03 May 2019

Earthdawn 4E: Movement Rate Variant

This is part of an ongoing series about Earthdawn Fourth Edition. Introduction and Index.

Everything contained here is the work of a fan and not associated with FASA Games.

The Movement Rates presented in the Player's Guide create a simple way of looking at how fast characters move which is easy to remember, provides some variation based on racial choices, but largely keeps characters within a band of movement rates useful for most battle maps. Some groups may want more variety in how fast their character's move and have it based on their attributes, rather than just their race.

The following formula helps achieve this goal:

Dexterity Step + Strength Step + Racial Modifier

This makes “average” members of each race a little slower than the values presented in the Player’s Guide, but this maintains a more median movement rate variation, as the basement for movement rate is much below the average (-1 Step), while the ceiling is considerably higher. The racial modifiers play with the movement rates a little more, both accounting for how attribute value modifiers affect the steps, and introducing more variation based on height and build. The goal isn’t absolute realism, but something relatively simple with the feeling of authenticity and introducing more variation in the values. Keep in mind the sidebar on Player's Guide, p. 373, if applying this to a battle map.

Racial modifiers are below:

Dwarf: -2
Elf: +1
Human: 0
Obsidiman: -3
Ork: 0
T’skrang: 0
Troll: +1
Windling: -4 (walking), +6 (flying)