Movement

Synopsis

Unlike Fourth and Third Editions, ArM5 lacks detailed rules for movement.

Tactical (Combat) Movement

There are no hard-and-fast rules for combat movement in ArM5. The Group Combat rules mean that characters need to have a lot of freedom of movement so they can mill around and engage members of other groups, or use the Defender option (p. 173) to protect their charge. The abstract group rules are conceptually incompatible with detailed miniatures-and-graph-paper type movement rules.

There are some situations where players do want to know how far someone can go in a round - for example, when two groups are standing 20 yards apart and one group wants to throw spears while the other wants to rush into melee. The intent of ArM5 seems to be to simply resolve these situations by common sense. Lords of Men provides optional movement rules.

You can also try using the Fourth Edition combat movement rates. You can download a PDF of Fourth Edition for free. For your convenience, we'll reprint the movement rates here:

Speed

• Walking |9 + Qik - Enc |
• Hustling | 15 + Qik - Enc|
• Sprinting | 30 + Qik + Athletics - Enc - Wound Penalties - Fatigue Penalty |
• Horseback (safe gallop) | 50 + ride |

Travel

In ArM5, there are no hard-and-fast rules for how far a character can travel in a day. The topic of travel is covered on page 181, including some rules of thumb for typical travel speeds.

The supplement City & Guild, however, includes a whole chapter dedicated to travel, including land and sea travel, typical distances and travel times, and even some rules for ship-to-ship combat.

References

• Travel, ArM5 page 181
• ArM4 movement rules, page 163

See also

• Group Combat