Greywander
2019-07-31, 05:06 PM
My intuition says bigger things move faster and smaller things move slower. However, after some brief research into the topic, speed and size seems to be all over the place. I was hoping to come up with a general rule for base speed based on size, but I don't know that that will work.
A lot of the mechanics of my system are still up in the air, but I thought I'd borrow a bit from D&D 5e. For now, I'm thinking a round will be about 6 seconds, and squares/hexes will be 1 yard in length (rather than 5 feet). This conveniently lets me express distances and ranges in yards, which is the same as the number of squares/hexes, and also easily converts to metric by swapping yards for meters. Creatures will be able to move up to their walking speed and take another action on their turn, and can use that action to sprint to cover more distance. So walking speed will be expressed in terms of yards per 6 seconds.
Now, a human apparently has a preferred walking speed of about 8 yards per round (a nice number which fits pretty closely to what you see in many tactical RPGs), or 4 feet per second. Dogs, who would be one size category smaller than humans... also have a walking speed of about 8 yards per round. Cats, who would be one size category smaller than dogs... also have a walking speed of 8 yards per round. Horses, who would probably be one size category larger than humans, have a walking speed of... 12 yards per round (6 feet per second)? I almost want to say that the default base walking speed is 8 yards, with some creatures (like horses) getting a faster or slower speed, but I know this won't hold true at very small sizes (ants, for example), and suspect it won't hold true for very large animals, either. More likely, speed scales with size, and dogs and cats are special cases who are faster than normal for their size.
Sprinting speed gets even worse. Average running speed for humans seems to be about 15 mph, according to my searches, perhaps pushing 20 mph for faster people (Usain Bolt managed to get close to 30 mph, but that would be for a character with maxed out stats for sprinting). Cats seem to have a sprinting speed of around 30 mph already, while elephants seem to vary from 11 mph to 25, depending on who you ask.
My thought for sprinting was for you to be able to sprint at an increment of your walking speed (or of some speed stat), but at the cost of some kind of resource, like stamina. So, in addition to moving your normal walking speed, if you also sprint your walking speed, then it costs 1 stamina. If you sprint twice your walking speed, it costs 2 stamina. 3 times your walking speed is 3 stamina. Etc. So running slower lets you cover more distance for less stamina cost. Sprinting speed would probably have a cap bases on what creature you are. So something like a cheetah would have a high sprint cap, but it would consume a lot of stamina to go that fast.
A lot of the mechanics of my system are still up in the air, but I thought I'd borrow a bit from D&D 5e. For now, I'm thinking a round will be about 6 seconds, and squares/hexes will be 1 yard in length (rather than 5 feet). This conveniently lets me express distances and ranges in yards, which is the same as the number of squares/hexes, and also easily converts to metric by swapping yards for meters. Creatures will be able to move up to their walking speed and take another action on their turn, and can use that action to sprint to cover more distance. So walking speed will be expressed in terms of yards per 6 seconds.
Now, a human apparently has a preferred walking speed of about 8 yards per round (a nice number which fits pretty closely to what you see in many tactical RPGs), or 4 feet per second. Dogs, who would be one size category smaller than humans... also have a walking speed of about 8 yards per round. Cats, who would be one size category smaller than dogs... also have a walking speed of 8 yards per round. Horses, who would probably be one size category larger than humans, have a walking speed of... 12 yards per round (6 feet per second)? I almost want to say that the default base walking speed is 8 yards, with some creatures (like horses) getting a faster or slower speed, but I know this won't hold true at very small sizes (ants, for example), and suspect it won't hold true for very large animals, either. More likely, speed scales with size, and dogs and cats are special cases who are faster than normal for their size.
Sprinting speed gets even worse. Average running speed for humans seems to be about 15 mph, according to my searches, perhaps pushing 20 mph for faster people (Usain Bolt managed to get close to 30 mph, but that would be for a character with maxed out stats for sprinting). Cats seem to have a sprinting speed of around 30 mph already, while elephants seem to vary from 11 mph to 25, depending on who you ask.
My thought for sprinting was for you to be able to sprint at an increment of your walking speed (or of some speed stat), but at the cost of some kind of resource, like stamina. So, in addition to moving your normal walking speed, if you also sprint your walking speed, then it costs 1 stamina. If you sprint twice your walking speed, it costs 2 stamina. 3 times your walking speed is 3 stamina. Etc. So running slower lets you cover more distance for less stamina cost. Sprinting speed would probably have a cap bases on what creature you are. So something like a cheetah would have a high sprint cap, but it would consume a lot of stamina to go that fast.