Combat Movement to restrictive? House rules?

[captcorajus]

I guess its me, but I never really paid attention to how little people can move RAW in combat. Especially if you're a dwarf... and god forbid if you're encumbered at all. It seems a bit oppressive. Are most people following this, or are they house ruling to allow for the more common full move (30/20ft) and still attack?

Here are some house rules I'm using (Clearly 5E Influenced) that have worked out very well in collusion with C&C rules:

Movement
Characters May move part or all of their movement, and still attack during the combat round. A character not engaged in melee combat can move, attack and continue to move up to the movement rate on the character sheet.

More commonly this is used by spell casters and those with ranged attacks to allow a character to move from behind a wall, attack, and then move back to cover.

Combat Maneuvers
I'm adding two combat maneuvers to the game:
Dash:
The character takes another full move. A character may not attack in a round where they use the Dash maneuver.

Ready:
A character may ready an action such Attack, Cast A Spell, Use an Ability, or Use an Item instead of acting on their turn in the initiative cue. A character with a readied action may not also 'free attack', though they can elect to sacrifice the readied action in favor of a free attack .

Ranged Spell Attacks
Many spells require the caster to make a 'ranged touch attack' to hit the target. In these cases, the attack uses the BTH as normal, but is also modified by the caster's class prime attribute. i.e. Intelligence for Wizards, and wisdom for Clerics.

Dying Characters
At -7 to -9 a character is dying. If no aid, on their turn the character may make a constitution check to stablize on their own. The CL is equal to the negative HPs. i.e. CL7 for -7, CL8 for -8, and so on.

[Treebore]

Yeah, a lot of us house rule it to be 20/30 feet.

[Buttmonkey]

I typically ignore encumbrance. I otherwise run combat movement BTB when I remember to count distance.

[Rigon]

I'm a full move and attack kind of guy.

R-

[Omote]

I run it by the book. I think C&C has a nice, simple tactical element to the combat part of the game as written. Sure, it's a bit restrictive when compared to more modern D&D games, but I like it this way. As for encumbrance, I assume my players keep track of it as well as they can. Sometimes I throw them some bonus XPs when encumbrance questions kick into play and they have kept track of it correctly. Frankly, I hate characters that carry oodles and oodles of equipment for every situation.

I only have one important house rule when it comes to C&C combat. If you look at flank and back attacks in C&C combat, clearly written between the lines of the combat rules is "facing." I rule that if a character is aware of their combat surroundings, and their actions in initiative order have not yet come up, their character can change facing to be face-to-face with any opponent that they are fighting. However, when the combatant action in combat come up, they have to "lock in" a facing whether they move or attack, etc. That means, after they have completed their action, it's important to make sure facing is as advantageous as it can be because it's easy to get flanked or back-attacked when actions in initiative order have already been completed.

This is usually too complicated for most C&C players, but I like to add a little bit of complexity to the standard C&C combat on the grid, and even though players complain from time to time, I think it makes waiting for actions to come up a little more than just sitting back and saying "I attack the orc warlord" and rolling a d20. I think boring combat sometimes takes players out of the game.

That being said, I still find 3E levels of grid combat way to tactical, and boardgame like. A little bit more than base C&C, but not too much.

~O

[maximus]

I'm a full move and attack kind of guy.

R-

And we love that about you!

[alcyone]

I only have one important house rule when it comes to C&C combat. If you look at flank and back attacks in C&C combat, clearly written between the lines of the combat rules is "facing." I rule that if a character is aware of their combat surroundings, and their actions in initiative order have not yet come up, their character can change facing to be face-to-face with any opponent that they are fighting. However, when the combatant action in combat come up, they have to "lock in" a facing whether they move or attack, etc. That means, after they have completed their action, it's important to make sure facing is as advantageous as it can be because it's easy to get flanked or back-attacked when actions in initiative order have already been completed.

I used to run it that way too. Because I didn't keep careful track of facing, and based on "who did you attack or defend against last" it started to get confusing in large battles, especially with the monsters. Though with VTTs, they all can show facing, so I really shouldn't have trouble with it.

I also do half move per the rules, and you can't move at all and cast a spell, per the rules. But I do generally allow 5 feet of movement unless magically restrained.

[Lurker]

I'm a full move and attack kind of guy.

R-

And we love that about you!

+ 1 to that

And it is even better with my swashbuckler and his 'athletic' maneuvers (with required de check) to roll or twist or flip into an advantageous position as part of the move! Except for that one time fire was involved and I was on the wrong side of the flame spreading along the floor, but we don't need to mention that

Captc

Yeah, Rigon and Tree (the DMs I play in their games) both have house rules, with minor variations between them, that keep combat interesting and a lot less 'stand there and hack and slash'.

One thing I'd mention is readied actions by those that are first in int can be acted on when ever the opportunity happens - the elf ready to lose his arrow when something moves past point x, then as the orc (moving later in the round) charges forward to point x, the elf takes his shot then. It helps give a tactical reason to 'hold' and action

[Treebore]

I only have one important house rule when it comes to C&C combat. If you look at flank and back attacks in C&C combat, clearly written between the lines of the combat rules is "facing." I rule that if a character is aware of their combat surroundings, and their actions in initiative order have not yet come up, their character can change facing to be face-to-face with any opponent that they are fighting. However, when the combatant action in combat come up, they have to "lock in" a facing whether they move or attack, etc. That means, after they have completed their action, it's important to make sure facing is as advantageous as it can be because it's easy to get flanked or back-attacked when actions in initiative order have already been completed.

I used to run it that way too. Because I didn't keep careful track of facing, and based on "who did you attack or defend against last" it started to get confusing in large battles, especially with the monsters. Though with VTTs, they all can show facing, so I really shouldn't have trouble with it.

I also do half move per the rules, and you can't move at all and cast a spell, per the rules. But I do generally allow 5 feet of movement unless magically restrained.

As you know, I allow movement only if they have time AFTER their spell goes off. IE if their spell is finished before we reach 1 on the initiative count. So most times a spellcaster can move, AFTER finishing casting their spell, and they don't roll a 1 on initiative.

[trechriron]

I allow a breakup of movement in a round up to max move including one action. A human can move 15', attack, and move another 15'. Thus far I've had no issues.

[alcyone]

I allow a breakup of movement in a round up to max move including one action. A human can move 15', attack, and move another 15'. Thus far I've had no issues.

The times that would seem like a good idea would be ranged attacks, like the old Chainmail/OD&D split-move-and-shoot that Elves had. Also, when charging on horseback, I usually allow a degree of overrun (such as in jousting).

In melee though, it's strictly move-then-attack for me, and never attack-then-move, as it lets people disengage at will with no penalty and makes the fighters unable to reasonably protect the squishies, as there is no penalty for hitting them and running away.

Combined with some kind of opportunity attack though, it might be something I'd consider.

The game is pretty forgiving of most variations of the core maneuvers.

[Go0gleplex]

weapon combatant: full move ant attack.

mage: cast spell - if not requiring concentration to maintain, may move after spell goes off. If needs concentration may move at 10' per round without dropping the spell.

[finarvyn]

I'll confess that I often "wing it" when I run RPGs and often when confronted with a "by the book" interpretation I am often surprised to see that the way I do it doesn't match the actual rules content. Combat movement is one of those things. I got to play in a playtest at a game store and had been so used to "move and attack and move the rest" that I guess I assumed that the rules reflected this, but they don't. I like your house rules.