In RuneQuest 3, a person could run hard for a distance, losing fatigue, then walk slowly for a while to recover the fatigue, then continue to alternately run hard and walk slowly all day, always recovering fatigue and being able to run again. I always found this a silly idea.
I prefer the idea of having two types of fatigue - Short Term Fatigue (STF) and Long Term Fatigue (LTF).
Short Term Fatigue is what happens when you exert yourself in short, sharp bursts, for instance in fighting, running or swimming. After such exertions, the person needs to sit down or rest for a while and most of his energy will be recovered.
Long Term Fatigue is the result of sustained periods of work, at lower levels than Short Term Fatigue. These periods of work result in the loss of fatigue but not quickly. Similarly, recovery of this energy takes a long period of rest. Long Term Fatigue is lost by performing tasks for hours on end or by performing long bursts of Short Term work.
As a rule of thumb, one point of Long Term Fatigue is lost for every 10 points of Short Term Fatigue.
Short Term Fatigue is regained as the RQ3 rules, at a rate of 1d3 - 1 points for each round of rest.
Long Term Fatigue is regained at a rate of 1D3 - 1 points per hour of rest.
Fatigue lost through magic is normally Long Term Fatigue and quickly drains the reserves of a person.
A person's current fatigue is calculated by subtracting Short Term Fatigue, Long Term Fatigue and Encumbrance from the normal Fatigue Points. CF = FP - STF - LTF - ENC.
The following rules apply to movement, whether long or short term.
| System | Move | Speed | Km/Day | Km/Day Tireless/Magical |
| RQ3 | 1 | 3 km/h | 15 | 72 |
| RQ3 | (12SR/rnd) | 3.6 km/h | 18 | 86 |
The RQ2 Movement is too complex to be easily described here, so I much prefer to use the RQ3 movement, with a 12 SR melee round. If you use the normal 10 SR round, movement is reduced slightly.
To determine movement for a creature, multiply the Move by the distances above, so an unencumbered human can walk 45 km / day or 28 miles / day, a little more than the RQ2 rules but a little less than the RQ3 rules, and an unencumbered horse can move 150 km / day, 93 miles /day. This may seem fairly high, but put a rider and pack on the horse and it becomes encumbered to such an extent that it tires easily.
Terrain is treated as applying a multiplier to the normal movement, so a human walking through thick forest moves at 45 x 50% = 23 km per day. Effects are cumulative, so walking through boggy forest is at a rate of 45 x 0.85 x 0.50 = 19 km per day.
| Terrain | Multiplier |
| Light Vegetation | 85% |
| Medium Vegetation | 70% |
| Heavy Vegetation | 50% |
| Hills | 70% |
| Passable Mountains | 33% |
| Barely Passable | 10% |
| Impassable | 0% |
| Boggy Marshland | 85% |
| Swamp Marshland | 70% |
| Quicksands | 50% |
| Major River | 1 Day to cross |
| Minor River | 1 hour / 100m to cross |
| Weather | Multiplier |
| Light Rain (1"/day) | 85% |
| Medium Rain (2"/day) | 70% |
| Heavy Rain (3"/day) | 50% |
| Torrential Rain (4"/day) | 30% |
| Light Snow (1"/day) | 85% |
| Medium Snow (2"/day) | 70% |
| Heavy Snow (3"/day) | 50% |
| Blizzard (4"/day) | 30% |
| Mist | 85% |
| Foggy | 70% |
| Pea Souper Fog | 50% |
Heavy rain can also make the ground boggy and make a river wider, snow can freeze boggy ground, improving travel or can make a river freeze over.
Travelling along a road or good trail will negate the effects of vegetation, but not for hills and mountains.
Flying creatures ignore the effects of terrain features but not weather effects.
[End]