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-====== Movements ======
-Movement abilities are the abilities that allow a creature to walk, crawl, swim, fly or otherwise move from point A to point B in the game world. Every Movement ability grants three different, related movement speeds that are used in different situations:
-  * **Combat** speed is used to move around in combat, stealth, puzzle or other turn-based situations in a set area. It is measured in meters per action spent. For example, having a combat movement rate of 5 allows one to move up to 5 meters for every action they spend moving.
-  * **Chase** speed is used to determine overall effectiveness in chase challenges not only when moving but also when doing just about anything else. It has several important mechanical applications in such circumstances. See the Chases section for more details.
-  * **Travel** speed is used to determine how far and fast a creature can travel great distances, such as between towns or across oceans. It is measured in regions per day. A "region" is a hexagonal space ten kilometers across.
-Normally 1 space/meter in combat costs 1 movement rate to traverse. Certain game effects and conditions might impose an "impairment" on your ability to move, however, which increases movement cost per meter traveled. Multiple impairments stack and rapidly increase in effect, as per this chart:
-^Impairments ^Move Cost ^
-|0 |1/space |
-|1 |2/space |
-|2 |5/space |
-|3 |10/space |
-|4 |20/space |
-|5 |50/space |
-|6 |100/space |
-|etc |etc |
-Movement rate can be stored up from turn to turn until enough is accumulated to move 1 space, but upon doing so the creature must immediately move that 1 meter and if they wish to continue moving must start storing up movement again.
-When movement is impaired while using chase speed, the listed number of successes are required to advance a single space. For example, with one impairment a given participant in a chase now requires two successes for every space they advance instead of the normal one success per space.
-Travel speed impairments work exactly like combat speed impairments, but are applied to the region-size spaces traveled through in a day rather than the individual meter-size spaces traveled through in an action.
-You can choose to move carefully and leave no traces of your passing behind. This means no footprints, scent, credible witnesses or anything else that could be used to track you. While moving in this way, you take an impairment to your movement rate. Anyone seeking to track you must solve an easy-difficulty operations challenge (two successes required) to pick up and follow your trail.
-You can also choose to move more quickly than normal for short distances. Every time you make a move action, you can declare that you are "sprinting". Sprinting increases your movement speed by one step (1-> 2-> 5-> 10-> 20-> 50-> etc) for that single movement action, but requires you to sacrifice one Endurance to do so. You cannot sprint if you have no Endurance remaining. Sprinting can increase tactical and chase movement rate, but not travel speed.
-You may enter spaces or structures meant for creatures one scale lower than yourself, but all attacks against you are strengthened and your movement is impaired while you are inside. For example, a size 6 creature can squeeze into a space easily traversable by a size 5 creature (1 meter wide) even though they normally occupy a space 3 meters wide. You cannot enter structures meant for creatures two scale categories lower than yourself at all. When squeezing down, you still occupy all spaces you normally would that are not blocked from occupancy- you do not actually shrink, and you may stick out of the sides of any gaps you are inside.
-The Fiction Rule is especially important when selecting movement abilities. Even something as innocuous as increasing your movement rate can be perfectly logical a few times and then rapidly slide into complete ridiculousness. It is recommended that human adventurers (or at least humanoid ones) have a maximum speed of 5 meters per action when traveling overland barring extraordinary circumstances or equipment.
-===== Movement Seed Abilities =====
-To create a movement set, you must first select a single seed ability from the below list. The seed ability chosen determines the type of movement that the set represents. Once you chose a seed ability for a set, you cannot ever add any other seed abilities to the same set. All movement seed abilities come with drawbacks and limitations which can be overcome by taking appropriate upgrades.
-==== Overland ====
-You can move over smooth surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and so forth. You cannot move over anything more difficult than a curb- stairs and rough terrain are right out. Your combat speed is 1 meter per action, your chase speed is 1, and your travel speed is one region (5 km) per day.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|If the game's adventurers are human, humanoid, or even exist in an environment with gravity and solid surfaces to traverse then they likely have some form of Overland movement ability. Instead of listing different ways in which an Overland ability might be justified, it is easier to merely list situations in which it would //not// be justified. Purely stationary creatures that never move from their location (like mushroom monsters or machine-gun turrets or something) cannot have an Overland movement ability, or really any movement abilities at all. Purely aquatic creatures probably can't have any overland movement abilities, although it's not inconceivable for a mermaid to take only the Overland seed ability without any upgrades to represent some ability to ungracefully flop along on land if necessary. Creatures that never touch the ground at all (balloon monsters? space dragons?) also probably shouldn't have any kind of overland movement ability, although they'll likely have at least one other alternative. |
-==== Swim ====
-You may move across the surface of liquids. Attacks against you are strengthened while you are in liquid. You cannot move through rough liquids (with heavy waves, strong currents, or similar) nor can you travel through difficult liquids (thick, sticky, semifrozen, weed-choked or similar). You immediately sink when carrying enough weight to give you an impairment. Your combat speed is 1 meter per action, your chase speed is 1, and your travel speed is 1 region per day.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Anything that is at least moderately buoyant and doesn't disintegrate in water can justify at least a basic Swim ability. If you're playing an adventurer from an extremely arid region that doesn't know how to swim, you can still justify taking a basic Swim ability after the first time or two you encounter a need for it if you desire. |
-==== Fly ====
-You may glide through the air. You cannot change direction more than 1 time per move action. You must always face the direction that you last moved at the end of your turn. Attacks against you are strengthened while you are airbourne. You cannot gain elevation, and automatically lose 1 meter worth of elevation per action (whether the action was used to glide or anything else). You can choose to lose more elevation per round, but doing so safely requires you to spend movement speed for every meter dropped. You cannot glide when it is any windier than a light breeze.
-You must always use both your actions each round to move or you will lose control and fall. When using an action to move, you must move at least half of the maximum distance you are capable of moving or you will fall. You cannot carry more than a light load or you will fall. If you fall while flying, you cannot take any more actions to fly again until after you have crashed. Your combat speed is 1 meter per action, your chase speed is 1, and your travel speed is 1 region per day.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Flying is a highly desirable mode of movement in most campaign worlds, but is also comparatively difficult to justify. Natural fliers (bats, birds, angels, etc) can all easily justify Fly abilities, but unnatural fliers (just about everything else that exists) cannot without some form of either advanced technology or magic. In some cases it might be necessary to use a Device support that flies and just ride on/in it instead of having flight natively. |
-==== Teleport ====
-You may teleport to a location without actually having to pass through the space in between yourself and your destination. You can teleport to any location within range that you are directly and clearly observing. "Sensing" a location can be through sight or an alternate sense such as sonar. If the desired location is partially obscured or otherwise difficult to observe properly (such as being in dim light or on the other side of a creature partially blocking your view of it), you cannot teleport to it. Every time you take a Teleport movement action, you also lose 1 Endurance. If you have no Endurance, you lose 1 Vitality instead.
-You can only teleport into locations that you could theoretically move to using some alternative movement ability (so for instance, you cannot teleport to a location in mid-air if you don't have a Fly movement set, or onto a solid surface if you don't have an Overland movement set). If you attempt to teleport to a location that is disallowed (due to being out of range, in an invalid location, or for whatever other reason), the teleportation fails and you take one point of Vitality damage.
-Everything you are holding when you teleport is teleported along with you. If you are carrying enough to give yourself an impairment, you cannot teleport at all. Teleporting does not allow you to move to alternate dimensions or through time, only between points in space. Immediately after teleporting, all attacks against you until the beginning of your next turn are strengthened due to the extreme disorientation of jumping through space. Teleporting creates a puff of smoke, flash of light, shimmering in the air, or other obvious "tell" that causes all observers within standard alertness range (10 meters or within the same room, whichever is less) of both your starting and destination points to immediately upgrade their status to Alert. Your combat speed is 1 meter per action, your chase speed is 1, and your travel speed is 1 region per day.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Teleportation as a method of movement is pure fiction, and thus all of its justification relies heavily on the campaign world's fantastical elements (if any). If teleportation is done via a teleport machine or mystic gateway rather than natively by creatures, then it would be appropriate to create a device with the ability (and probably the Teleport Other upgrade as well) instead. |
-==== Space ====
-Moving in a zero-gravity environment has some unique considerations. There is no "up" or "down" (or rather, the only difference between these points of reference is entirely arbitrary) and if you have this ability you can propel yourself in any direction you please while in such environments. Attacks are strengthened against you when you are in zero gravity. This movement ability depends in some way on using atmosphere and you cannot use it to propel yourself when in vacuum. You have no special protection against vacuum and if you enter it you take one critical damage that ignores defense (critical damage bypasses Endurance and strikes directly at Vitality) at the end of every round of exposure in addition to gaining a Choke condition that cannot be recovered from but is removed automatically as soon as you leave vacuum. Your combat speed is 1 meter per action, your chase speed is 1, and your travel speed is 1 region per day.
-When you use this ability by spending an action, you move 1 meter in the desired direction. You then continue to move one meter in the same direction immediately after every subsequent action you take until you run into something with no further effort required from you. If the thing you run into is the same size category as yourself or larger, you stop- otherwise, you keep moving and whatever you ran into moves right along with you. If you continue to use actions to move in the same direction, you may accelerate your speed (using it twice increases your speed to two meters per action instead of one). If you use further actions to go in a different direction than before, your new motion is added to your previous motion instead of negating it. For example, if you move forward once and then later use another action to move to the left, your subsequent movement would be one space forward and then another to the left. You can also take an action to go in the opposite direction of your current trajectory, which has the effect of canceling forward momentum.
-Every time you use an attack, boon or support set when in space on any subject except yourself, you spin out of control. In game terms, this means that you are accelerated at a speed of 1 meter per action in the direction opposite that in which you used the ability and all attacks you make are weakened until you manage to spend an action stabilizing yourself against something solid.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Moving around in zero gravity means you must have some form of propulsion. In confined spaces with atmosphere (as is assumed for the basic seed version of the ability), this might be justified by simply having lots of objects and surfaces around you to push off of in the desired direction. In any case, a creature must have a form that doesn't rely overly much on external gravity to hold itself together before it can justify having a Space movement ability. |
-===== General Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades can be applied to any sort of movement set regardless of its starting seed.
-==== Evasion ====
-When you move to a new space in a chase scene using this set, you have the option to spend an additional success beyond the one required for movement. If you spend the extra success, all attacks against you until the beginning of your next turn are weakened. This upgrade has no benefit outside of a chase scene.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Evasion in a chase situation means weaving and swerving erratically, making yourself a more difficult target. It's not a good fit for movement forms that lack maneuverability. |
-==== Fugitive ====
-You take no impairment to speed when attempting to leave no trail behind and are always assumed to be doing so unless you specifically state otherwise.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Only creatures with experience being hunted are likely to have the experience and training necessary to take a Fugitive upgrade, although the effect might also be achieved through some sort of passive magical spell to cover or alter its caster's tracks. |
-==== Maniac ====
-In a chase scene, you have the option to create a temporary crisis by ramming or sideswiping other participants in the chase. You are not required to do so if you feel it isn't strategically a good idea.
-When you enter a space occupied by another creature of your own size or smaller using this movement set, you may add a crisis to that space for free. When you leave that space, the crisis is automatically removed from the chase strip and does not stick around to threaten anyone else like a normal crisis would. You cannot add a crisis to a space that only has yourself in it. Other creatures may deal with the crisis in any way that they normally could (spend a success to remove it or just plow through and hope for the best). You are not protected from your own recklessness; if the other creature does not remove the crisis, then you must also deal with it on your own turn.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Wreckage |If any creature is killed as a result of the crisis you created (whether it be your target or yourself) then the crisis is permanently added to the chase strip as a normal crisis that can cause problems for later chase participants as well. |  -  |
-|Disaster |You can add a temporary crisis to any space you are in, even if there are no other creatures in it. These crises disappear like normal Maniac crises when you leave the space they are in, and you still have to deal with them like you would any normal crisis. Creatures larger than you can ignore these crises as normal. |  -  |
-|Dozer |Temporary crises you create affect creatures up to one size larger than yourself. You can take this upgrade multiple times; each time increases the size of creatures you can affect by +1. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|You don't have to be a madman with a deathwish to take the Maniac upgrade, but it definitely helps. No matter what, you have to be the sort willing to take big risks at high speeds; attitude is far more important than physical capability for justifying a Maniac upgrade. |
-==== Reflexes ====
-When you are using the movement set in a chase to leave a space that has a crisis in it, you may add +1 to your die roll to evade the crisis. For example, if you are leaving the #8 space you normally need to roll an 8 or higher to avoid being damaged by the crisis, but with Reflexes you only need a 7 or higher.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Improved Reflexes |You may add +2 to all die rolls to evade a crisis instead of only +1. You may take this upgrade multiple times; each time adds another +1 to all die rolls to avoid crises in a chase scene. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Reflexes upgrade is less about moving quickly and more about thinking, reacting and adapting quickly. The faster you tend to move, the more quickly you'll have to react in order to justify this ability. At very high speeds, it might require some sort of magical or computerized aid. |
-==== Skirmish ====
-Instead of taking moves and other types of actions separately, you may move part of your designated distance, make another action, and then move the rest of your designated distance.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Acting while moving means that the movement in question has to be extremely easy, even effortless- if you have to concentrate on your movement at all, then you cannot effectively skirmish with it. This means that if a movement mode comes naturally to you (like walking and running for humans) then you could justify the Skirmish upgrade with a bit of training and effort, but if you only access the movement mode through some sort of external aid (like a human using a jetpack or auto-telekinesis to fly) then you cannot, since this type of movement is not completely instinctual unless you seriously do it a //lot//.  |
-==== Slingshot ====
-You may delay a movement action until your next turn. You may use an action to store movement (you do not actually move when taking an action to store movement). On your next turn, you may make a movement for free without spending an action to do so. If you do not use your stored movements on your next turn, they are wasted and cannot be used later. You may spend multiple actions storing movement in a turn if desired.
-In a chase scene, having the Slingshot upgrade gives the option of skipping a Chase check for a turn (and thus making no progress and taking no actions) but rolling double the normal number of dice on your next turn.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Slingshot upgrade was created to represent a car burning rubber in place before abruptly taking off at high speed, but any similar kind of energy storage could also be used to justify it (like winding up your spring-driven boots, maybe). |
-==== Slippery ====
-You may move through (but not stop in) spaces occupied by other creatures of comparable size that you would normally not be able to. When passing through occupied spaces, you take two impairments to your movement speed.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Improved Slippery |You take only one impairment when passing through occupied spaces. |  -  |
-|Perfectly Slippery |You take no impairments at all when passing through occupied spaces. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Slippery upgrades are largely the domain of highly acrobatic creatures capable of ducking, vaulting, squirming or slithering through any gaps available. Semi-substantial creatures like smoke monsters or such could also reasonably justify the Slippery upgrade. Depending on the tone of the campaign, it might also be possible to justify the upgrade by taking its name literally and declaring that stripping down and smearing yourself with bacon fat is part of your routine combat strategy. |
-==== Sprinter ====
-You only need to spend a maximum of one Endurance per round on sprinting, no matter how many sprint actions you take in that round. In a chase scene, you can gain a bonus die on your Chase check for a round by sacrificing one Endurance rather than the normal two. You still cannot make such a sacrifice more than once in a single turn.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Being a Sprinter means being an exceptional athlete (or otherwise being an exceptionally efficient specimen of whatever your kind is). Notice that sprinting makes you move faster, but is not necessarily about being fast- a well-trained tortoise could justify having the Sprinter upgrade, but a fat asthmatic rabbit could not. |
-==== Stealth ====
-You can make a stealth check to hide the the fact that you are using the ability. Creatures that see its effects react to them naturally and logically regardless of whether you make the stealth check. When using Stealth with movement abilities, you take an impairment on your movement rate. You cannot sprint when moving stealthily.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Improved Stealth |You roll one additional die on the stealth check when using this ability quietly. You may take this upgrade up to three times; each time adds another die to related stealth checks up to a maximum total of seven. |  -  |
-|Flit |You don't take an impairment to movement speed when using stealth. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Moving with stealth is sneaking, placing your feet (or wheels, or appendages, or... whatever) as carefully as possible so as to avoid making noise or creating vibrations. Just about anything can justify at least the basic version of the Stealth upgrade so long as their movement doesn't naturally create noise (such as the thrum of an engine or the chime of bells). More advanced options might require movement be specifically suited to stealth, such as an owl's muffled wingbeats. |
-==== Swiftness ====
-Your combat speed is increased to 2 meters per action, your chase speed becomes 2, and your travel speed increases to 2 regions per day.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Improved Swiftness |Your combat speed is increased to 5 meters per action, your chase speed becomes 3, and your travel speed increases to 5 regions per day. You may take this upgrade multiple times; each time increases combat speed by one step (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, etc), chase speed by +1, and travel speed to be a number of regions per day equal to meters per action in your combat speed. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Swiftness is a universally-desirable upgrade that is both easy to justify in its first iteration or two and then rapidly more and more impossible to justify thereafter. Barring unusual circumstances, a creature's maximum obtainable speed through Swiftness should be constrained by their size category: creatures of SC 1 or 2 should have a max speed of 1 (and thus couldn't normally take Swiftness upgrades at all), creatures of SC 3 or 4 should have a max speed of 2, creatures of SC 5 should have a max speed of 5, and every increase in SC from then onward would allow for another jump in speed represented by another Swiftness upgrade. This means that if the adventurers in a given game are more or less human, then they cannot take a Swiftness upgrade more than twice for their native walking-around movement set. If they want to go faster, they could obtain a motorcycle or something. These speed limits are a rough guideline, not a hard rule- although any deviations from those guidelines will explicitly require very strong justifications in order to follow the Fiction Rule. (For example, flying movement sets often have a higher justifiable maximum speed than their overland counterparts, and creatures with anatomies meant for speed such as rabbits or cheetahs might be able to take one or two more Swiftness upgrades than they would normally be allowed). |
-==== Traceless ====
-When attempting to leave no trace of your passing behind, the difficulty of the operations check to follow your trail is medium (three successes required) instead of easy.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Hard Traceless |The difficulty of picking up your trail is hard (four successes needed). |  -  |
-|Impossible Traceless |The difficulty of picking up your trail is impossible (five successes needed). |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Traceless is very similar conceptually to the Fugitive upgrade, and justifications for one can easily be used as justifications for the other. |
-==== Trailblazer ====
-When you are traveling with other creatures whose travel speed is less than your own, you can scout out beneficial routes for them to take. Up to fifty creatures you are traveling with whose travel speed is less than yours (but not yourself) increase their effective travel speed by 50% (rounded down). For example, if you have a traveling speed of 20 and you are trailblazing for a group whose normal travel speed is 10, that group (including yourself) can travel up to 15 regions in a day instead.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Trailblazer upgrade only conceptually requires a desire to speed along those slower than yourself, and requires little or no justification at all to take. |
-===== Overland Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades may only be added to an Overland movement set.
-==== All-Terrain ====
-You can cross rough terrain, stairs, and what have you. Difficult terrain such as shifting sands, sticky mud, deep snow or whatever may also be crossed with an impairment, though doing so strengthens all attacks against you while you are in such areas.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Lightfoot |You have no speed impairment and attacks against you are not strengthened when moving through difficult terrain. |  -  |
-|Clamber |You may climb up surfaces and objects that are easy to be climb, such as ladders or trees. When climbing you have an impairment to your movement rate and attacks against you are strengthened. |  -  |
-|Climb |You may climb up ropes, vines, rough stone, and similar surfaces. When climbing you have an impairment to your movement rate and attacks against you are strengthened. |  Clamber  |
-|Scale |You may climb up brick walls and similar surfaces. When climbing you have an impairment to your movement rate and attacks against you are strengthened. |  Climb  |
-|Cling |You may climb up smooth walls, glass windows and similar surfaces. When climbing you have an impairment to your movement rate and attacks against you are strengthened. |  Cling  |
-|Ceiling |You can cling to and traverse ceilings and overhangs that are of a roughness that you would be able to climb if they were vertical walls. |  Clamber  |
-|Vault |You have no speed impairment and attacks against you are not strengthened when climbing. |  Clamber  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Unless the creature in question exclusively moves around via wheels, they will probably have to take the All-Terrain upgrade. Those creatures that are able climbers (including humanoids) will also easily be able to justify the Clamber upgrade option, unless they are petrified of ladders or something. Other upgrades like Lightfoot or Cling are likely beyond the reach of humans (barring special circumstances) but might very easily be useable by a giant spider or something. |
-==== Balance ====
-You may balance on beams, tightropes, slippery ice, and so forth with an impairment to movement and attacks against you are strengthened. Without this ability such places force all who enter them prone (as if by an unrecoverable Knockdown attack effect) and impose an additional movement impairment on top of the normal effects of being prone.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Acrobat |You have no speed impairment and attacks against you are not strengthened when balancing. |  -  |
-|Surface Runner |You may move across the surface of water or other liquids as if they were solid for short bursts. If you end your movement action on the surface of a liquid, you immediately slip into it and must use any swimming-based movement abilities you possess as normal to continue moving through it. While moving over a liquid, you take an impairment on your movement rate as normal for balancing (and you can get rid of it by also taking the Acrobat upgrade). This ability does not protect you from any potential hazards of coming in contact with liquids such as acid or magma, only lets you run across their surface. |  -  |
-|Buoyant Runner |You only sink into the surface of whatever liquid you're running across when you end your turn on it, not when you end your movement action. This allows you to double-move during a turn if desired in order to run across greater distances. |  Surface Runner  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Only the most graceful and well-trained creatures (such as somebody who was a circus performer or a ninja) can generally justify taking the Balance upgrade unless they have an exceptionally well-balanced body to begin with. Balance can also be taught even to the most awkward of adventurers given time and practice, although the Surface Runner upgrade option is probably not a learnable skill at all unless the campaign has a distinctly wuxia flavor. |
-==== Burrow ====
-You may dig tunnels through earth and soil. While moving in this way, you take two impairments. You cannot dig through Tier II or tougher materials, including stone. Any tunnels you create collapse immediately behind you as you dig, meaning other creatures cannot follow you.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Breaker |You may burrow through Tier II or lower materials (soft stone, wood, plastics, ice, etc), but take four impairments when doing so. |  -  |
-|Driller |You may burrow through Tier III or lower materials (hard stone, metals, etc), but take six impairments when doing so. |  Breaker  |
-|Fast Digger |You have one less impairment when digging than normal. |  -  |
-|Tunneler |You may choose to leave a tunnel behind you when you burrow, allowing other creatures of your own size or smaller to follow you. If you do not wish to leave a tunnel behind, you are not obligated to do so. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Having a Burrow movement upgrade does not just mean that you can dig tunnels; it means that you can dig tunnels and simultaneously pass through them very quickly. Naturally burrowing animals such as badgers and moles could easily justify having the basic Burrow upgrade and probably also the Tunneler one, but the others are likely to be the exclusive domain of digging machines, magical beasts, and possibly John Henry. |
-==== Cruise ====
-You can move automatically in a way that requires little or no concentration or effort. Every round at the beginning of your turn, you may make one movement action for free. This free movement from Cruise must happen at the beginning of your turn before you take any other actions and must be in a completely straight line in the direction you were facing when your turn began. Any additional movement actions you take during your turn do not have these limitations as normal.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Cruising is a much better fit for vehicles that can continuously move without tiring (at least on the part of their operator) or distraction than it is for creatures. You can stop pedaling a bike for a moment to fire a rocket launcher at a pursuer and the bike will continue going forward, but you can't stop walking for a moment and expect to leave your current position. |
-==== Jump ====
-You can jump through the air for a distance up to equal to your movement speed (or one-fifth your movement speed vertically). If you end your turn in mid-air for some reason, then attacks against you are strengthened until you end the jump on your next turn (which you must do immediately before taking any other actions).
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Jumping is very easy to justify as an ability- the only things that would have trouble justifying it are those that tend to move around on wheels instead of legs, and even then you could probably figure out a way to enable jumps with some clever engineering. |
-==== Trample ====
-When moving through a space occupied by another creature due to that creature being prone or two or more size categories smaller than yourself, that creature takes minor damage (1 die, +1 die per 3 points of Escalation that ignores defenses). You may assign an attack element to your trample damage if appropriate. You cannot trample creatures whose spaces you pass through due to the Slippery upgrade. You may only trample a maximum of one creature per turn.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Unstoppable |You may trample up to two targets per round, but you still cannot trample a single given creature more than once per round. You may take this upgrade multiple times; each time increases the maximum number of targets you may trample in a round by one step on the 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, etc scale. |  -  |
-|Flatten |Trampling on creatures two or more sizes smaller than yourself also inflicts the Prone condition on them (as the Knockdown trigger upgrade). |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Despite the name, you don't have to be a large herd animal to use a Trample upgrade- it's also very appropriate for vehicles that have been modified with an eye for running over targets. You might also be able to justify it by having a very large, hefty pair of shoes. |
-===== Swim Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades may only be added to a Swim movement set.
-==== Aquatic ====
-Attacks against you are not strengthened when you are in liquids.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Knowing how to swim and being at home in the water are two different things, and the Aquatic upgrade represents the latter. If a creature doesn't spend a ridiculous amount of its time swimming, then it really can't justify the Aquatic upgrade. By the same token, creatures and vehicles that never leave the water (like sharks and ships) can easily justify it. |
-==== Breach ====
-You can jump through the air from the surface of a liquid for a distance up to equal to your movement speed (or one-fifth your movement speed vertically). If you end your turn in mid-air for some reason, then attacks against you are strengthened until you end the jump on your next turn (which you must do immediately before taking any other actions).
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Unless a Swim ability was justified through some form of waterwalking, most jumps out of a liquid happen by speeding up from below the surface. Thus, it will likely be necessary to also take the Submerse ability (detailed below) in order to take this one. |
-==== Cruise ====
-You can move automatically in a way that requires little or no concentration. Every round at the beginning of your turn, you may make one movement action for free. This free movement from Cruise must happen at the beginning of your turn before you take any other actions and must be in a completely straight line in the direction you were facing when your turn began. Any additional movement actions you take during your turn do not have these limitations as normal.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Just like its Overland movement counterpart, the Cruise upgrade is a much better fit for vehicles that can continuously move without tiring (at least on the part of their operator) or distraction than it is for creatures. |
-==== Freighter ====
-You do not sink when carrying enough weight to give you an impairment. You still have the impairment from the weight but may otherwise move normally.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|To justify the Freighter upgrade, a creature is probably either exceptionally buoyant or an exceptionally powerful swimmer. Alternately, they could also have a more exotic solution for weight management, such as an extradimensional pouch or something. |
-==== Sandswim ====
-You may treat sandy areas such as deserts as a liquid for purposes of moving through them.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|There are almost no examples of creatures capable of Sandswimming in real life (other than the sandfish lizard) but more fantastical campaign worlds have no such restraints. Note that sandswimming is also subject to all other swimming mechanics, including the ability or nonability to submerge beneath the surface. This makes it a great match for things like Dune-esque sandworms and sand-skimming boats alike. |
-==== Seaworthy ====
-You can cross rough liquids with heavy waves, strong currents, or similar. You take an impairment when doing so.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Cutter |You may move through difficult liquids such as those that are thick, sticky, weed-choked or semifrozen. You take two impairments when doing so. |  -  |
-|Dreadnought |You take no impairments when moving through rough liquids and (if you have the Cutter upgrade) only one impairment when moving through difficult liquids instead of the normal two. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Being large in size helps immensely when justifying taking a Seaworthy upgrade, although having a lot of strength and experience can also suffice. Taking the Breaker upgrade option is pretty much reserved only for truly immense creatures and specialized vehicles like icebreaker ships, however. |
-==== Submerse ====
-You may move underneath the surface of a liquid as well as on top of it. No attack, boon or support sets may be used when under the surface of a liquid (unless you have the Sealed upgrade on them). If you are normally a land-dweller, then being under the surface of a liquid inflicts a Choke condition on you that cannot be recovered from, but is automatically removed as soon as you come up for air. If you are a water-dweller, then you have the opposite problem- you have an unrecoverable Choke condition for as long as you are //not// under the surface of a liquid. If you dive more than 50 meters deep underneath the surface of a liquid, you take one damage at the end of every round you spend at that depth.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Most creatures capable of swimming can justify the Submersion upgrade- and for those that are aquatic in nature it is absolutely a requirement. Ships and other watercraft that only travel on the surface cannot normally justify taking the Submersion upgrade, however, and creatures non-native to the water who have very little swimming experience tend not to have it either (they only have a sucky doggy-paddle and freak out when their head is under the surface.) |
-===== Fly Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades may only be added to a Fly movement set.
-==== Agile ====
-You may change direction up to 3 times per move action.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Perfectly Agile |You may change direction an unlimited number of times per action, and your facing at the end of your turn may be whatever is desired. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Generally speaking, the smaller a flying creature is the more capable of justifying Agile upgrades it becomes, but this is not a hard-and-fast rule. Eagles are more agile than vultures despite often being about the same size, and helicopters are capable of justifying the Perfectly Agile upgrade option while anything less than a fighter jet with an experienced pilot probably couldn't take the basic Agile upgrade at all. |
-==== Balanced ====
-You can fly through moderate wind. You take an impairment when doing so.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Ballasted |You can fly through heavy wind up to hurricane-force. You take two impairments when doing so. |  -  |
-|Strong Flier |You take no impairment when flying through moderate winds and (if you also have the Ballasted upgrade) only one impairment when flying through heavy hurricane-force winds. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Powerful fliers are most capable of taking the Balanced upgrade, but it could also be justified by creatures that fly using magical means such as self-telekinesis or levitation rather than through wings or rockets. |
-==== Carrier ====
-You do not fall when carrying enough weight to give you an impairment. You still have the impairment from the weight but may otherwise move normally.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|To have the Carrier upgrade requires having some form of weight management beyond the norm. Most of the time this is accomplished through achieving additional lift by being lighter than air rather than purely mechanical means, such as with a zeppelin or airship. Alternately, it might also be accomplished via somethign more exotic like magical levitation arrays or extradimensional storage. |
-==== Controlled ====
-You only need to spend 1 action per turn moving in order to stay aloft, freeing up your other action for whatever you want. You still lose 1 meter of elevation per action taken unless you also have the Powered upgrade, and you still need to make your one movement per round be of a distance equal to at least half your movement rate to avoid falling unless you also have the Slow Fly upgrade.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Hover |You don't need to move to stay aloft at all and can remain motionless in one place in the air for as long as you desire. You still lose 1 meter of elevation per action taken unless you also have the Powered upgrade, and you still need to make any movements you do take be of a distance equal to at least half your movement rate to avoid falling unless you also have the Slow Fly upgrade. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Even the most basic form of the Controlled upgrade can only be justified by extremely graceful and talented fliers such as birds of prey that regularly attack or take other actions while on the wing. Taking the Hover upgrade option is constrained to an extremely narrow range of creatures such as hummingbirds and helicopters, as well as some more fantastic fliers such as genies and air elementals. Anything else simply doesn't qualify. |
-==== Cruise ====
-You can move automatically in a way that requires little or no concentration. Every round at the beginning of your turn, you may make one movement action for free. This free movement from Cruise must happen at the beginning of your turn before you take any other actions and must be in a completely straight line in the direction you were facing when your turn began. Any additional movement actions you take during your turn do not have these limitations as normal.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Just like its Overland movement counterpart, the Cruise upgrade is a much better fit for vehicles that can continuously move without tiring (at least on the part of their operator) or distraction than it is for creatures. |
-==== Dive ====
-You do not need to spend movement to lose additional elevation beyond the automatic elevation lost per round safely. If you start into an uncontrolled fall, you still crash as normal.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Swoop |You may choose to start flying again after falling for whatever reason without having to crash first. You can choose to start flying at any elevation you please before you crash. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Having the Dive upgrade is extremely easy to justify- gravity does most fo the work, and all that is required is a basic level of competence at remaining in control. The Swoop upgrade option, however, is much more difficult to justify as it requires split-second timing and precise control. Airbourne predators that hunt for land-dwelling prey often have the Swoop upgrade option, but it is rare among other fliers. |
-==== Powered ====
-You don't automatically lose elevation and can choose to gain 1 meter worth of elevation per 10 moved laterally. Gaining elevation costs movement as normal.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Ascent |As Powered, but you can choose to gain 1 meter worth of elevation per 1 moved laterally. |  -  |
-|Perfect Ascent |You can fly straight up. |  Ascent  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The basic Powered upgrade is required for any kind of sustainable flight- otherwise you only have the ability to glide. The Ascent upgrade option can be justified by most highly nimble fliers, but the Perfect Ascent one can only normally be justified by magic, jet propulsion, or special cases like helicopters and hummingbirds. |
-==== Skyborn ====
-Attacks against you are not strengthened when you are flying.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Having the Skyborn upgrade means being perfectly comfortable in the air. It's easy to justify for natural fliers such as birds, but those who do not naturally fly have to have a lot of training and experience under their belts before the Skyborn upgrade can be taken. |
-==== Slow Fly ====
-You are not obligated to move at least half your movement speed when making a move.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Slow Fly is an excellent match for variable-speed fliers such as zeppelins that can slow to a crawl when desired. Alternately, most of the possible justifications for the Controlled upgrade are also applicable to Slow Fly. |
-===== Teleport Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades may only be added to a Teleport movement set.
-==== Phasehaul ====
-You may freely teleport when carrying enough weight to give you an impairment. You still have the impairment from the weight. You must take the weight with you when you teleport even when you'd rather not (such as when you are being grabbed by something).
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|As teleportation is (as of yet) a purely fictional means of transport, justifications for Phasehaul will likely depend on the exact means in which it works in the campaign world in question. Maybe your quantum field is expanded, or your prayers to the Ouroborus are extended in some way, or something else involving technobabble. |
-==== Failsafe ====
-If your teleport fails due to attempting to teleport to an invalid location, you take one Endurance damage instead of Vitality damage. The Failsafe upgrade does not give this protection when your teleporting fails for reasons other than attempting to teleport to an invalid location.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Having a failsafe on teleportation sometimes implies a certain amount of caution on the part of the teleporter, and would likely appear most often in the movement sets of those who like to experiment with their teleportation a lot. Alternately, it could also represent some sort of supernatural guardianship. |
-==== Recall ====
-At the begining of a session, you can designate a single point of recall (usually a residence or other safe location). You can always teleport to your point of recall even when you are not directly observing it, and may do so from up to ten times further away than your combat movement speed would normally allow. Attempting to return to your point of recall when outside of this range causes the teleport to fail, with the normal consequences. You cannot use this enhanced teleportation to travel to any point except your point of recall, and cannot change your point of recall except once per session at the very beginning of the session. You must be able to physically be in a space to mark it as your point of recall.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Longer Recall |You may teleport to your point of recall when it is within 100 times further away than your normal combat movement speed limit rather than 10 times further away. You may take this upgrade multiple times; each time increases the distance at which you may teleport to your point of recall by a factor of 10 (x10, x100, x1000, etc). |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|If your teleportation is enabled by some sort of machine or arcane apparatus that you access remotely, recalling yourself to it is an excellent justification for this upgrade. It can also be employed to represent places of power or the rule-bending capabilities of an extremely paranoid teleporter. |
-==== Risky ====
-You can choose to teleport up to ten times further than your speed would normally allow. When you do so, you must roll a die- if the result is a 2 or less, then the teleport fails (you go nowhere and take 1 Vitality damage as normal). The Failsafe upgrade cannot protect you from teleportation that failed due to use of the Risky upgrade. Teleporting a normal distance allowed by your movement speed has no fail chance and is unaffected by this upgrade.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Risky teleportation allows for more high-risk, high-reward movement actions and is highly appropriate for creatures and campaigns whose baseline justification of teleportation emphasizes randomness or unpredictability, such as quantum mechanics or other moderately scientific-sounding technobabble. |
-==== Steady ====
-Attacks against you are not strengthened immediately after teleporting.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|One popular means of justifying the Steady upgrade is by saying that the teleporter is somehow afforded a glimpse of their target destination an instant before they actually arrive there, and thus are better prepared to gain their footing. Another common justification is simply that the teleporter is extremely experienced and has learned how to not be disoriented by sudden shifts in space. |
-==== Subtle ====
-The "tell" from your teleporting is reduced- all creatures who would normally immediately and automatically become Alert automatically become Suspicious instead. If they were already Suspicious, then they become Alert.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Traceless |Your teleport has no "tell" at all and has no special effect on guard alertness. Moving within standard alertness range of an observer still has the possibility of alerting them just as with any other movement type, but teleporting has no special disadvantage in comparison to other movement types with this ability. |  -  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Only the most highly powerful forms of teleportation tend to have no tells at all, and this is usually seen as evidence of a master. Even non-magical teleporting that dispenses with theatrics such as puffs of smoke and flashes of light tends to have its own tells such as the whine of equipment or the sound of air suddenly rushing to fill the vacuum where a body was an instant before that must be overcome before the Subtle upgrade can be taken. |
-==== Teleport Other ====
-You can teleport a single creature or object other than yourself. You must spend an action to teleport another creature exactly as if you were teleporting yourself. You may only teleport willing creatures and objects of size category 1 or less that you are physically adjacent to at the time. You must be able to see/sense the subject you are teleporting as clearly as you are required to see the target destination. You may take this upgrade multiple times; each time increases the maximum size category allowable for you to teleport by +1.
-You may instead choose to teleport multiple subjects that are smaller than the maximum size so long as their total size is not larger than your limit (four creatures of a given size category are equivalent to one creature of a size category greater). When you teleport multiple subjects, all of them must be either adjacent to you or to another subject that is also being teleported. All teleported subjects end up adjacent to each other at the desired valid destination.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Teleport Other upgrade is utterly unique among all movement capabilities in that it allows you to move things that are not yourself- which will often be party members, but might also be treasure or plot-important objects. It usually involves applying the same principles and methods by which you teleport yourself to something else, which is non-justifiable if your teleportation arises from something that is an intrinsic part of your body or capabilities. |
-==== Unlimited ====
-You can freely teleport into locations that you could not normally move to using another movement mode, such as into midair if you cannot fly or into land if you are strictly aquatic. If teleportation is your only mode of movement, then you will need this upgrade in order to teleport anywhere at all. Note that you gain no special protections from your new destination and will likely need to teleport again in order to leave it safely. If you teleport to a point in midair, you will immediately start to fall.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|An unlimited ability to teleport is actually very easy to justify and doesn't necessarily have to be supported by anything to do with teleporting itself, only a certain amount of recklessness or lateral thinking on the part of the teleporter. |
-==== Vague ====
-You can teleport to any location within range even if it is obscured or only partially sensed. You still cannot teleport to locations that you cannot sense at all.
-^Upgrade ^Benefit ^Requirement ^
-|Known |You may teleport to any location that you have personally visited before and are somewhat familiar with, even if you are not observing that location at all. |  Vague  |
-|Description |You may teleport to any location that you have been given a thorough description of even if you've never been there. |  Known  |
-|Exist |You may teleport to any location that you know exists, even if you don't actually know anything about it (such as "the other side of this door"). You still cannot teleport to places beyond the range of your combat speed. If the place that you know to exist turns out not to actually exist after all, your teleportation fails and you take one Vitality damage as normal for failed teleports. |  Description  |
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Vague upgrade and all of its options fundamentally change the basic limitations of teleportation- and as it is a movement mode with very few limitations already, taking them must be very strictly justified at each and every step of the way. The GM will likely set an arbitrary upper bound on how many Vague upgrades can be taken in their campaign world, if any, and that will be that. |
-===== Space Upgrades =====
-The following upgrades may only be added to a Space movement set.
-==== Counterthrust ====
-You are not accelerated backwards when you use attacks, boons, or support effects in zero-gravity (unless you want to be).
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The simplest and most direct justification for a Counterthrust upgrade is to simply take the name literally- every time you exert force in any direction, you can automatically also exert an equivalent amount of force in the opposite direction. This can come from some sort of mechanical or arcane overwatch mechanism or simply from having a tremendous amount of experience at being in zero-gravity. |
-==== Spacer ====
-Attacks against you are not strengthened when you are in zero-gravity.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Anything that naturally spends a lot of time in zero-gravity (such as spaceships or cosmic horrors, maybe) can justify the Spacer upgrade without much fuss. Anything else can also justify it, but has to have some amount of experience and natural grace first. |
-==== Stabilized ====
-You do not spin out of control when using attack, boon, or support sets in space, meaning that your attacks are not weakened after using such abilities.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|The Stabilized upgrade is extremely closely linked to the Counterthrust one and any justifications that work for one can likely also work for the other. |
-==== Thrusters ====
-You may use this movement ability freely in vacuum.
-^The Fiction Rule ^
-|Having the Thrusters upgrade likely means you have some form of vacuum-sealed and protected means of propulsion, such as a low-power jetpack or something similar. Alternately, it could also be justified by anything that can move through space via more supernatural means. Like, uh... space ghosts or something. |

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