Let me begin by stating I don't advocate this rule to anyone else, in fact I am quite sure that most of you will not see a need for it at all and I respect it. I recently pushed an opinion in another thread far to staunchly and came off like a dolt, I don't want to repeat that.

The rule concerns what is an admittedly personal perception that movement between range bands seems awfully flat and gives little credence to the varying sizes of those bands or the mover's speed.

I'm not talking any specifics here on distances, I was versed thoroughly in that regard in another thread. But even in the generalities described in the book medium range is a far bigger stretch of space than short, for example, and yet it takes the same number of turns to cross them typically.

Also, although there is a provision allowing faster movers to cross the more distant and larger range bands in fewer turns, it seems odd that a faster mover has no advantage at the closer bands at all.

My solution, in brief, is to assign each range band a number of "sub bands" which must be crossed before entering the next full band. The number of sub bands crossed when performing a move maneuver is equal to the movers speed or agility.

Close = oo

Short = oooo

Medium= oooooo

Long = oooooooo

Extreme=oooooooooo

Movers can of course move less than their speed or not at all, zooming around within their band at that current speed for whatever purpose. They can also travel in either direction, making doubling back over already crossed space equally costly.

It doesn't seem any more complicated than tracking positions now but cleans things up a bit, to my mind.

I'd appreciate your input though, I am new to the game.

Let me just add that I realize a speed 1 mover will take like 30 minutes to reach extreme range but either a sand crawler at planetary scale or a slow walker at personal, well that seems about right to me.

It sounds like you come from the pathfinder/D&D games into this one. So did I, but keep in mind this is cinematic gameplay that is designed to flow and aid in story telling. This is not an exact mechanic of how everything is all the time.

You must unlearn what you have learned. Let go of the accounting that makes RPGs into physics classes and go with the flow.

That being said, try your system. If the players are getting wrapped around the axle about it and the enjoyment of the GROUP declines, chuck it. If it truly aids your GROUP and helps people enjoy the game keep it.

Haven't played D&D for decades and never gave pathfinder a chance but thanks for your opinion. I believe this would aid the creative narrative, not constrain it. It's hard to explain how a sand crawler closes on the party from rifle range to point blank in the time it took to squeeze off two shots.

Interesting system. I am at work so haven't had a time to clarify, but with this system I imagine a 6 agility character could cross 6 sub bands? Being able to move from short to nearly medium in a single move? Just so my understanding is concrete before I weigh in. Or 2 agility character would take two moves to get from short to engaged?

A simple abstract way of taking speeders into account is to treat the subject as a base agility of 2/3/4 multiplied by speed. So a sand crawler moving a little faster then a slow walk (3) going at speed 1 could move about 3 subbands per turn, but if a guy reved it up to speed 2 somehow, it would travel six bands a turn? Would be a pretty elegant way of linking the two systems together, personal and car.

I don't see anything wrong with your solution, you could then easily use a grid and count squares in the same way. There are some useful range counter sheets, maybe you haven't seen. Search Google images for: "edge of the empire" combat range bands <-- (include the quotes)

I also like the idea that each range band is slightly larger than the one before. The important thing is that it's fair to all, PCs and NPCs, which this seems to be.

I'm not sure about the Agility = Speed though...that means your shooter/pilot is almost always going to be twice as fast as your politician...maybe that's the effect you want, but I think it might be overkill. Plus, in the game, Agility is probably the most "useful" stat already. Plus #2, Brawn is the base "Athletics" skill, which is used in chases. So you might give each 2 ranks of Athletics a bonus instead of using Agility.

Aye, because I just remembered that Brawn governs all fitness, so a guy with a higher brawn rating would be a fitter individual and a faster runner, agility governs hand/eye coordination and tests based around that.

The problem I see is reconciling personal and planetary scale. That and at extreme range in vehicles you've essentially set up a situation where you have up to several rounds of just movement where no one can fire because they don't have range with their weapons.

Your poor melee guys are going to be very upset. When you do your playtesting for non-vehicles, try starting a few fights out from long range and see how it goes.

I'll also second Lordbiscuit about the differences between Agility and Brawn.

Edit: Medium may be a larger band than short, but it still doesn't take "twice the effort" to cross. However Long would take twice the effort to cross into Medium, when compared to Medium moving into Short.

Being 100% honest, I think it's unnecessary, and splitting hairs with a system that was designed specifically to indicate distance benchmarks to quickly determine difficulty level, rather than specific, hard distances between objects at any given time.

But, based upon your posts, those hairs are ones that you and/or your group feel need to be split in order to play and enjoy the game. So, if it works for you, have at it.

The problem I see is reconciling personal and planetary scale. That and at extreme range in vehicles you've essentially set up a situation where you have up to several rounds of just movement where no one can fire because they don't have range with their weapons.

Well you would skip those and just narrate till the close.

Being 100% honest, I think it's unnecessary, and splitting hairs with a system that was designed specifically to indicate distance benchmarks to quickly determine difficulty level, rather than specific, hard distances between objects at any given time.

But, based upon your posts, those hairs are ones that you and/or your group feel need to be split in order to play and enjoy the game. So, if it works for you, have at it.

Yes but those same benchmarks govern movement too, at least opening and closing in combat situations. I just feel the existing one is a little inconsistent and minimizes participant speed differences.

I appreciate the feedback, it needs tweaking for sure. Play testing as well. Just a rough idea.

Being 100% honest, I think it's unnecessary, and splitting hairs with a system that was designed specifically to indicate distance benchmarks to quickly determine difficulty level, rather than specific, hard distances between objects at any given time.

But, based upon your posts, those hairs are ones that you and/or your group feel need to be split in order to play and enjoy the game. So, if it works for you, have at it.

Yes but those same benchmarks govern movement too, at least opening and closing in combat situations. I just feel the existing one is a little inconsistent and minimizes participant speed differences.

And there, I think, is our disconnect in one word: "govern." Even at 400+ pages, no RPG rulebook is going to be able to cover every possibility, and even attempting to can result in some head-scratching seeming incongruities. The risk of that increases when dealing with a system like this one that stresses speedy narrative over crunching numbers. (That method of resolving actions is part of what led me to reluctantly-at-first switch my upcoming campaign from the old D6 system to the FFG system.) It seems that FFG agrees that there can be some incongruity when trying to impose such scales, given the rules stress determining ranges in a way that best fits the story than being slavishly devoted to numbers assigned somewhat arbitrarily as frames of reference.

So I'd say they don't "govern" movement, but rather provide a general frame of reference for movement.

Well it's not my intent to a Dando or seriously change the core rules. I see this as a subtle alternative that accomplishes the same thing with a bit more info for the players to go by when visualizing the action.

Well it's not my intent to a Dando or seriously change the core rules. I see this as a subtle alternative that accomplishes the same thing with a bit more info for the players to go by when visualizing the action.

I get that. As I said, it appears to be a particular sticking point with you and/or your players, so you're doing what any half-decent gamer/GM would do: come up with something that makes it easier for the pertinent individuals to wrap their heads around. Some will find it useful, others will find it more work than necessary. Such is life in RPG-land.

Since one players' action might only take 3 seconds ex: taking aim and firing a blaster from behind cover, and another PC narrates a whole host of movement and acrobatics as they close on their enemy and use their lightsaber to try and disable them...these are both actions that take place during a single turn, but one can take 3 seconds whereas the other can take a minute or more depending on the acrobatics involved

I think the narrative aspect of this system is great because it allows everyone to do what they want to do, without going so in depth that it becomes a math/physics problem. When you start adding in all of these "extras" such as what you listed above, it seems to me that it would take away that freedom by trying to explain everything too much.

If you want to narrate your players running across the sands of Tattooine to engage with a Krayt Dragon, then narrate that they run across the sand as fast as possible towards the dragon...if a player wants to push themselves to arrive sooner they can do an agility check or take some strain to keep up to the other players. If they are with a Jawa Sandcrawler with some canons on it, you can always allow them to roll initiative and say "it will take 2-3 rounds before the Sandcrawler is going to be able to cross the expanse to be in weapons range. You have to survive at least that long before backup arrives." That way you can get the battle going but instead of having the Sandcrawler roll or use a certain stat to do an action and get closer to the action, you can give them X number of rounds until it's there.

However, like what everyone has said so far...if you want to do it that way and it works for your group then kudos to you. Personally I just wouldn't want to go to that type of micro-management type system.

The problem I see is reconciling personal and planetary scale. That and at extreme range in vehicles you've essentially set up a situation where you have up to several rounds of just movement where no one can fire because they don't have range with their weapons.

Well you would skip those and just narrate till the close.

Which is kind of what the existing system already does with how you cover larger distances from Extreme to Long than Medium to Short don't ya think?.....

Seems to create a lot of extra bookkeeping just to reconcile the issue you are having with abstract ranges and times.

I also think it would get super wonky with some Force stuff. Enhance and Atraru both give enhanced movement. So you'll have to figure out how that's going to stay relevant. Along with not overemphasizing one characteristic.

For my money, it's easier to just get over concerns about distances and travel time and range bands. But it's your game and if you feel a need to cluster up the system with baggage that is your prerogative.

The problem I see is reconciling personal and planetary scale. That and at extreme range in vehicles you've essentially set up a situation where you have up to several rounds of just movement where no one can fire because they don't have range with their weapons.

Well you would skip those and just narrate till the close.

Which is kind of what the existing system already does with how you cover larger distances from Extreme to Long than Medium to Short don't ya think?.....

Well perhaps I am learning you guys,deviate from the rules more than I would normally assume. There are rules that cover the movement of comvatants. I'm hearing ignore them and just describe it. I could go with that but where would it end?

Well perhaps I am learning you guys,deviate from the rules more than I would normally assume. There are rules that cover the movement of comvatants. I'm hearing ignore them and just describe it. I could go with that but where would it end?

I don't understand the question...we aren't deviating from the rules, we are narrating the movement as it describes in the CRB...

Endor07's post would seem to indicate otherwise. I'm all for freelancing a bit but some players bulk when their carefully planned actions go goofy because of a GM'S interpretation of the scene.

The problem I see is reconciling personal and planetary scale. That and at extreme range in vehicles you've essentially set up a situation where you have up to several rounds of just movement where no one can fire because they don't have range with their weapons.

Well you would skip those and just narrate till the close.

Which is kind of what the existing system already does with how you cover larger distances from Extreme to Long than Medium to Short don't ya think?.....

Well perhaps I am learning you guys,deviate from the rules more than I would normally assume. There are rules that cover the movement of comvatants. I'm hearing ignore them and just describe it. I could go with that but where would it end?

I don't know exactly anything in particular you've been told to deviate from except some of the numerical ranges listed, which really are just guidelines.

A number of direct quotes from the books were posted about keeping things abstract and not pinned down with absolutes.

OggDude posted the quote about precisely not using distance measurements.

The rules themselves speak about narrating and defining amounts of time, and distances in ways that fit the narrative.

Your suggestion makes the numbers more correct if you need to have a more direct time spent/distance covered feel, but when I point out that you will need to take several rounds for ships to come into combat from extreme range, your reply is to just skip that and narrate, which is what everyone has more or less been telling you the rules already do.

Maneuvers and the non linear nature of distance relation is handled the way it is by the rules to skip the sort of non relevant (albeit accurate) time spent covering distance, to instead fast forward and get to the action.

I think maybe if you just tossed the whole maneuver in relation to range bands concept, and went with fixed numbers for movement rates it might get you where you need to be. Couple that with some numerical ranges for the range bands on the weapons so you don't have to reinvent that.

In the end I don't think you can force a linear equivalent calculation approach to ranges and movement into a non liner non equivalent system is what it boils down to.

Endor07's post would seem to indicate otherwise. I'm all for freelancing a bit but some players bulk when their carefully planned actions go goofy because of a GM'S interpretation of the scene.

I don't see how I am doing it incorrectly...like you said though, it is based on my interpretation of the scene and how I want it to flow. If you are talking about how fast the sandcrawler was moving without using stats, you can always make it part of the initative right away and have it use it's turn to get closer. My reasoning is that it would effectively be the same thing as narrating that it will be here in X rounds because it would normally take that long to cross from extreme to medium range anyways.

You are the GM though, you set the scene, you interpret the scene and actions just like anything else...and if a player says "that's not what I meant by XYZ..." then hear them out and make a ruling or apologize and re-state what you were trying to convey now that you understand what they were trying to do.

Well perhaps I am learning you guys,deviate from the rules more than I would normally assume. There are rules that cover the movement of comvatants. I'm hearing ignore them and just describe it. I could go with that but where would it end?

It ends where it needs to end, for your story and plot purposes.

IMO, the rule should be that you add only that complexity that you absolutely need for story and plot purposes, and no more.

And later, if you find you need to add a bit more complexity for story and plot purposes, then consider where and how that should be added, and if maybe you can instead make some tweaks that don’t necessarily add any complexity but just shift it around a bit.

You still want to keep self-consistency, but when you’re trying to build a framework for an entire Universe, you don’t want any more baggage than is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, the whole thing will collapse under it’s own weight.

And range/distances is a particular area of difficulty where I would urge extreme caution before you start fiddling with RAW.