Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

We tend to think of TFT as a system of 3 attributes married to a chosen set of Talents. However, there is a 4th attribute that doesn't get talked about much - Movement Allowance (MA).

MA is quite an interesting anomaly; it's not one of the three primary attributes and you can't allocate extra points to it at character creation, you also can't increase it by experience. However, it is affected by armour in a similar way as DX is and yet it's not linked to DX. At the same time, it's not a Talent, although the Running Talent adds 2 to its value.

MA is instead set by Race or Species; 10 for Humans, 12 for Wolves, for example. I can see a logic in this as all wolves (although they may have some variation within the species) will run considerably faster than all Humans.

I just wondered if anyone had made MA a fully fledged Attribute, or otherwise "mucked about with it?"

Re: Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

Hi Chris,
Most animals move too slow, so I've increased their MA. Other than that, I've not mucked around with it. I do not consider it to be an attribute.

Warm regards, Rick.

Re: Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

Yes Rick, when I went back to check the MA for Wolves before I posted, I was surprised it was as low as 12 (so basically an unarmoured man with Running Talent). I had it in my mind it was 16-18.

Re: Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

It should probably be much higher than listed for all the wild animals, if it's going to represent that they are faster than humans. At least 16-18 is probably good for a wolf, though the actual relative running speed would seem to be more like 23-26.

We ran some numbers in a previous thread.

Re: Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

I suspect that the wolf's movement allowance is a game balance artifact from Wizard's origins as an arena wargame.

One way to address it in a more realistic manner while not breaking the arena game is to allow wolves and similar creatures to move 50% faster when running away from a combat. Some form of handwavium can be deployed to rationalize it (animals are naturally more cautious in combat, whatever).

Re: Movement Allowance - the Fourth Attribute?
 

Well, the original question was about whether anyone had done anything particular with MA. Since no one has responded in that vein, here's what I did:

When I split each of the three attributes into pairs, I ended up with DX and AG (Agility). DX was for chance to hit with Melee weapons or Missiles (in other words for manipulating an object). AG was for saving throws against slipping etc (in other words for manipulating your body).

It occurred to me that MA was basically that anyway. So I did away with MA and just used Agility instead. Since I allowed both DX and AG to be affected by armour I didn't need to make any other changes apart from the fact that AG would not always be a round number.

It did tend to make the MA of experienced characters a bit higher than under RAW but I didn't find that a problem.