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I looked in the core book but I couldn't find it. The index points to page 92 but I don't see what the actual MPH is. I get that CoD is not necessarily a stats-heavy game but I'd like something to go off of if some moves at 4, someone else moves at 4x4 or 10x4.

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1.36 mph

Speed wasn’t changed in the Rules update for CoD, so I will refer you back to p. 95 of the 2004 rulebook.

“Your character’s Speed represents the number of yards she can move in a turn and still perform an action.”

“Alternatively she can run up to double her Speed in a turn, but can usually take no other action.”

There is an example in that section where the character has a Speed of 9 which means she can jog 9 yards or run 18 in a turn.

The length of time for a turn is 3 seconds (p. 37).

So there are 1200 turns in an hour. Each dot of speed allows you to jog 1200/1760 mph (0.68 mph) or run 2400/1760 mph (1.36 mph).

That puts a fairly average human character with a speed of 9 being able to run about 12 mph over a short burst.

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In combat, creatures move at (Speed x 1.2) km/h walking, (Speed x 2.4) km/h running

This is covered on page 26 of the Chronicles of Darkness core rulebook, and it differs from the first (World of Darkness) edition because they’ve embraced the metric system:

Speed

A character’s speed is equal to Strength + Dexterity + 5. A character can move this many meters in one turn.

As per page 73 of the same book, a turn lasts three seconds:

Turn — The smallest increment of time, a turn lasts for about three seconds.

And on page 92, in the combat rules:

Movement

A character can move his Speed in a single turn and still take an instant action. He can give up his action to move at double his normal Speed.

Thus a Speed of 1 translates to a walking speed of 0.33m/s (metres per second), equal to 1.2km/h (kilometres per hour) or a bit less than 0.75mph (miles per hour).

This means an average human character with a speed of 9 has a walking speed of 3m/s, or 10.8km/h (6.7mph). That’s higher than the usual average adult walking speed of around 5 or 6 km/h, but we’re only measuring it this precisely in combat, so it makes sense people are moving quicker.

If they run, the average human can cover 18m in 3 seconds. That’s a short burst speed of 21.6 km/h (13.4 mph).

Peak human speed from an athlete with Strength and Dexterity ratings of 5 would be 10 m/s, or 36km/h (22.3mph). That’s quite a bit slower than the official world record - Usain Bolt ran 100 metres in under 10 seconds, reaching a speed of 44.6km/h (27.8mph) - but realistic given we’re measuring speed during a combat scenario, not a foot race. (CoD has a nice abstract system for chases.)

Of course, dedicated sprinters may have merits like Fleet of Foot to further boost their speed. Fleet of Foot 3 would raise the human maximum speed to 43.2 km/h which is pretty close to the real world record.

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