I've never had a problem figuring out where someone else would be at on another characters turn with the movement system. It's a standard exercise in all turn based movement systems. You need to distinguish between when a Player is moving a PC and when the PC is actually moving. the Player moving a PC is an OOC action and is in IP phases. The movement IC is all in one smooth motion. Don't let the artificial nature of the Player acting one to four times a combat turn confuse you into thinking that herky jerky motion is happening IC.

Just because the 1 IP person moves their full distance during the Players turn doesn't mean the character gets there. It's a declaration of movement, and it will get resolved by the end of the combat turn. The others will get to act. This is perfectly appropriate as it allows those with more actions to react to the person who cannot change their declared actions.

Otherwise my advice to Runners is to run quietly and carry a big stick.

Under the Movement section, Sprinting increases your Running Rate for the turn by 2 per Hit. Lets assume you achieve 2 Hits - your Running Rate is now 29m for that turn. At no point does this "reset" as you claim. Read the rules - the Running Rate has increased, regardless of mixed movement.. Additional Sprint actions continue to increase your Running Rate. Further, the rules provided for determining how far someone moves during a specific pass are dependent on the movement rate used over the course of a Combat Turn. So Sprinting in later actions actually increases the distance moved while running in previous actions of the turn.

I call bullshit.

Neither is Initiative Pass-specific. They both apply to the Combat Turn. It would work a lot better if Sprinting increased the movement in the pass the action was taken. Reworking movement rates entirely would be best.

My point was that such a reading of the rules is so obtusely literal as to be completely infeasible. By making a sprint action in my fourth pass I've altered my map location in previous passes (during which I was making attacks and being attacked). Suddenly the entire combat turn as to be retconned as my character moves 1 to 10 meters farther along in his path and behind cover he was not behind when those passes happened.

And by pointing out the Rules as Written, in most circumstances, I hope I cause the writers to actually pay attention to what they are doing. There is no reason other than poor writing/proofreading that instances like these could be avoided without changing the intended rules.

To quote you "I suggest you actually read & spend some time attempting to comprehend the rules, as this is blatantly incorrect."

In the Movement section SR4a, pg 149, the Running Rate increases by 2 per Hit, but not the Walking Rate. On pg 136 Running adds "to the character’s distance for that Combat Turn" which could apply to Walking Rate. There is a Chart on SR4A pg 149 showing the difference between Walking Rate and Running Rate.

edit :misquote fixed

That and the general ambiguity of the English language. It is nearly impossible to write a detailed descriptive sentence that is not open to interpretation. There was some rule argument not too long ago (couple months) and I recall myself and several other people attempting to re-word it to make its intent less ambiguous, but it was exceedingly difficult.

I recall one of my high school English writing assignments was 'How to make a PB&J sandwich." where you simply had to write how to make a PB&J sandwich. The trick however was that every instruction had to be utterly precise and unambiguous. After everyone had turned their paper in, the teacher got some bread and other stuff and attempted to follow directions from people's papers, always interpreting it in the worse way possible. It was truly rare that the teacher got past the first sentence before something was wrong and the writer had to say "No, I meant you had to do X." and add clarifications.

So sure, some rules could be written a little clearer, but alot of rules are just people going "Muahaha, ambiguity in an ambiguous language, I strike for the stupid interpretation." So yeah, sure while the rules technically provide a way to retcon your entire turn based on taking a sprint action on your 4th IP, but that is obviously not what is intended. Remember, the people writing these rules know what they mean, and likely 999 out of 1000 people who read the rules don't go "Oh, so I should retcon my entire turn when I take a sprint action."

So, if you'd really like a completely unambiguous set of rules some time, expect to read through about five pages to get 'roll a die'.

Personally, I don't think '999 out of 1000 people get it just fine, and that 1 out of 1000 is just nit-picking' counts as 'poor writing/proofreading'.

I admit there are real problems, but I also admit that alot of them are just blown out of proportion by people being intentionally stupid nitpickers.

One of my class mates made a typo spellcheck didn't catch.

"Put lip on the table."

Hehe, funny. And something easy to overlook when self proofing because you know it is supposed to be lid there, so you just pass over it, especially as the two letters look similar. I figured I wasn't exactly alone in having had that assignment before. It is an interesting look at how hard it is to give instructions, and also how hard it is to be unambiguous.

The assignment isn't unique. Almost everyone's heard of it.

I of course, an aspiring computer programmer, included a conditional statement in mine along with directions for both a whole sandwich and a half sandwich.

I think it's fairly obvious that the rules don't intend that you have to replay previous passes just because you increased overall movement in a later pass. I don't agree that the rules state so either, despite using the past tense "moved" rather than moves which makes alot more sense. Overall in the combat chapter it seems the movement rules are some kind of afterthought . the characters shoots, dodges etc. .. oh yeah and he moves some. If for some obscure reason you want to know exactly how far you moved, take the modified movement rate and divide by the number of passes in that turn.

However since movement is actually alot more important in determining cover, line of sight etc. than the rulebook seem to think, resolving movement pass after pass and not "rewinding" to adjust for sprint action is the only sane way of doing it.

Example:

Joe the sammie enters a production facility courtyard. Before combat he is assumed to be walking. Suddenly gun turrets come up from the ground, and combat begins. Joe doesen't have much anti-armor weapons so he decides to make a run for the door of a building 30 meters away. Since his running speed is 25, he needs to make at least one sprint action to make it in that round, also he wants to get there as fast as he can. The gun turrets have 2 passes, while Joe has 3.

Pass 1: Joe makes two sprint actions, getting first 2 hits and then 3. Thus his movement rate becomes 35/4=7.75. Both gun turrets fire at him but he manages to dodge it with some edge.
Pass 2: Now 22 meters away, Joe continues to sprint. This time he gets a total of 6 hits, increasing his movement by 11.75 meters... now his movement is either:
a: 25+10+12=47 (/4=11.75~12) 11.75 meters. The only logical reason for this increase is the natural acceleration of a running human... it takes some seconds to get to top speed.
b: same as above, except he suddenly gains 4 more meters in the previous pass.... stupid.
c: 25+12=9.25 meters, a bit more than last phase but might has well have been less than last phase. It's also assumed you can get to top accelleration in the first second.. which for people with one initative pass is already the case even with option a.


Now in this example Joe would get there in the third pass if we use option a. If not, he'll probably need all passes and the only reason to determine movement per pass is to know what range he is away from the guns.

So far I'm undecided about option a or option c... I like the thought that the speed increases per pass spent running, but it only applies to people with Wired etc. How many seconds does it take for a sprinter to reach top speed anyway? Seems like athletes can reach decent speed in the first 2-3 seconds or 20-30 meters, and top speed at about 60 meters (which may explain why 60 meters is the standard quck sprint distance), after which it begins to drop as the muscles become a bit tired. Only a very few can sustain 10 m/s for any length of time.

Also, with option a almost anyone can beat the world record if they only have multiple passes, which might not be your thing if Wired etc. only increases reflexes and not actual speed of mucles etc.

Hmm leaning towards option c now.. also means you don't have to add movement all the time, you can just add the latest result to the base rate.

While I agree that option a makes some sense from an 'accelerating' standpoint, it really doesn't take very long to get to get to maximum speed, and you also have to consider the weird deceleration that occurs over combat turns. To continue your example, say sammy was further away, and he required 2 combat turns to reach it. If you use option a, then he gets up to somewhere around (25+10+12+10)/3=19m on his last IP, and then suddenly on his first IP of his next round he is only going 25/3~8m. It's like he trips every 3 seconds while running.

That's something I've been thinking a long time, being also a computer programmer. Books should be written like an algorithm. With methods/functions/sub-routines for some of the parts that need more detailing, but most of the time you should write it as an algorithm and ask someone else to follow it,.

Most people here aren't interested in writing rules, though, just using them - so it doesn't really add much to the discussion to purposely warp the interpretation like this.

I personally really like the one free/simple action per IP to run/sprint interpretation, with the bonus sprinting distance (note that the text specifies a bonus to movement rate, not distance travelled) based on how many IPs you're actually sprinting for. If you're sprinting all-out, it's a full body experience - it's actually rather hard to do much else (i.e. no complex actions) while in full sprint, pumping your arms, etc. For this reason it makes a lot of sense to me for someone sprinting to lose a Simple Action every pass. Similarly for running, but it's less demanding, so you only lose a Free Action (making it more difficult to Aim or make a Called Shot, for example). The character with 4 IPs isn't actually doing more work than the character with 1 IP, it's just that because they are sprinting (or running), they can do less with the IPs that they do get.

Many of the writers visit & and participate in these forums. And I do write rules. I am also not "purposely warping" the interpretation - I am reading it literally. Yes, Rules as Written, taking Sprint actions in later Initiative Passes modifies how far you moved with Run actions in previous passes of the same turn. If the writers had been paying attention while writing the rules, this could very easily have been fixed. Laziness is really the only reason for it.

The OP, however, is deliberately trying to misinterpret the running rules to support a false position claimed to be RAW. I have no problem with someone House Ruling to use such rules. But calling it Rules as Written is bullshit. Sprint actions taken in the same Combat Turn do, in fact, stack.