Mobility: The ability to move freely is an asset that is often under appreciated. Creatures that are free to move or make ranged attacks can concentrate their offensive power where they wish, provided they are more mobile than the enemy. Freedom of movement also allows for some tactical flexibility, especially when dealing with the unexpected or fleeing from a bad situation.

Superior mobility can bring all manner of advantages. Simply running around a slower opponent’s front line and attacking a weak spot can have tremendous impact.

A foe does not necessarily have to be faster than the player characters to have superior mobility. If the heroes are attacked from two or three directions at once, the party is faced with staying put or risking leaving someone behind if they move. Spells such as the various walls, slow, entangle, and transmute rock to mud can hinder or even stop a party dead in its tracks. Spells such as darkness, stinking cloud, and fog cloud can disrupt and confuse a party at least temporarily.

Creatures do not willingly give up natural mobility advantages unless they are exceedingly stupid or have been cleverly tricked. A tribe of lizard men, for example, is probably not going to emerge from a river or swamp to attack player characters on a paved road. Likewise, a dragon is not going to make it’s lair in a cavern too small to allow it to fly.

Mobility is not always a function of an opponent’s movement rate. As noted above, the ability to fire missiles is a great enhancement to mobility. Superior numbers also enhance mobility, especially when a small group—such as a party of adventurers—faces a single creature. The group is inherently more mobile than their lone opponent because the task of concentrating their attacks is already done for them (there is only one enemy to fight), and any single form of attack does not immobilize the whole group.

A lone creature facing an adventuring company is at a severe disadvantage unless it can stay out of the party’s reach, isolate individual characters, or deliver attacks that affect all the characters at once. A monster engaged in melee with the party’s lead fighter has very few movement options. The fighter’s movement is restricted, too, but the rest of the characters are under no such limitations.

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