New speed idea: Crawl

[James de Monet]

It suddenly occurred to me that the ability to crawl could be a very cool addition to the game, for several reasons:

• If your character is seriously injured (falls off the shield wall, takes a horrendous damage shot to the legs/foot, etc), it would be a useful RP tool (it might even be cool to see characters be forced to this speed if their health drops to critical or below
• If your character is having trouble walking for some reason (eg they're drunk) it would be cool to have a mode of movement with less chance of failure (ie falling)
• It would be pretty cool if crawling gave you a chance at moving as if sneaking, too (much less of a chance, obviously, but still a small, unskilled chance) of course, anyone noticing you crawling is going to be instantly curious...
• The thing I can't decide is if crawling should use more or less stamina. Speaking from experience having done individual movement technique drills, crawling is WAY more exhausting than walking, BUT, you can do it after you're too tired to walk. Not sure how to handle that aspect. Either way, the delay should clearly be way more than walking.
• It would be extra cool if crawling into a room with a climb check gave you a bonus to success for your increased traction, too.
• Finally, it would be cool (though not necessary) if you could crawl while sitting/resting and the game would translate that position to the next room (or force you to sit if you're standing).

Thoughts?

[James de Monet]

Looks like I'm not alone in this desire...

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,18086.msg190591.html#msg190591

[FantasyWriter]

I believe this was slated for Reborn and may be in or going into the new code base.

I like the idea. Imagine caves you HAD to crawl through to get to the other side. Or Ruins. Or all kind of Labyrinth goodness.

[James de Monet]

True. The bonus to direction sense from the other thread is interesting, too. I agree it would be easier to navigate a storm on your knees. It's harder to get turned around (ie "stumble around") when your whole body is aligned with your direction of travel, too, instead of just your hips/shoulders.

[BleakOne]

True. The bonus to direction sense from the other thread is interesting, too. I agree it would be easier to navigate a storm on your knees. It's harder to get turned around (ie "stumble around") when your whole body is aligned with your direction of travel, too, instead of just your hips/shoulders.

Be extremely tiring though. A cool idea.

[FantasyWriter]

Yeah, a stamina penalty would be a nice counterbalance.

[ShaLeah]

True. The bonus to direction sense from the other thread is interesting, too. I agree it would be easier to navigate a storm on your knees. It's harder to get turned around (ie "stumble around") when your whole body is aligned with your direction of travel, too, instead of just your hips/shoulders.

Be extremely tiring though. A cool idea.

I disagree, crawling is much easier than walking... if it weren't, babies wouldn't start that way.

[Delirium]

Crawling: halved stamina, double the movement delay of walking.

[FantasyWriter]

I would think that it would take more energy to crawl across the desert on your hands and knees than stride across it on two legs.
I thought that's what made primitive humans such excellent predators.  Easier =/= more efficient.

*shrug*

[James de Monet]

I disagree, crawling is much easier than walking... if it weren't, babies wouldn't start that way.

I have to agree with FW. Simply because something is simpler does not mean it is less tiresome.  By the same token, humans learn to walk before they learn to drive, but driving requires way less stamina (ie, in this context it is easier).

[BleakOne]

I just imagine it would be hard to move about on your knees all over the place, which is what the poster I was responding to talked about. I mean, try going down the a hallway or across the park on your knees instead of feet. It's hard.

A more 'baby-style' crawl doesn't seem like a good method of long-term travel for a fully grown humanoid encumbered with pack and clothing. A last desperate few leagues maybe, but hardly a way to cross the Red Desert in one go.

[James de Monet]

Mmm. I think I just figured it out. I was still bothered by the fact that you can walk for a much longer distance than you can crawl without tiring, BUT, people who can no longer walk, can still often crawl. But I think the point of it is this: the hard (read tiring / disabling) part of walking when exhausted, injured, drunk, etc is not the walking itself, it's the getting back up when you lose your balance or fall. Getting up to your hands and knees requires no balance and very little strength. Standing on your feet requires a lot of balance and more strength. Hence, people do not go immediately to crawling from walking, first they fall down, discover they can no longer stand (their issue is not with lifting one foot after the other, it's with managing to stand at all), then they crawl.  Sorry, overanalysis FTW.

[BleakOne]

Although it would take a lot of coding, perhaps an ability to move very slowly when you otherwise would be too tired?

[Feco]

I disagree, crawling is much easier than walking... if it weren't, babies wouldn't start that way.

I think you (and many in this threat) are conflating "easier" and "energy efficient."  They aren't the same thing.

That said, I don't have any input as to which would be more stamina-intensive.  I would think crawling, but that's just conjecture.

[RogueGunslinger]

Bahahah. If crawling were a more energy efficient means of travel I'm pretty sure we wouldn't march our military over long distances.



A unit of allanaki militia crawls in from the west, their movements in sync.

[ShaLeah]

Bahahah. If crawling were a more energy efficient means of travel I'm pretty sure we wouldn't march our military over long distances.



A unit of allanaki militia crawls in from the west, their movements in sync.

Energy efficient and TIME efficient are two different things. And in the military we do have a crawl to get from point a to point b, it normally involves trying to keep away from live rounds easily finding you while you're trying to march all up in the enemy's grill.

[Feco]

I believe it's hypothesized that bipedalism is a more energy efficient means of travel than quadrupedal locomotion or knuckle-walking, and as such, is one of a long list of reasons that it evolved in humans.

My field is *not* bio-mechanics, though, so I can't back that up, and I don't really feel like looking it up.

Regardless, to expand on my previous post, the following is a non sequitur:

1. Babies crawl before they walk.
2. Babies always do the easier thing before the more difficult thing.
3. Therefore, it's more energy efficient (uses less stamina) to crawl.

Premise 2 is shaky in its own right, and as I said before, it just doesn't follow.  If a task is easier, it doesn't necessarily follow that it's the most energy efficient means to do something.  Athletes constantly search for the most energy efficient means to do things -- that doesn't mean that it's *easier* to do it, in every sense (only in an energy sense).

Either way, I think this is an awesome idea, and I think the stamina bit is unnecessary.  It just needs to be slow as shit compared to walking.

[Narf]

I believe it's hypothesized that bipedalism is a more energy efficient means of travel than quadrupedal locomotion or knuckle-walking, and as such, is one of a long list of reasons that it evolved in humans.

That's correct. Humans are in fact the greatest distance walkers on planet Earth (yes, we can outwalk horses). Or we were in ancient times at least. Now we're fat.

Learned that in my evolution class, which had a fairly large portion of the class dedicated to human evolution.

[Nyr]

seems legit

[Cind]

If you made it significantly more difficult to crawl through a room that is obviously full of deep sand than it is to crawl across solid ground I'll be all for this.

[Marauder Moe]

Guys, I don't think realism is all that important here.  Our movement code is already pretty unrealistic.  Instead, I might suggest that we decide how we want this to impact the game before we work out specific mechanics.  We should settle on answers to the following questions:

1) Do we want to add a way for someone who is out of stamina to move, albeit possibly very slowly?

2) Do we really want another mode of stealthy movement?

3) Do we want to force this mode of movement on characters who have lost a certain percentage of hit points?

4) Do we want a way for drunk people to move without risk of falling down?

[Refugee]

I'm pretty sure babies crawl first not because the motor function is easier, but because they don't have the sense of balance finely developed yet.  

Having said that, my daughter never really did crawl, she would drag herself to something to pull herself up on and cruise the furniture, holding onto it for balance.

[Sephiroto]

To all of you who are saying that crawling is easier/more efficient, imagine the following:

The Rocky Badlands: There are lots of rocks here.  They are rough, scalding hot, and many are jagged.

Now, do you want to walk across them with your boots and/or toughened up feet, or do you want to crawl on your hands and knees that are soft and not designed for travelling?  Also, walking is a controlled fall and crawling is not.  If crawling were more efficient for humans, we'd have four feet instead of two feet and hands.

Regarding what Moe says:
I think crawling would best compliment the sneak/hide code as well as open doors to having doorways/holes/voids that can only be crawled through by larger humans.  --That seems realistic.
I think that crawling could possibly be helpful for severely drunk people, but IRL, severely drunk people either walk/stagger or lay in ditches passed out and covered with vomit.  --Maybe not so realistic.
I think that being forced to crawl while severely wounded could be applicable in some places, but for the most part, severely wounded people tend to stay stationary, otherwise they pass out from shock.  --Also not so realistic.
I do, however, think that delayed movement speed could/should be in effect when PCs are wounded.  Wounds bad enough should definitely prevent a character from running and a PC who is OMFGBleedingEverywhere! should probably not be able to walk.

[Vwest]

I was just wishing for a crawl when my character was so drunk it couldn't leave a room without 5+ falls.

It doesn't need to be fancy or complicated or based on health levels, just let it function exactly like walk with the same modifiers based on terrain, but increase the movement delay 100-200%.

You can RP how you got hurt, got drunk or got screwed so hard you can't stand... and let the code side of it be as simple as possible.

[Harmless]

Crawling on no movement points changes a fundamental make or breaker in this game's code balance. Being too exhausted to move. How many times has that rule so to speak ended my most beloved character's lives. if suddenly, all those characters might have been able to live had they "learned" how to crawl, I would start raging even more than I did when they added those quit safe rooms outside city gates.

at least, if this was added, there should be a massive PRE-delay. it would be therefore NEVER be effective for running away from something. Realism.