Celerity and movement

[Griautis]

Hello,

for a very long time I've been playing that you can only move _once_ in your turn, in a single move.
However, right now i'm no longer sure. Are you allowed in your turn to move a part of your move, do an action, and move the rest of your move? Similarly, can you move, attack, and later in a turn use Celerity interrupt to move the remainder of your move (or spend more vitae to get some) ?

[Tessie]

Movement isn't an action so you can probably move whenever (except, probably, before your turn in the initiative queue) and split it up however you'd like as long as you don't exceed your Speed (or double your Speed if you sacrifice your instant action).
The book doesn't actually say anything regarding when you're allowed to move. Not even that it's tied to initiative so it's only by convention we'd assume that you can't move before your turn. I'm glad CofD isn't like D&D in how ridiculously meticulous and non-flexible it is in its rules, but I hate how much guessing there is about what's actually intended when trying to play CofD. Balance shouldn't be that hard to strike.

[DubiousRuffian]

I think the standard rules are that you may either sprint twice your speed in meters away and take no instant action, or you may move your speed in meters and take an instant action in the same turn.

For nonstandard ordering, I think you'll have to play it by ear.

I would definitely allow:

• You're being low-key persued through a crowd. You move half your distance to an NPC, pickpocket/plant evidence or a tracker, and move the rest of your distance away.

I might allow

• In a chase or combat, you move half your distance to a door, open or break down the door, then move half your distance into the new room.

I probably wouldn't allow (unless it's an ambush, or you just hit the dude with a 2x4).

• You move half your distance to an npc, punch him, run away.

If I remember right, you may use Celerity at any time to instantly move to any point up to your speed away. So I might run to you, punch you, spend a vitae immediately and run away. Or move to you, punch you, wait until your turn, then inturrupt you and run away. But you only get a single use of each active effect of Celerity. So no teleporting to someone, punching them, then teleporting out of range immediately after.

[Marcus]

If we consider movment at up your speed and attack/action as a dynamic unique action (that I think it's the intent) so no reason to separate it in: half movment - attack - half movment.
You are runnint through your enemy, punching him and keep running throught that dor at the end of the room.
Any celerity active effect is reflexive which mean you can use either any or all of them at any moment of the turn.
One of these active effects is to multiply your speed which means you can.... multiply your speed considering the new value as soon as it's your turn in the initiative.

[Heavy Arms]

Hello,for a very long time I've been playing that you can only move _once_ in your turn, in a single move.
However, right now i'm no longer sure.

It's not really clear in the book alone, but I'm pretty sure the devs have said this was the intended interpretation before. I can see about trying to Google up where that was said or if any of the other core books use more clear language around this.

Similarly, can you move, attack, and later in a turn use Celerity interrupt to move the remainder of your move (or spend more vitae to get some) ?

Celerity is written so this is mostly the case, though you can't spend blood to get more if you have none, since increasing your Speed is multiplicative and doubling zero is still zero.

There's a reason Celerity interrupts are limited to a small number per scene... they can be extremely deadly with this short of tactics alone.

Movement isn't an action...

Technically, it's a reflexive action, hence it can normally be done in conjunction with an Instant action, rather than no action at all.

[SpiriT]

Just to be very specific, in this case, we've been discussing Celerity interrupt.
As in, can a person move a few meters, attack - wait for opp turn, interrupt during their attack and move aside?
We assumed they can't, which created a strange situation where nobody wanted to attack because if you moved & attacked first, you couldn't use the move to interrupt out of danger later on in the turn.

[tsusasi]

They can either use their normal movement to get within striking range and use Celerity to interrupt and take an attack. Or they can attack, interrupt and then use their normal movement but they are in most cases still within striking distance at the start of the next turn. Or they can attack and then use Celerity to move out of striking distance by using Celerity as the speed multiplier. But no they can’t move, attack, interrupt, AND move out of striking distance in a single turn.

[DubiousRuffian]

Grabbed the rules for Celerity.

• Interrupt the action of another character with a brief action of her own. This could be an attack, making it possible to disable an opponent in mid-action. It may be movement, avoiding harm by shifting out of reach. Or it could be any other instant action, like activating a Discipline or dodging. However, the vampire is still limited to one instant action....
• Multiply her speed by her dots in Celerity plus one. Moving
in this way is sudden, jarring, the vampire appears to shift from point to point without crossing the space in-between.

So taking the above, you could take your normal turn to move your speed and punch an npc. Then during the npc's turn, you can spend one vitae to inturrupt the npc's turn with a brief action.. That action is to run away. Spend a second point of vitae to multiply your movement speed by dots in Celerity. So now you can move out of the npc's range.

[Tessie]

But no they can’t move, attack, interrupt, AND move out of striking distance in a single turn.

Why not? If the attacker splits their movement so that they never exceed their Speed during that turn, what's the problem?
Edit: I see. No, you can't use interrupt to move your Speed away if you've already used up your movement.


Quick edit: Here's the full extent of the movement rules in VtR (barring stuff hidden away in other rules):

"Speed
Your character’s Speed is the number of yards or meters she can travel in a single turn. This trait is a combination of her Strength, Dexterity, and a species factor that reflects her age, physical configuration, Size and other considerations."
p.169

"Movement
A character can move his Speed in a single turn and still take an instant action. He can forsake his action to move at double his normal pace."
p.178

Says absolutely nothing about when you may move or whether you can or can't split your movement to move multiple times during your turn; only describes how much you may move during a turn.
(I suppose it's a reflexive action in that absolutely everything can be considered a reflexive action if it's not an instant or extended action, but it's not described as any type of action; only something you can do in a turn.)

[tsusasi]

You deleted the portion where it says a character cannot move more than their Speed in a single turn if they opt to use the Interrupt effect.

[Maina]

This question seems to have nothing to do with Celerity and everything to do with whether or not you can split movement. You might get a more informed response in the CofD forum. I'm not sure if the CofD devs browse there like Rose browses here sometimes, but it's worth a shot.

[DubiousRuffian]

You deleted the portion where it says a character cannot move more than their Speed in a single turn if they opt to use the Interrupt effect.

I did. Copying large blocks of text seems in poor taste.

I also left out the part that says that you can reflexively use as many active effects as you have dots in the discipline. I don't see anything ruling out active effects stacking.

So like I said, I run to you, smack you, wait for your turn, use the inturrupting effect, and use the speed multiplier to get out of range.

[Rose Bailey]

Short version: Using Celerity to hit and run was intended. It gives you a chance to do something without other people being able to counter you, and that includes movement.

Longer version: Back when we started the Vampire 2e project, I talked to the forums about cool stuff Celerity could do, and came away with the idea that it was more about the effects of speed rather than the ability to move a greater distance on your turn. Things like stopping a gunman before they pull the trigger, dodging a machete strike in the fraction of a second that the glint of the blade blinds the attacker, all your "don't blink" stuff.

But we had to fit any kind of "fast" power into the turn/action system for combat. And we also had to keep Celerity meaningful for anyone who wanted to do a 1e foot-versus-vehicle chase or something, because neither GMC nor VtR2 were going to overhaul that system. We didn't want Celerity-dodging to require forfeiting your action, because we didn't want vampires on pure defense (lower case d). So it had to touch Initiative, Speed, and Defense.

And that's all combat-ish -- at least three-quarters of what I've seen people do with Celerity in live play doesn't have anything to do with the combat system. Celerity needed to be narratively and mechanically clear when nobody was punching anybody.

Rather than introduce new concepts into the combat system just to accommodate Celerity, we settled for a "just works" approach: the interrupt. We didn't want to allow multiple attacks (whole 'nother thing), so interrupts didn't give you a full instant action. Instead, we gave you guidelines on things you could do without anybody being able to stop you.

As finished, it fits how a lot of people were using Celerity already (that forum thread, again), and makes it clear what it does. (The latter being the most important part of any Discipline.) But for it to work, you have to accept that interrupts are atomic -- they do what the rules say they do, and don't break down into instant or reflexive actions.

You could, potentially, rewrite core combat so that "fast" isn't about initiative placement and discrete sprints. That's a pretty common playstyle already.


(I'm rewriting physical Disciplines right now and I'm gonna keep all this in mind...)

[Griautis]

(I'm rewriting physical Disciplines right now and I'm gonna keep all this in mind...)

Can you share them in the forums once they're done, please?

[DubiousRuffian]

You could, potentially, rewrite core combat so that "fast" isn't about initiative placement and discrete sprints. That's a pretty common playstyle already.

Fas/slow probably covers about 90% of my play/playstyle -- if only because I prefer to have mechanics get out of the way if they aren't giving me interesting consequences.

Probably the only time discussions about reflexive vs instant/initiative/etc come up for me is when I've got a cold open where context doesn't determine play order, or when there are lots of players who want conflicting things. So I wonder if bribing players with advantages or beats (something line the FATE point economy?) would work for resolving those conflicts. So like, "whoever wants to hit first will take a bonus to this attack, but the defender gets a bonus to Defense," or "if you take the hit, I'll give you a beat...."

Edit: Better idea -- "Each attacker must give a WP to anyone choosing to attack after them. First attacker gets a bonus to their initial attacks." Kind of captures what it's like to initiate violence when you're outnumbered, and potentially simulates the tactical advantage for holding back a sec.