Special Movement

[dracusmage]

I looked up the character sheet code to see if there is an already built-in way to add text to the "Special Movement" field. There is not (see sheet_standard1.dat lines 626-632).

I could probably modify the sheet to pull from a series of special movement traits (charge and flying for certain, and any other special movements that may have specific modifiers, like running/swimming/burrowing?) and only display them if they have a modifier (+ or -, but not 0). This would allow for features and items that add to charge or flying speed to actually print that information on the sheet. Unfortunately, this would require modifying all of the character sheets (not so bad after the first one) as well as adding an additional set of traits to the core data files (thing_traits.dat) so that each item and feature can add or subtract from the special move trait (trFly, trCharge, etc). And then further modifying each item and feature that adds a special speed modifier to add it to the right trait.

Is this something that anyone cares about, or am I just fixating on a problem that everyone is perfectly happy to just fix by using a pencil?

[Cryptoknight]

Presently it's just been something I remember when I'm playing a character with modifications...

For instance, there's an avenger paragon path that adds to flight movement while active, but like it... and other powers, the modifications to movement are mostly transitory, which makes it sort of difficult to implement, unless we went something like Shadowrun does where you can do things like activate drugs and have them modify stats.

Seems like a lot of work, for not too much benefit.

[dracusmage]

Some things give a conditional modifier, and those would not be added to the sheet (like a stance). But some things like butterfly sandals add a permanent bonus to fly speed, and one of the barbarian types adds a bonus to speed when charging. It feels to me like those are things that should be listed. Power based bonuses (even though superficially they are like the bonus to speed when charging) aren't always available, so they should be on the power cards.

Regardless of the semantics, I agree that implementing a fix would be a lot of work for little benefit. I'll have to think about it later, once I've fixed all of my other little issues.

Possibly a stop gap would be to have movement cards that appear when there is a flight/climb/swim/charge etc modifier that specifies what the change would be and allows the player to easily see that they can add 1 to their flight speed or whatever, and let them put it on the sheet as works for them. It would be easier than fixing the character sheets, but still a lot of work.

My only reason for fixating on this at all is that I have a bunch of less experienced players, and if the character sheet and cards don't give them the information simply, they effectively don't have it. One of these players with butterfly sandals and an occasional fly ability would basically just have expensive magic sandals and an unmodified fly speed.