Revised Overland Movement and Fatigue Rules (3.5e Variant Rule)
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The movement rules in the SRD are not particularly satisfying. Like most of the original skills, they don't grow in any meaningful way with character level. It's unlikely that you can naturally run any farther at level 20 than at level 1 regardless of archetype. While you might be able to run another couple of rounds at higher level, it almost certainly all comes from the constitution bonus item you happen to be wearing rather than anything about yourself. They also interact badly with the fatigue you get from swimming or climbing, and the translation from local movement to overland movement is barely there. But while there are limits on how long you can run and walk and swim and climb, there aren't limits on how long you can keep swinging your sword or chop down trees or chisel away at castle walls or other non-movement physical activities.
So we're going to revise the rules to open the door for cross-country runners as well as more rigorous modeling of running / walking cycles by changing the way that fatigue is generated by various actions. This means that we can track fatigue from movement and battle and anything else that a character does in one place and apply penalties as they do more without resting. We can even apply this to extraordinarily long fights, like one man against an army much lower level than he, where fatigue is a much greater enemy than the individual opposing troops. It allows a streamlined way to incorporate fatigue from all action sources into one result, instead of the patchwork of obscure conversions and absent rules that we have now.
Of course, you could simply ignore most of the fatigue rules, as they rarely come up outside of running, extremely long epic fights, and overland travel (whcih will be discussed on its own) and use this variant because it better defines the movement aspects of the game world and the actions that they use. And it also allows some characters to make heroic run attempts across vast distances that leave them unconscious. Those are good reasons to adopt it too.
Contents
Revised Pacing
The lives of adventures happen at three distinct speeds: the leisurely or cautious pace of the unhurried, the swift and sometimes rushed pace of the hustling, and the desperate pace of the flat-out. These are described below.
Unhurried Pace
Whenever you fill your round with a single move or standard action, you are moving at an unhurried pace. There are a lot of actions that can be taken at this pace, as long as they aren’t paired with other actions, since most actions in the game are either standard or move-equivalent actions. A ‘full-round action’ is never an unhurried action despite the fact that it is only one action that takes up your entire round. This is because it uses both your standard and move actions for the round, and thus can not be unhurried.
For the purposes of overland or local movement, this pace includes taking only a single move action to move up your base speed in one of your movement modes for the round. When this is done by humanoids with their base land speed we call it walking, but it’s no more tiring for a bird to fly or a mole to burrow at their base speeds. Moving in a fashion for which you do not have a base speed, like climbing a wall without a climb speed, may or may not fall into this pace depending on the actions required.
Hustling Pace
Any round in which you take both a move and a standard action is a round spent at the hustling pace. This category also includes many full-round actions, but not all of them. Casting a spell with a 1 round casting time is a full-round action at the hustling pace, while running is a full-round action at the flat-out pace.
For the purposes of overland or local movement, this pace includes taking either a single or a double move action with one of your movement modes for the round. When this is done by humanoids with their base land speed we call it jogging or hustling (if they take another action in addition to movement). Moving in a fashion for which you do not have a base speed, like climbing a wall without a climb speed, may or may not fall into this pace depending on the actions required.
Flat-Out Pace
When a creature throws caution to the wind, and sacrifices endurance for speed, they are moving at a flat-out pace. There are few actions that even allow this pace, and almost all of them are movement. All flat-out actions are full-round actions.
The most common action taken at a flat-out pace is the Run action. The run action is also the only action we care about for the purposes of local or overland movement. Moving in a fashion for which you do not have a base speed, like climbing a wall without a climb speed, may or may not fall into this pace depending on the actions required. By defining this pace in this way, however, we can alter the Run action slightly to make it more equitable, since every action in this category will tire you in the same way.
Revised Run Action
Run action: As a full-round action, a creature can take up to 4 movement actions in exchange for caution and precision. They may even split their movement actions among different movement modes, but all modes must be natural for the creature. Most humanoids can only do this with their base walk speed, buy flying, swimming, climbing, burrowing, and any other natural movement speed is also eligible. A creature with a base land speed of 30’ and a burrowing speed of 20’ could thus run 60’ on land before burrowing the final 40’ by taking this action. You may not take a run action if you are fatigued or exhausted.
Revised Fatigue Rules
Here we are at the meat of the changes. Now that we can add up how tired different things make you, we're going to do something with it.
Standard Fatigue
Taking actions at the different paces tires a character out at different rates. Everyone can move flat-out for 1 round per point of constitution, so even those of average constitution can run for at least a minute. Moving at a hustling pace for 1 minute is equivalent to 1 round of running. As most fights happen at this pace, this means that battles lasting longer than 1 minute per point of constitution may be hazardous for characters. Lastly, moving in an unhurried way for 10 minutes is equivalent to 1 round of running. While that doesn’t have much bearing on combat, it does mean that you can walk across the mountains all day, resting for a minute or two every hour, without really wearing yourself out. Exactly like a heroic adventurer should.
Whatever action pace brings you to your limit, characters have to start making checks to see if they become tired once there. This is an endurance skill check, or just a constitution check if the skill is untrained. The base DC for this check is 10 or the DC to traverse the terrain if it is difficult, whichever is higher. To that base you add +1 for every 5 points of subdual damage you’ve taken and a +1 penalty for each check you’ve made since you were last completely rested. The results of this check appear in the check result table below.
To become fully rested after an exertion, you must rest for 1 round per round of flat-out action or 1 minute, whichever is less. After the time has passed you are considered fully rested, and you are no longer fatigued if you acquired that condition as a result of these checks. Any subdual damage acquired will need to heal normally and does not heal at all during any hour in which you acquire more of it. If you begin exerting yourself before you have become fully rested, your previous penalty is reduced by 1 point for each round spent resting, but must begin making checks as soon as you have moved the equivalent of 1 round at a flat-out pace with the current penalty.
If you became fatigued during your exertion, you’re done moving faster than a hustle for a while since the condition actually disallows taking any flat-out actions. If you became exhausted during your exertion, it stops you from doing pretty much anything beyond an unhurried pace since it disallows everything except walking. If you acquired the exhausted condition from exertion and these checks, it reduces to fatigued after 10 minutes of rest. While exhausted, time spent resting does not count towards becoming fully rested or reducing the check penalty you’ve build up. If you accrue sufficient subdual damage to lose consciousness, you do not put any time towards eliminating the exhausted or fatigued conditions until you wake up.
Base DC: 10 or difficult surface DC, +1 for each previous check since you were fully rested, +1 for every 5 points of subdual damage
Check Result:
- DC+0 and above: You suffer no effects other than the increased DC of the net check.
- DC-1 to DC-5: You suffer 2 points of subdual damage. In no case can this cause you to suffer more subdual damage than you have hit points. You still suffer the +1 DC increase to your check next round if you continue, in addition to the DC penalty for your subdual damage.
- DC-6 and below: You suffer 4 points of subdual damage and become fatigued, and as such may no longer take any action at the flat-out pace, like the run action. If you were already fatigued you instead become exhausted, and as such may no longer take an action at the flat-out or hustling pace. If you are immune to fatigue, you become exhausted if you fail this check by this amount twice. The subdual damage caused by this result may bring your total subdual damage over your total current hit points and leave you unconscious.
Level Based Adjustments
Revised Overland Movement
Now that the really detailed movement and fatigue has been laid out, it's time to apply these rules to overland movement.
Normal Movement
If you have ever sat down with a calculator and tried to figure out exactly how far a person moving at 30 feet per round would move in an hour, you've probably noticed that the SRD overland movement table short changes you a bit. And honestly, it should. Normal overland movement includes time spent moving around gullies and dense patches of forest and over hills and all sorts of minor "straight line" distance deviations that 3 miles per hour in any specific direction is probably generous. The other thing to remember is that you're often taking breaks during this movement. You don't just start walking and stop 8 hours later with no breaks in between. You have all sorts of body concerns that slow you down or stop you temporarily, and this time spent not walking is time spent not making any progress at all.
Importantly though, it is time spent resting. And since you can walk for 10 minutes per point of constitution and only need to rest 1 round for each of those 10 minute periods, that time resting is often enough to
Forced March
A forced march is not the same thing in this revision case as it is in the SRD. Aside from the vastly different fatigue setup, there's simply no 8 hour walking cap for anyone to exceed. A forced march here is where you try as hard as you can to get that extra distance you normally lose to breaks. You don't stop to rest, you don't stop to eat, you don't stop for the bathroom, and you don't stop at all if you can avoid it. Anything that can be done while walking, gets done while walking. Anyone who stops has to hustle to catch back up, which makes the break not particularly useful.
For groups without ranks in endurance, this means fatigue starts to set in around the 2 hour mark.
Level Based Adjustments
The above results can be applied pretty generally, but they don't take into account the growth allowed by the new Endurance skill. The table here lists the overland movement rates for various people with ranks in
Using This Variant Without ToP
The revised skills in the Tome of Prowess are not appropriate for everyone or every game. If those skills don't work for you for whatever reason, but you would still like to be able to use this revised movement and fatigue mechanic you can do so with a few minor tweaks.
- Players make constitution checks when they reach their limits instead of endurance checks, since the skill doesn't exist. The check results are still appropriate however.
- Players with the Endurance feat double the time they can spend running per point of constitution. This is doubled again for every 4 character levels they have.
- Players can add make a swimming or climbing check in place of a constitution check to continue the appropriate action after they reach their limit. This provides the skills with additional value while also reinforcing tropes.
- Players with the Run feat can add their character level to constitution checks to continue running after they've reached their limit.
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