How big a deal is movement? How does it affect tactics and caster power?

[Talakeal]

So I use a house rule where a character's ability scores modify their movement speed. Long story short, most characters tend to move a square or two further than they do under standard RAW.

Last session the player of the party sorceress was complaining that this rule seriously impeded her ability to play tactically.

Her claim was that it made it harder for the casters to evade enemies and that the bad guys had the mobility to spread out and never clumped up until they were in melee range and thus negated her AOE blasting power.

I personally feel that the problem is that the party never wants to spread out to control the battlefield, they normally cluster up in one spot in a ball and let the enemies surround or come to them at their leisure, but the player insisted that faster movement meant that this was the only tactic that would benefit a small group. I don't quite see it.

So what do you guys think? How big a deal is a character's movement score on a tactical level? Does a slightly faster or slower average movement score affect the tactical quality of the game or alter the balance of power between casters and martials? Have you ever done anything to tweak movement or noticed any differences when running parties where the PCs are all faster or slower than their opponents such as an all dwarf game?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Without knowing the exact conversion I can only speak generally, but small differences tend not to mean much (at least in my experience). While 100 vs 30 is a big shift, a 30 runs at just over a 100's move, a 30 vs 35 means that you will eventually narrowly get away in chase (or not be able to escape ultimately). Once battle is joined in tends to devolve into a mess of tumbles and five foot steps anyways. I could see why she could get annoyed if she keeps moving a full 30 and casting (provoking an AoO in the process) and the enemy always catches up but that would get her no wheres in a base game anyways.

As for your sorceress, if she plans on AoE blasting she should have been investing in things that allow her to 1: avoid hitting allies and 2: strike enemies first when they are still clustered. I am not seeing a reason why she would be having issues unless she failed to invest in these and in spells that target single targets.

[Brendanicus]

I can see how slow casters could be impeded by this new rule. Having everyone but special classes have a max 30 ft speed means that charging melee characters can close the gap about 50% of the time, but one can always stay spaced if they want to be cowardly.

This is a bit irrelevant, but this topic reminds me of the time I tried a Crusader. I read up on White Raven and thought that its teamwork was the coolest thing ever, so that's how I specced out my character. The only other melee combatant in the party was a Barbarian. So while I had specced my character to enhance other people's powers in melee, the barbarian could kill any major target before I even had time to swing my sword twice. This was due to the fact that he had twice my movement speed. Probably the least fun character I've ever played. From now on when I want to support my team, I go Sorcerer.