Revised Overland Movement and Fatigue Rules (3.5e Variant Rule)
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This variant rule is designed to work closely with several aspects of the Tome of Prowess, but that system is not required to make use of it. It opens 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 last can be applied to extraordinarily long fights, like one man against an army much lower level than he, where fatigue is a greater enemy than the 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 and extremely long epic fights, and use this variant rule because it better defines the movement aspects of the game world and the actions that they use. And it allows characters to make heroic run attempts that leave them unconscious. Those are good reasons to adopt it too.
Contents
Are We There Yet? - Revised Movement and Fatigue Rules
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. And while no one likes to talk about it, these speeds tire people out. These rules are intended to better model this unfortunate truth while also allowing for characters to exceed their normal limits as they grow in level.
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. The deciding
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 cover up to 4 times their base movement speed in exchange for caution and precision. They may even split their movement 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 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 Action Fatigue Rules
Characters are often portrayed as fonts of energy and youth, but they do get tired and how quickly they get tired depends a lot on what they’re doing. Moving flat-out and running full speed is the least efficient use of your energy, but it is also the pace most likely to tire a character out in game. Movement at a different pace reduces to rounds of movement at the flat-out pace for bookkeeping purposes, since we care much more about rounds spent running from a dragon than we do about rounds spent strolling around a garden. 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. Use whichever DC applicable DC is greater. 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, you gain a +1 bonus to your check 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.
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.
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