Alternate movment rules

[Stryke]

Assuming your miniatures have to scale bases, would it not be feasible to just get a ruler and measure the distance your character can move, the same way you would measure distance in 40k or fantasty

[Milskidasith]

How does this change anything? This seems like a complete nonissue.

[Glimbur]

There are some benefits... movement and spell targeting and such could be much more granular. Sometimes architecture which isn't all right angles is pretty silly on a standard square grid.

On the other hand... it is much easier in play to use a grid rather than measure everything. Even with templates for spells this is still more work. I wouldn't do it simply for that reason.

[Stryke]

How does this change anything? This seems like a complete nonissue.

It's a significant change, i'm talking about removing the grid


There are some benefits... movement and spell targeting and such could be much more granular. Sometimes architecture which isn't all right angles is pretty silly on a standard square grid.

On the other hand... it is much easier in play to use a grid rather than measure everything. Even with templates for spells this is still more work. I wouldn't do it simply for that reason.

its not that much more work, fore the sake of half an hours effort you can make spell templates and a length of card customized to your characters max speed and so much more. i only really though about it because when i play i dont like limiting myself to four directions meaning when i try to move any other way it becomes a head ache to figure out how far i can move. heck if i wanted to move in a curvy fashion or change direction i could use match sticks cut to a one inch length. like most things in life, you'll get out of this what you put in

[Milskidasith]

It's a significant change, i'm talking about removing the grid

I understand that. The problem here is that removal of the grid just isn't relevant for D&D. Everything is a five foot square, and all movement is by five feet squares, and you're only ever "off" from the real value for how much you should be by a small amount. It's just not a huge deal with the way D&D works; you'd have to entirely rewrite the range and movement of everything just to reach a point where the change would ever affect play. The way diagonals works in D&D isn't perfectly accurate, but the number you get for the movement less than 10% more than what it should be, which isn't really a huge deal considering fact most everything will be in range anyway.

In short... D&D is written for five foot squares, so changing it to not require a grid is a massive effort (by rewriting movement and ranges) order to get an extra accuracy of a small bit that is quite likely to be too low to matter in most cases.

Glimbur: The additional granularity doesn't matter when you'd have to rewrite everything to get it to not work in a five foot square. I'm not really sure how strange architecture messes up on a square grid, either; if there isn't a decent amount of space on the square, just assume you can't stand in it. I suppose movement might be slightly altered, but again, the movement costs for diagonals are, doing the math, about 6.1% more than what they should be; not really enough error to matter.

Stryke: You don't have to move in one direction. You can already move diagonally at a cost of 1.5 squares of movement per diagonal square (really, it should be 1.41, but... not a huge deal). Just to get the movement system to the point it would matter you'd have to rewrite all spells so that they didn't already use a five foot square as the basis for how they work.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

...snip...
In short... D&D is written for five foot squares, so changing it to not require a grid is a massive effort (by rewriting movement and ranges) order to get an extra accuracy of a small bit that is quite likely to be too low to matter in most cases.
...
I disagree. I do this all the time - we switch from gridded maps to gridless several times per combat without the slightest hiccup.

I don't see any reason to rewrite the rules if you take away the grid. All the ranges and areas and movements apply as normal, you just use a tape or ruler to check them instead of counting squares. Whenever the rules refer to a square, you just imagine a 5 foot (scale) square at that location.

Seriously, where's the problem?

@ the OP: There's no need to change any rules to use tape measured movement and range - you just need to apply area effects and so on in 5ft squares (or hexes - see Unearthed Arcana).

[LtPowers]

How do you determine flanking without a grid?


Powers &8^]

[Milskidasith]

I disagree. I do this all the time - we switch from gridded maps to gridless several times per combat without the slightest hiccup.

I don't see any reason to rewrite the rules if you take away the grid. All the ranges and areas and movements apply as normal, you just use a tape or ruler to check them instead of counting squares. Whenever the rules refer to a square, you just imagine a 5 foot (scale) square at that location.

Seriously, where's the problem?

@ the OP: There's no need to change any rules to use tape measured movement and range - you just need to apply area effects and so on in 5ft squares (or hexes - see Unearthed Arcana).

The problem here is that it's extra effort for limited gain, or a slight bit of extra effort for no gain. It only possibly makes diagonal movement costs a bit more accurate, but those are often within a five foot square of accuracy anyway. I see no reason to ever measure out combat when I'm going to be, essentially, running on the same grid I would anyway.

[DracoDei]

I don't think it makes much difference, and if it makes you happy, go for it.

Flanking would just be a matter of the GM saying "Eh, looks close enough to directly opposite eachother to me...

Spreads and bursts are spheres, walls are thick planes, 5' cubes are either still 5' cubes, or any shape you like, as long as it is at least 5' thick everywhere.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Either way works perfectly, and both work well in the same game, actually. We keep a ruler on hand for line of sight, diagonal movement across strange angles, range, and other things, and we sometimes ditch the grid entirely. Works perfectly for us.

[Milskidasith]

I'm not saying you can't do it, or you can't enjoy it... I'm just not seeing where it would matter. If you don't have a grid, it's faster to measure than to use a grid. If you do have a grid, it's faster to use that than to measure. Either way, since D&D measures in five foot squares, things aren't going to be very precise, unless you rewrite everything, which is a lot of effort. If you don't rewrite everything, you'll get about the same combat either way, barring really weird edge cases where you can't quite reach somebody at very long diagonal distances.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'm not saying you can't do it, or you can't enjoy it... I'm just not seeing where it would matter. If you don't have a grid, it's faster to measure than to use a grid. If you do have a grid, it's faster to use that than to measure. Either way, since D&D measures in five foot squares, things aren't going to be very precise, unless you rewrite everything, which is a lot of effort. If you don't rewrite everything, you'll get about the same combat either way, barring really weird edge cases where you can't quite reach somebody at very long diagonal distances.

D&D 3.5 doesn't really measure in 5ft squares though...you'll notice that fireball says a 5ft radius, not X squares in either direction (something 4e picked up). There's also no rule saying you can't stand in half of two squares...2.5 feet to either the left or the right, for example. In 4e there is, but in 3.5 it's merely a nod to make grid-based combat easier for the DM.

[ericgrau]

Usually it seems like more work. But it is kind of nice for area spells where you don't remember exactly what they reach without using a template. What you really need are a bunch of sticks of appropriate length, especially 20' and 30' and a way to anchor them to a certain spot. For example you could reduce the length of each one by the width of a miniature base, that way you put it next to the mini and move the mini to the other side of it boom done. For spells a compass or multiple compasses (one permanently locked on each radius) may be better. But now that's a lot of trouble just to make it less trouble.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I find it a damn sight easier to use a tape measure to check ranges and movement than counting the squares on the grid - especially when the path is something other than right angles or diagonal, or the points being measured are at differing elevations.

[Stryke]

I'm not saying you can't do it, or you can't enjoy it... I'm just not seeing where it would matter. If you don't have a grid, it's faster to measure than to use a grid. If you do have a grid, it's faster to use that than to measure. Either way, since D&D measures in five foot squares, things aren't going to be very precise, unless you rewrite everything, which is a lot of effort. If you don't rewrite everything, you'll get about the same combat either way, barring really weird edge cases where you can't quite reach somebody at very long diagonal distances.

i really dont see where your getting the idea that you'd need to rewrite everything

[Forevernade]

How do you determine flanking without a grid?


Powers &8^]

Use square bases for the models. That way you have a facing direction, sides, and rear. Square bases interacting do not require grid, just base to base contact.

[Milskidasith]

i really dont see where your getting the idea that you'd need to rewrite everything

In order to make D&D not rely on five foot squares, you would need to rewrite it to not have everything in five foot increments. If you don't change everything from being five foot increments, then grid or no, you're still essentially playing with five foot squares, besides AoE spells, which... are very insignificantly affected.

Basically, if you don't rewrite it to not have all movement, ranges, etc. be based on five foot squares, the game changes a very small amount with or without the grid.

[Stryke]

In order to make D&D not rely on five foot squares, you would need to rewrite it to not have everything in five foot increments. If you don't change everything from being five foot increments, then grid or no, you're still essentially playing with five foot squares, besides AoE spells, which... are very insignificantly affected.

Basically, if you don't rewrite it to not have all movement, ranges, etc. be based on five foot squares, the game changes a very small amount with or without the grid.

While i said it was a significant change, i never implied it was goin to make a huge change to the game. I just thought it was an idea worth examining.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

In order to make D&D not rely on five foot squares, you would need to rewrite it to not have everything in five foot increments. If you don't change everything from being five foot increments, then grid or no, you're still essentially playing with five foot squares, besides AoE spells, which... are very insignificantly affected.

Basically, if you don't rewrite it to not have all movement, ranges, etc. be based on five foot squares, the game changes a very small amount with or without the grid.

Nope. 5ft is a good measurement. Nothing in 3.5 mentions this "5-foot square." You'd be essentially playing with 5-foot squares, but you'd have more freedom to move outside the static grid.

[drakir_nosslin]

There are some benefits... movement and spell targeting and such could be much more granular. Sometimes architecture which isn't all right angles is pretty silly on a standard square grid.


Well, one could always use a hex grid (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/hexGrid.htm) instead, if that's a problem.