5) Time and Motion

How fast can I move?

Combat movement

Each point of the Agility stat a character has allows them to walk one metre/yard or run three metres/yards in a three-second combat round.

In other words, Agility 6 means a walking speed of 2m/s or yd/s and a running speed of 6m/s or yd/s. 1m/s is 3.6 kph (or about 2.25mph). 1yd/s is about 2mph (or 3.2 kph). It all depends on what units you're using.

Obviously, this represents pretty brisk walking or fast sprinting. Such a rapid movement rate cannot be sustained for long periods.

Long-distance movement

When walking or running long distances, the character moves at half the combat rate. In other words, a character with Agility 6 can cover 3.6km or 2¼ miles per hour. This assumes that the going is good, on firm, smooth, dry level ground. Walking uphill on a path strewn with rocks slows progress to a fraction of this speed. Regular pauses for rest, food and water, and nightly stops for sleep, are necessary to stave off exhaustion. Characters who try to skip these breaks have to make Toughness checks to keep going.

Long distance running (or jogging) requires a Toughness check or Average Athletics task every 15 minutes, or else the character must slow to walking speed for another 15 minutes before they can resume running.

Vehicle movement

Vehicles have a variable agility stat, calculated from the vehicle's speed at that moment (e.g. during that combat round). This Agility stat is needed if certain rules, such as area fire, are to be calculated for the vehicle and its occupants. Simply divide the current speed in kph by 3.6 (or 3.5 if that makes it easier), or the top speed in mph by 2.25 (or 2 if that is easier).

Too much baggage

OK, you've bought all your guns, ammo, armour, tools, food, sleeping gear etc. Now you have to lug it around with you. Consider this. Soldiers in World War II carried an average of 16.5 kg (36 lbs) in combat, although up to 30 kilos of equipment might have been carried on the march. Modern soldiers in The US Army carry an average of 28.5 kg (63 lbs), and up to 59 kg (130 lbs) during long missions on foot. This is proving to be a problem.

A 32.5kg (72 lb) load increases the energy required for movement by 40 per cent, and every 20 per cent increase on that load raises the heart rate by 20 beats per minute. The distance a soldier can march in six hours decreases on average by 2 km (1.25 miles), and the time taken to complete an obstacle course by 10 to 15 per cent, for every 4.5 kg (10 lbs) carried over 18 kg (40 lbs).

The amount of weight carried has a negative effect on the character's Agility and Reflexes stats. This effect is called Encumbrance (ENC), and is applied as a negative modifier to Agility and Reflexes. Bulky worn items like body armour or life vests also have an ENC value, independent of their actual weight.

A character may carry an absolute maximum of their Strength x 10 in kilos (kg), or their Strength x 20 in pounds (lb). They can carry one-third of their maximum weight-carrying allowance (counting clothing and armour) with no ENC penalty. Between one-third to one-half of the allowance can be carried, but with an ENC penalty of 1. From one-half two-thirds can be carried with an ENC penalty of 2, from two-thirds to five sixths at ENC 3, and from five-sixths to the full carry allowance at ENC 4.

These modifiers are in addition to those for armour and other effects.

If Agility or Reflexes drop below 1 as a result of ENC, the character cannot carry the load, no matter how strong they are.

The table below shows the different carrying limits for a range of Strength values. The values in italics are outside the normal human range.

Strength	⅓ Max (ENC 0)	½ Max (ENC 1)	⅔ Max (ENC 2)	⅚ Max (ENC 3)	Max (ENC 4)
1	3kg/7lb	5kg/10lb	7kg/13lb	8kg/17lb	10kg/20lb
2	7kg/13lb	10kg/20lb	13kg/27lb	17kg/33lb	20kg/40lb
3	10kg/20lb	15kg/30lb	20kg/40lb	25kg/50lb	30kg/60lb
4	13kg/27lb	20kg/40lb	27kg/53lb	33kg/67lb	40kg/80lb
5	17kg/33lb	25kg/50lb	33kg/67lb	42kg/83lb	50kg/100lb
6	20kg/40lb	30kg/60lb	40kg/80lb	50kg/100lb	60kg/120lb
7	23kg/47lb	35kg/70lb	47kg/93lb	58kg/117lb	70kg/140lb
8	27kg/53lb	40kg/80lb	53kg/107lb	67kg/133lb	80kg/160lb
9	30kg/60lb	45kg/90lb	60kg/120lb	75kg/150lb	90kg/180lb
10	33kg/67lb	50kg/100lb	67kg/133lb	83kg/167lb	100kg/200lb
11	37kg/73lb	55kg/110lb	73kg/147lb	92kg183lb	110kg/220lb
12	40kg/80lb	60kg/120lb	80kg/160lb	100kg/200lb	120kg/240lb
13	43kg/87lb	65kg/130lb	87kg/173lb	108kg/217lb	130kg/260lb
14	47kg/93kg	70kg/140lb	93kg/187lb	117kg/233lb	140kg/280lb
15	50kg/100lb	75kg/150lb	100kg/200lb	125kg/250lb	150kg/300lb
16	53kg/107lb	80kg/160lb	107kg/213lb	133kg/267lb	160kg/320lb

Vehicles

Vehicles have a profile with a set of stats, including their Top Speed, Acceleration, Deceleration, Manoeuvre Speed and Handling.

Top Speed: The maximum speed a vehicle can reach in miles or kilometres per hour (mph or kph). Top speed is modified by payload and damage.

Acceleration: How quickly a vehicle can increase its speed, rated in miles and kilometres per hour, per combat Round (three seconds). If a car can go from 0-60mph (0-100kph) in six seconds, it has an Acceleration of 30mph/50kph per Round.

Deceleration: How quickly the vehicle can slow down, in mph and kph.

Manoeuvre Speed: This is the maximum speed at which a manoeuvre (like cornering in a car) can be performed safely. At higher speeds or under other difficult conditions a Control Check will have to be made to avoid losing control of the vehicle.

Handling: This represents how manoeuvrable and generally easy to control a vehicle is, expressed as a positive or negative modifier applied to all control checks.

Control checks

Whenever the driver, helmsman or pilot of a vehicle attempts a potentially dangerous manoeuvre, or has to try and keep or regain control of a vehicle under difficult circumstances, they must make a Control Check. This check is a Task roll one the character's relevant vehicle skill – Driving, Pilot etc. The difficulty of the task reflects the difficulty of the manoeuvre, and situational modifiers may be applied (see table below).

Situation Modifier

General

Per 10mph/15kph above MS: -1

Vehicle heavily loaded: -3

Vehicle overloaded: -5

Driver/Helmsman/Pilot drunk: -1 to -5

Darkness: -3

Driving/flying blind (fog etc.): -10

Combining two manoeuvres: -5

Driving

Unpaved road: -2

Off-road: -4

Slight gradient: -1

Steep gradient: -3

Very steep gradient: -5

Wet surface: -2

Heavy rain: -3

Muddy surface: -4

Icy surface: -5

Sailing

Rough seas: -3

Stormy seas: -5

Flying:

Air turbulence or wind shear: -3

Control checks are usually Hazardous (failure means an automatic roll on the mishap table) or fatal (there is an automatic consequence for failure).

Vehicle control mishaps (roll D6)

1-2: the vehicle skids, swerves, wallows or side-slips and loses 10 per cent of its initial speed.

3: as above, but the vehicle loses 25 per cent of its initial speed.

4: the vehicle skids sideways and comes to a halt, or stalls if it is an aircraft – in which case an Average control check is required to recover from the stall. For an articulated (tractor-trailer) vehicle, this means a jackknife accident.

5: the vehicle spins out of control, losing speed rapidly (one third of maximum speed per round on a dry surface or for a boat, less on wet, icy or oily surfaces). For an articulated (tractor-trailer) vehicle, this means a jackknife accident. The GM must rule whether it crashes into anything before it comes to a halt. Aircraft enter a spin, losing 1,000 feet (300m) in altitude per round and requiring a Difficult control check to recover.

6: the vehicle rolls, flips or capsizes or otherwise goes completely out of control and crashes.

Example

Ace moonshine runner Buck Wylde is cruising along a backwoods country road with a tank full of morning dew, when he spots a police interceptor on his tail. Hitting the gas, he tries to lose the cop car, which accelerates to keep up with the bootlegger.

About a mile down the road they come to a sharp left turn, closely followed by a sharp right. The GM rules that negotiating the first turn needs an Average Control Check, but the second turn is tighter so taking it requires a Difficult check.

Buck has a coordination of 8 and a Driving skill of 6. The cop has a Coordination of 7 and a Driving skill of 4. Buck's hot rod has a Handling stat of +2, while that of the cop car is +1. The road is unpaved, adding another

Buck slows down to 60mph (95kph) to take the first turn, and the cop follows suite. Both vehicles have a manoeuvre speed of 20mph (30kph), so they have a -4 modifier to their control checks due to speed.

Needing a score of 15 to succeed, Buck only rolls a 5 on 2D10 for his control check, but after adding his Coordination of 8, his skill of 6 and his car's Handling stat of +2, and subtracting 4 for the speed modifier and 2 for the road conditions, he gets a 16 – just scraping through the turn! The Cop rolls a 12 for a total of 18, also making the turn successfully.

A few seconds later both cars enter the second, tighter turn at the same speed. This time they need a score of 20 on their control checks to make it. Buck rolls an 11 for a total of 22after all the modifiers are applied. The cop rolls a 13 – unlucky for him, because he fails his control check by one. Rolling on the mishap table, the cop gets a 4: his car fishtails sideways and grinds to a halt. Buck speeds off laughing.

Crashes and impacts

Failing a control check (or deliberately ramming another vehicle or stationary object) is likely to result in a crash. When a vehicle crashes, all occupants take a non-lethal damage hit to a random location (see the section on Wounds under Combat below). The vehicle takes a lethal damage hit at the same DC.

The DC of the impact depends on the speed of the vehicle, and whether the impact is from the front or the side, as set out in the following table:

Crash speed DC

Front Side

10mph/15kph 2 6

20mph/30kph 7 11

30mph/50kph 8 12

40mph/65kph 11 18

50mph/80kph 15 21

60mph/95kph 18 24

70mph/115kph 19 25

80mph/130kph 20 26

+10mph/15kph +1 +1

Remember that a non-lethal damage attack with a DC of 10 or more can kill an average person.

When two moving vehicles collide, use the relative speed of the two. For instance, if a car travelling at 40mph (60kph) hits another doing 30mph (45kph) from behind, the relative speed is 10mph (15kph). If two cars going the same speeds collided head-on, the relative speed would be 70mph (115kph).

The relative mass of the vehicles is also important. If one vehicle is twice as heavy as the other (dry weight, not allowing for fuel, cargo or other payloads), it is hit with only half the DC, while the lighter vehicle is hit at 1.5 times the normal DC. If the mass ratio between the two vehicles is 4:1, the hit to the bigger vehicle is at one quarter normal DC, while to the smaller vehicle it is twice as high.

Mass Ratio DC modifier

8:1 divide by 8

4:1 divide by 4

2:1 divide by 2

1:2 multiply by 1.5

1:4 multiply by 2

1:8 multiply by 2.5

If a pedestrian, cyclist or motorcyclist is hit by a vehicle, they also take a non-lethal hit to a random location, with a DC determined by the vehicle's speed:

Vehicle speed DC

10mph/15kph 6

20mph/30kph 8

30mph/50kph 10

40mph/65kph 13

50mph/80kph 16

60mph/95kph 18

70mph/115kph 20

+10mph/15kph +2

This assumes a vehicle with a mass of one ton (1,000kg or 2,240lb) – a medium-sized car, by European standards. Doubling the mass of the vehicle increases the DC by half, while halving the mass decreases it by half:

Mass DC modifier

0.125 tons divide by 8

0.25 tons divide by 4

0.5 tons divide by 2

1 ton no modifier

2 tons multiply by 1.5

4 tons multiply by 2

8 tons multiply by 2.5

16 tons multiply by 3

Falling

Like road accidents, falling is a common risk in real life, and probably more so for characters in a role-playing game. PCs may find themselves leaping out of second-storey windows, scaling cliffs and buildings and bailing out of aircraft.

The old joke, which isn't a joke, is that “It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.” How badly the faller is injured is a question of how fast they are travelling when they hit the ground (which depends on the height of the fall), how quickly they decelerate to a stop (which depends on how hard the surface is), which part of their body they land on, and whether or not they are conscious (and therefore either tensed or floppy). People have died from tripping and falling on their head, and survived a fall of several miles unharmed after landing in trees and deep snow.

A free-falling object is accelerated by the force of gravity at an initial rate of about 9.8 metres per second per second (m/s²) or 32 feet per second per second (f/s²). However, in the atmosphere aerodynamic drag increases with the square of velocity, rapidly slowing the rate of acceleration to zero. The maximum speed, or terminal velocity, that a human body can reach in the atmosphere is about 120mph (195kph). A skydiver will reach this speed in 12 seconds, by which time they will have fallen 450m (1,500ft).

Whenever a character falls from a height, they take a non-lethal hit to a random location at the DC listed below, depending on the height fallen. For the sake of quickly calculating falling distances, one storey of an office or apartment building is roughly 3m/10ft high.

Fall distance Impact velocity DC

3m/10ft 28kph/17 mph 7

4m/13ft 32kph/20mph 8

6m/20ft 39kph/24mph 9

9m/30ft 47kph/29mph 10

12m/40ft 55kph/34mph 11

15m/50ft 61kph/38mph 12

18m/60ft 66kph/41mph 13

21m/70ft 71kph/44mph 14

24m/80ft 75kph/47mph 15

27m/90ft 80kph/50mph 16

33m/110ft 87kph/54mph 17

39m/130ft 93kph/58mph 18

45m/150ft 99kph/62mph 19

54m/180ft 107kph/67mph 20

72m/240ft 121kph/75mph 21

84m/280ft 128kph/80mph 22

96m/320ft 134kph/83mph 23

120m/400ft 145kph/90mph 24

150m/500ft 155kph/96mph 25

180m/600ft 163kph/101mph 26

210m/700ft 169kph/105mph 27

270m/900ft 178kph/111mph 28

360m/1,200ft 186kph/116mph 29

450m/1,500ft 190kph/118mph 30

Modifiers

Diving into water: -8DC*

Belly-flopping into water: -4DC

*the hit is taken to the hands or feet