Acute hearing and darkness

[warhorse11h]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Warhorse,
Thanks for listing that out. Let me summarize and please let me know if I got it right.

I think your point is that Acute Hearing says "traveling" at half speed is about movement through a labyrinth map and not about half MA during combat. Since it said half of traveling and not half MA.

So, that would be 1 hex of labyrinth map every 10 seconds instead of every 5.

In combat, that would be half of MA 3. I guess either MA 1 or 2 since it does not specify.

If I got this wrong, let me know how.

That is correct. But it does go further.
The rules also say that a party moving in darkness has no chance to notice hidden things. So that piece is simply confirming that you can move, but you can't find hidden doors, etc.
It isn't specifically addressing 1/2 MA in combat, but combat rules do that on their own. You surrender any chance of striking if you move more than 1/2 your MA and striking with a spell or a missile weapon limit one to 1 hex in combat movement.
The talent does provide distinct benefits, but other than the above, they don't reference movement. You can't be surprised in the dark from behind. You can hear approaching beings before they here you, You can detect beings at up to three MH distant (which could allow one with high enough DX to either fire a missile weapon or a missile spell), you fight with a reduced penalty in darkness, but your party has to be quiet. Other than that, you bear the same risks as someone without the talent moving in the dark. The wording of the talent and some of the portions I mentioned in my first post would, I believe, support the idea that if you try to move too quickly, you rob yourself of the talent's benefits and are just as likely as anyone else to fall from moving to fast in the dark, the 3 or in some cases 4 die rolls mentioned earlier for moving faster than 1/2 your MA.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip

Warhorse,
Thanks for listing that out. Let me summarize and please let me know if I got it right.

I think your point is that Acute Hearing says "traveling" at half speed is about movement through a labyrinth map and not about half MA during combat. Since it said half of traveling and not half MA.

So, that would be 1 hex of labyrinth map every 10 seconds instead of every 5.

In combat, that would be half of MA 3. I guess either MA 1 or 2 since it does not specify.

If I got this wrong, let me know how.

Thanks, Axly, for summarizing the claim.

There are some issues with this reading. First, if we read "travel" as referring to the map hex speed of movement, then we get your calculation that a figure with Acute Hearing can move one map hex every two turns in the dark. However, in that case we have no hint at all how fast anyone else may travel in the dark. At best, then, ITL has given an exception to the speed of travel in the dark without giving the usual rule for that speed.

Note that tomc made such a suggestion about how to read the discrepancy as well.

If we extrapolate from that to consider per turn movement on the 4'/hex scale, we get one or two hexes per turn, but since anyone can move at up to half-movement without fear of falling down (per ITL 119), this is no advantage at all.

I think that if we try to read "travel" as different than "move", we're just going to get into paradoxical situations of one form or the other. One map hex per turn is the same as three hexes per turn[1], so we should be able to translate anything said about traveling to the equivalent statement in terms of movement allowance, but it all breaks down[2]. It would be weird if I can move a lot faster in combat with no penalty than I can move outside of combat.

[1] An argument can be made that it's really not the same, but more like two and a third map hexes per turn on average, because of the fact that every straight line through the center of one megahex are only five hexes long cuts through only two hexes of each of the next two megahexes, so that we really cover only seven hexes when traversing three megahexes.

[2] It also breaks down just looking at the rules for walking and running on p. 119, but that's clearly due to rounding errors. An MA of 10 gives 4 MH running per turn, which is spot on for a ratio of seven hexes for every three megahexes, but too fast otherwise. The other values are similarly off, but these discrepancies just make keeping track of movement on the labyrinth map much easier and so we ignore them.

[hcobb]

Does this mean that Shadow hexes require 2 MA to enter?

[Steve Plambeck]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Does this mean that Shadow hexes require 2 MA to enter?

Not for the first one, but I'd sure consider it for continuing to move through a long succession of Shadow hexes -- not that it ever comes up.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Not for the first one, but I'd sure consider it for continuing to move through a long succession of Shadow hexes -- not that it ever comes up.

Exactly right.