later it should become easier to work on the former.
Or in other words (borrowing from another thread): What does "movement in combat" mean to you?

[D.M.Hentchel]

In general moving around during a fight serves little purpose during a one on one fight. Typically it isn't enough to really create an opening between you and your opponent and outside of natural movement to dodge and attack doesn't really have a drawback or upside. In multi person combat, feild of view is hugely important, so moving to positions in which you can easily see all foes is extremely beneficial, but moving to positions where a foe cannot easily look at you and your allies at the same time. This gets even more complicated when you factor in non-combatants and non-melee equipment.

In general I see movement as being fairly easy, but slower if entangled with a foe and entirely for the purpose of positioning.

[Psyren]

Voluntary movement during combat has inherent advantages over standing still; melee and short-range opponents will have to follow you to stay at an effective reach, it lets you engage priority targets like enemy spellcasters/archers by bringing your own attacks within range of them, it allows you to use terrain features like cover, gaps and even hazards to your advantage, you can attack from unexpected angles etc. For turn-based games, this is even more important, because moving around can completely disrupt your opponent's plans and gives them less time to react/come up with new ones.

Because of those innate advantages, movement needs a cost of some kind - in most turn-based games, movement either costs a small amount of "action points" or requires at least one "lesser" or "move" action. Your cost then becomes the opportunity cost of that move action - i.e. what else could you have used it to do? Other games even add additional costs on top of that, such as making you subject to attacks of opportunity if you move away from your foe heedlessly, or being vulnerable to conditions like rough or slick terrain that don't affect you if you're standing still. These costs can therefore make standing still sometimes the tactically superior or necessary option.

Where D&D messes up is that the opportunity cost is too high - a melee character can't full-attack if they move (usually), and without full-attacking, those characters DPR output suffers. This goes double for characters with two-weapon fighting - without full attack, your second weapon pretty much does nothing, causing you to not only have weak DPR but to make every round where you don't full attack be a waste of the resources (e.g. feats and gold) that you spent on making your TWF style viable.

[JKTrickster]

Well you did ask "how it should look narratively" so I'll take a distinctly non-mechanical approach to it.

Movement in combat happens because standing around looks and feels so boring. :smallsigh:

Now - not everyone has to move. It's pretty epic to be the rocks turning back the tide, a lone warrior that holds a pass as waves and waves of enemies crash on you, only to crumble away until your sword and shield.

But in that case, there's still movement - the enemies are constantly moving, swarming, running over each other only to be swatted away by the lone warrior. There's still a level of dynamic action to the combat and that makes it easier to feel epic.

But two opponents, standing still, just swatting at each other? So boring....

Let's look at Pirate of the Carribean. Now I know the combat isn't realistic - when was the last time you had a sword fight over a key on top of a moving wheel? Absolutely ridiculous.

But it looks engaging and fun.

Likewise when you play - standing still and Full Attack seems so....boring. At least with pounce I have to figure out how to set up a Charge and go 10 ft in a certain direction. But all I have to do is say "Full Attack" and roll dice, it feels so stale.

That's honestly why I prefer Tome of Battle - I actually end up doing less damage but I feel more epic.

Being able to move in combat is all about theatrics in my opinion. And right now, it's really popular to move around in "movie fights". And honestly whether if that is realistic or not, it's undeniable to say how cool it is.

EDIT:

I'm not saying it's impossible to feel epic by trading Full Attacks. And technically you can role-play and abstract the combat. After all it's a 5 foot square - it's supposed to represent some inherent movement since no one actually fills up 5 feet by 5 feet of space.

But that abstraction is MUCH easier when you're actually moving and showing an actual movement that is measured in game mechanics. Otherwise that abstraction is too far removed from the actual mechanics itself.

[OldTrees1]

From a Narrative Perspective should there be advantages or disadvantages for moving in combat?
Yes. If one side has an advantage then they would want to keep the positioning as it is. The other side is incentivized to alter the positioning by moving themselves, moving the first side, or directly altering the terrain. This describes such situations as:

The bodyguard trying to hold off a swarm of minions. Each minion trying to get past the bodyguard.
The fencer rapidly back stepping to get enough room to overcome the other fencer's offense.
The two warriors fighting on dynamic ground. Each moving to maintain or gain an advantage.
and many more ...


Two warriors just swatting at each other should only happen when both believe they have the advantage or the one with the advantage has cut off the other's means of escape.

An example of both of those would be 2 assassins, 1 bodyguard, & 1 mark/charge. One assassin engages the bodyguard to give the other time to fight the mark. The bodyguard knows they have an advantage over the single assassin & cannot engage the other assassin for fear of this assassin killing their charge. The assassin knows they personally are at a disadvantage but also knows that by staying they collectively are at an advantage. However if the balance in this situation is adjusted enough then it will unravel into either the assassins needing another plan or the bodyguard fighting both in a fighting retreat to buy the charge some time to flee.

[JKTrickster]

I think most importantly, movement can be used to tell a story.

Without a single word, a single exchange, nothing more than a glance and a few grunts, you can tell a story of a bodyguard, a charge, and 2 assassins with movement alone.

That's powerful.

Again, I'm taking this from a narrative sense more than a game mechanics sense.

[CharonsHelper]

Weren't there rules in Unchained which made combat more mobile by changing how full-attacking works? (full-attacking is the main reason that combat becomes so stationary as you level)

The Umonk's flying kick might be a good place to start too.