The absurdity of the 5 ft step


General Discussion (Prerelease)

Scarab Sages

The abstract nature of the 5 ft step is ridiculous.

No matter what size or what movement type you have, you can only take a 5 ft step. So a Gargantuan creature can only take a baby step, while a 18inch tall pixie can move a huge amount of space. The monk with the 90ft move can take a 5ft step so can the halfling in platemail...

it's a bizarre rule...


It never bothered me. Then again, I never looked at it as anything more than just a modest shift on the overall battlefield and not as some fraction of a character's movement.


I just posted in Movement: the Six Second Round regarding some of my thoughts on movement. What I mentioned there about 5' steps being basically a brisk walk still holds true relative to size.

But there is the magic word, relative. Size is relative. The amount of movement a pixie can take without taking an attack of opportunity (5' step) is relatively quite large compared to its size. Conversely, a gargantuan dragon has a relatively tiny amount of "free movement" via the 5' step. But we can cite that the pixies size makes it harder for the average medium size adventurer to capitalize on a moment of vunerability, as there is a smaller window in which the pixie is within my reach and thus vunerable (I'm citing the generic concepts of movement and 5' steps. I am aware of specific examples that could be made to oppose my statements, but I'm looking at the majority, not the exceptions.).

Conversely, the dragon presents a much larger window of opening. It has a huge amount of mass, which while moving rapidly, is still moving relatively slower than my own ability to take advantage of it.

Are there mechanical fall-through points in this description? Yes. We could bring up speeds, dexterity, initiative, size bonus to AC, and a few other variables. But if we remove the variables, and look at the core of the issue, the 5' step works.

The only real problem I personally see is that one would think that creatures of equal size should have proportional "5' steps" to each other. But while that makes sense, it means a huge creature like a decently sized dragon or an elephant could be hopping left, right, backwards or forwards in an attack of opportunity free 15' step.

Now, I can't speak for a decently sized dragon, as I don't happen to have seen any in real life. But I've seen a few elephants at zoos and circuses, and while they are more nimble and dextrous than many might think, I am filled with doubt that one could put 15' of distance from something without said something being able to do anything about it. Now, if an Elephant professional shows me proof that I am incorrect, I will apologize, retract my statement, and begin working to bring the realism of relative 5' steps to my game. Till then, standard 5' steps works for me.

Community / Forums / Archive / Pathfinder / Playtests & Prerelease Discussions / Pathfinder Roleplaying Game / General Discussion (Prerelease) / The absurdity of the 5 ft step All Messageboards
Recent threads in General Discussion (Prerelease)
Druid / Monk?