SM and Move

[Kalzazz]

There anywhere relating SM and Move that likely go together? It seems vaguely that a 2 meter human and a 33 meter Colossus should move at different rates

[kirbwarrior]

There's no official rule to it, you just buy Move for the size. I like to use Super Movement for enormous races.

However, there's not really a direct correlation between size and speed. Look at all the natural creatures between SM -2 and SM 0. There's a tremendous difference between them all.

As for a colossus, if it did have the same Move 5 as a human, that doesn't mean it's stride is as small as a human's, it could have a proportionately long stride and just takes seconds (or even minutes!) to do.

For a house rule, I'm not against the idea of positive SM getting a 1:1 bonus to move, it would line up with Gigantism. It's definitely not overpowered or anything (Positive SM is barely worse than Negative to me).

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

There anywhere relating SM and Move that likely go together? It seems vaguely that a 2 meter human and a 33 meter Colossus should move at different rates

Well vehicles rules as written can and do have quite high SM.

If you build a PC as a vehicle you just buy the appropriate move.


So should be the same for collusi

[Maz]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

For a house rule, I'm not against the idea of positive SM getting a 1:1 bonus to move, it would line up with Gigantism. It's definitely not overpowered or anything (Positive SM is barely worse than Negative to me).

I do this as well. But admittedly very rarely go above or below SM +/- 2.

[GWJ]

Yeah, but there are no any guidelines about how much move you should buy for character x times bigger

[Anaraxes]

Even if you restrict to the question to "appropriate Move for bipedal humanoid walking", you still have to decide if you're looking for a realistic guideline or not. Reality tells you that you don't have a 23-foot colossus with the same proportions as a 6-foot human. But a setting where you do have such things is likely the reason for the question.

If you model legs as a pendulum, then you get a walking speed that's proportional to the square root of the length of the legs.

But, while that notion is plausible from a minimal-effort point of view, and is related to maximum walking speeds (as opposed to the point where your gait switching to "jogging" or "running" and you move even faster, which is not the same as your Move), it turns out that leg length is not actually very significant in determining normal walking speeds. (See this paper, if you have a way to access the full version.)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by GWJ

Yeah, but there are no any guidelines about how much move you should buy for character x times bigger

This is a complex bio-mechanical topic that only really got a good answer in 2017:


In the paper, they did some math, found a theoretical curve, and fit it to existing data.



The take away is that bigger equals faster up to a point, and the peak of the curve is about 300 lbs. After that, the extra weight just slows you down. Its more complex than that, but that's the simplest way.

[weby]

The basic answer is that SM does not directly relate to size in the real life.

But there is an official partial answer to the question in "combat writ large" pyramid 3-77 page 6 under "side orders". That article is very helpful if you have creatures of different SMs interacting, though the move modifier is kind of unsatisfactory....

For fantasy monsters that as "just as X but larger/smaller" I use the size as simple multiplier, while knowing that it is not realistic... So a SM 2 ogre is 2 times as fast for the same speed as SM 0 human.

[Flyndaran]

Average house cats sprint much faster than Usain Bolt on his best day.
Giant tortoises aren't quite so speedy.

Positive SM is free, so it shouldn't come with any such over balancing freebees.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Positive SM is free, so it shouldn't come with any such over balancing freebees.

Positive SM has some horrible inherent penalties.