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Originally Posted by MerricB  The idea of "lots of monsters need space" is something that a few 3e designers could pay some attention to. I've seen way too many battles in 5' wide corridors which, for six PCs, is not fun at all.
In AD&D, the idea of monsters needing space to move was occasionally ignored by designers. |
There were some cramped quarters to be sure but there was also exactly some of the opposite going on. Dungeon Module X3: Curse of Xanathon, cracked us up back in the day. A bedroom in the Ducal Palace was 30' x 40' !!! We laughed at that and even drew basketball hoops at each end of the room on the battlemat. I grew up in HOUSE that was 22' x 40' .
Monsters needing space is simply an outgrowth of tailoring combat to fit the grid rather than resolving combat in whatever location it happens to take place in. The sizes of some rooms in classic adventures is too large for what the room was designed for in many cases.
Consider a kobold lair. Kobolds are not big creatures and don't need chambers so huge that an ogre would feel small in them.
Some locations should be nice and big. The main chamber of a temple designed to contain many worshippers might be huge. The high priests meditation chamber does not need to 50' x50' just because a cool fight is likely to happen there.
Designing the environment as if it only exists to be a battleground for boardgame combat makes the whole world feel more like a soundstage and less like an organic location that fits within a world.
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