Does anybody play gridless with miniatures?

[Ozreth]

I got pretty into miniatures skirmish games the last few years, as well as a renewed interest in mass battle stuff, and now that I’m back at D&D full time I want to see how 3.5 will play without a grid but with miniatures and a lot of terrain with rulers or tape measures.

AoOs and templates come to mind as potentially finicky.

Anybody have experience with this? We always used a chessex mat for 3.5 in the past.

[Lilapop]

We played a 2+ year campaign like that about a decade ago. I don't remember how we did flanking - probably just closing the door and creating a localized grid. Attacks of opportunity on mansized models must have been based on a "good enough" approach, and we fought very few enemies with reach (lots of humanoid enemies, with almost no reach weapons). For templates getting clipped by the circle is a 50/50 chance to get hit.

All in all, I don't think I'd recommend it unless there is something specific you want to get from it. We played long-ish sessions pretty much every week, and our DM just didn't want to have to create elaborate battlemaps on top of all the other prep. So he simply doodled the outlines of the room on paper and we pushed my druchii around.

Interesting side effect here: roll20 is very much not optimal to play Warhammer, because you can't bloody wheel.

[Ozreth]

All in all, I don't think I'd recommend it unless there is something specific you want to get from it.

Thanks for the anecdote. I suppose what I want to get from it is being able to load the table up with all of the terrain I have made and purchased, much of which is able to support having figures standing all over it but of course isn’t gridded. More of a 3D battlefield with nice aesthetics. I’m in the middle of a move but will soon be pulling it all out and playing around with it myself before running any games like this.

I’m thinking a happy medium is leaving the ground as my chessex mat and we use “good enough” and tape measures when people climb up on hills, stairs etc. My group are all long time friends and won’t be bothered by it so that’s not a concern, but of course I want it to be playable.

[AMFV]

It would certainly be possible. I thought there was a Variant for it in UA, but I'm not seeing it now. The mass battle rules from Miniatures Handbook have some stuff for converting things and might be handy to use as a benchmark.

[icefractal]

I don't see any reason it inherently wouldn't work, although it may be slower in play. Overlays / outlines (like a loop of wire of the right radius) seem like the easiest way to do AoEs and threatened areas.

[Ozreth]

I don't see any reason it inherently wouldn't work, although it may be slower in play. Overlays / outlines (like a loop of wire of the right radius) seem like the easiest way to do AoEs and threatened areas.

For sure, I figure these things couldn’t hurt to have around even with a grid.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm just imagining a group of 8 year olds grabbing their toys and bashing them against each other, signifying them "fighting."

That's probably not what you mean, but...

[Pugwampy]

I do it all the time . Anything outside of dungeon exploring , i just set up a pretty battlefield .

5 foot is just 1 inch you can easily estimate with your fingers .