Non-combat running

[hcobb]

Eliud Kipchoge - Averaging MA 24 for two hours.

How do you house rule that?

[Chris Rice]

Why would you need to?

[hcobb]

For long distance chases and such.

[Chris Rice]

I think it's already been established on these forums that MA, as defined in the game, doesn't relate to real world running pace.

To say that Kipchoge has MA 24 would mean he could outrun a wolf, or other fleet footed four-legged animal etc, which is clearly nonsense.

In any case, the way I dealt with long range chases was that it only became relevant where the contestants MA was the same. If the escapee had a lower MA, they'd soon be caught. If higher, they would soon escape. If equal, then ST (stamina) would be the determining factor.

Of course terrain, deception etc could come into things.

[Tenex]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

To say that Kipchoge has MA 24 would mean he could outrun a wolf, or other fleet footed four-legged animal etc, which is clearly nonsense.

Not really. It depends on the distance. I regularly run my black lab into the ground. In the short run she crushes me and I can't keep up. I could never beat her over 100 yards. But over a couple miles at a consistent 5-7 mph pace she starts to drag and can't keep up.

The longer the race, the more competitive humans become. There are even horse vs. human races which become competitive at marathon distances.

Humans use persistence hunting to run down prey. A lot of this has to do with our ability to sweat instead of pant. This is a more efficient cooling method and in the long run allows us to literally run animals down. (Gotta be a good tracker to pull this off though because they can run out of our sight in the short term).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

"Persistence hunting has even been used against the fastest land animal, the cheetah. In November 2013, four Somali-Kenyan herdsmen from northeast Kenya successfully used persistence hunting in the heat of the day to capture cheetahs who had been killing their goats." (From the wiki).

[Chris Rice]

I don't think domesticated pets like your Labrador tell us much about this sort of thing. I'd like to see you outlast wild wolves or African hunting dogs who do this sort of thing for a living. That's not the point though. The original question/statement was that Kipchoge had an MA of 24. I'm not sure where that figure came from; it's not in the rules as the maximum MA for a human is 10 (or 12 if they have the running Talent). The rules also don't differentiate between short time MA and longer period running. I've never felt it necessary to worry about that but if it's something that does occur a lot in your games you'll need to houserule something.

[Helborn]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Eliud Kipchoge - Averaging MA 24 for two hours.

How do you house rule that?

Since he's not wearing armor or carrying weapons it doesn't compare.

But if you want a rule, how about: any person with 0 encumbrance (that means not even .1 lb) can travel at 2x MA for STxST # of turns. After that it takes a 3/ST roll to continue for another ST # of turns. (A 4 means he can run for another STxST number of turns (18.75 minutes) and a 3 means that he can run for 3xSTxST number of turns (56.25 minutes). A failed roll or a 16 means he has to slow to regular MA, a 17 means he has to slow to walking speed (3 MA) and an 18 means he immediately takes (# of rolls since beginning to run) fatigue damage. This fatigue damage WILL reduce the ST used for further calculations. This may mean that he has to stop running completely and may lose consciousness. (He may not take more fatigue damage than he has ST.)

Assume Kipchoge has ST=15, DX=15, IQ=8 with Running Talent

That gives him a base MA of 12 which he can run at 24 MA for 18.75 minutes before having to make 100 rolls. If gets a 3 or 4 then he needs fewer rolls.

[RobW]

MA can't be running speed per se.
10 MA = 10 hexes per turn =
10 hexes per 5 seconds =
40 feet per 5 seconds =
8 feet per second = 5 mph

[Skarg]

As RobW just posted, and we've discussed in other threads, combat MA is slow compared to actual speeds of humans (by about half) and other animals (by even more, especially MA 8 bears LOL).

MA also allows you to run in any zig-zag or tight circles you want, which can't be done by real figures at their full running speed. And that starts to be a tactical issue in TFT when figures start getting very high MA (mainly some mounted figures, fliers, and people using Speed Movement magic).

One easy house-rule solution usable even by "OMG GURPS" players, is to say that:

Anyone who is on reasonably clear terrain and has spent the entire previous turn running in basically one direction, can run their "sprint" MA in the same direction the next turn, which for humans would be double their normal combat MA, and for animals would be probably about three times their RAW combat MA (or GM rule it, see the thread where we calculated some, and/or calculate it yourself).

Note that dragons already have pretty much this same rule.

[JLV]

Historically speaking (and physically, as well) a trained human runner CAN run down a horse or other running animal. It's been done many times, even in warfare. The problem is that tactically it's not too useful since the horse can clearly move faster than even a trained runner for short periods (i.e., the duration of an engagement between two units), and has an enormous advantage in impact energy when the two individuals collide. Strategically speaking, though, cavalry clearly isn't that much better than infantry in long-distance movement, especially if the infantry can conduct forced marches (people can eat and drink on the move -- horses have to stop to do both, and after eating need some time to digest before starting up again).

In short, I can see using it as a story element, but not in a tactical situation.