Is my alteration to "Fleet of Foot" balanced?

Question

I'm the GM of a Numenera game. The Glaive move Fleet of Foot (Numenera Character Options, pg. 7) says:

Fleet of Foot: If you succeed at a difficulty 2 Speed-based running task, you can move a short distance and take an action in the same round. Enabler.

Mechanically, I don't love the idea of this move requiring a Speed task. It throws off the flow of a turn by adding an extra roll. If I were in the player's position, I don't think I would enjoy requiring a task to activate it.

I'm proposing this language instead:

Fleet of Foot (2 Speed Points): You can move a short distance and take an action in the same round. Enabler.

This uses the ordinary mechanic for activating an ability (spend from pools) instead of a task. I think it would fit into the flow of play much better. However, I'm uncertain how to balance the Speed cost against the risk of failing an attack.

Is my proposed edit to Fleet of Foot balanced with the original version?

Answer 1

They're basically the same thing, once you get enough investment.

Simply put, to turn one into the other, you just need to reduce the Level of the task by 2. This can be done in three ways: Assets, Skills, and Effort.

It's entirely possible to do this by Tier 2 with a minimal amount of effort by the player - you simply need to choose the Running skill as your choice at Tier 1, and put your Tier 1 and Tier 2 Effort into Speed Edge, giving you 3 Speed Edge. This would allow you to spend 1 level of Effort for free - something you're probably going to want to do anyway, because it'll improve both your offense and defense.

Alternately, if they picked a Descriptor like Rugged or Swift that caused them to become Trained in the Running skill, they can simply spend their Tier 1 Skill purchase to become Specialized, and automatically succeed that way.

Your version requires 2 Speed points to use, but that basically just equates to spending a level of Effort. Once they bought a level of Speed Edge, it'd let them do it for free anyway.