Combat Has Anyone Tried 4E Combats on a Hex Grid?

[Pbartender]

...and how did it work out?

I was thinking of playing around with it.

[Peraion Graufalke]

Some guys on the Gleemax boards tried it:
1 inch Square grids VS 1 inch Hex grids - Wizards Community

[Crothian]

Yes, I think it works just fine. There are plenty of hex based templates for area of effect out there.

[Intense_Interest]

I've used it as a campaign-specific trope; "Bag Worlds" or combat in places that is bigger on the inside than they are on the outside occur on the hex grid because of the weird non-euclidean geometry present in the area.

So far, it's been used as an interesting combat curve-ball in a campaign. The strangeness of the combat isn't a game-stopper, save for Bursts being "play to fit". I've played around that by using more solos/elites during the encounters matched with some lower-level lurkers/minions so that burst attacks don't feel off-kilter when the Sorcerer tries to drop 5 skirmishers at once.

However I haven't made a try at being a strictly grid combat campaign, and don't know how that would work out.

[the Jester]

It does slightly change tactics because of the fact that you can only get six medium creatures to dogpile one medium enemy. But overall, I haven't had any issues with it at all.

[malraux]

I tried it briefly, and it seemed to work ok. We kinda winged the rules, but it wouldn't be too hard to systemize them. Overall though I think 4e dropped the main advantage of hexes by making it easy to count movement.

[Fifth Element]

I've used hexes a fair bit. One of my players much prefers it, because it produces roundish fireballs, and the 1-1-1 movement makes much more sense. Helps his suspension of disbelief, essentially.

One issue is working out which hexes a larger-than-medium creature occupies, but that's not really a big deal.

[Intense_Interest]

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

One issue is working out which hexes a larger-than-medium creature occupies, but that's not really a big deal.

Let me just C&P off my house-rule folder- odd house rules italizied:

2 hex "line"
Centuars/horses, "long not tall" Large monsters without reach
3 hex "triangle"
Ogre/Troll "fat bigguns" Large monsters with some reach
3+ hex "line"
Long snake creatures with limited reach, can at-will shift as a minor within its own space without provoking any OAs to change its footprint (avoids stupid "I attack the tail for 20 damage at no risk to me" moments)
4 hex "diamond"
Huge horses / quadrapeds, can at-will shift without provoking any OAs as a minor to pivot off a "foot" (two feet, head/tail)
5 hex "trapazoid"
not used yet
6 hex "parallelogram"
Really tall Large/Huge creatures, the 2-hex lines of the short parallel are the "feet", free movement for Short creatures in the "crotch tunnel"
7 hex "circle"
Huge creatures with 2-square reach
8-18 hex "weirdos"
not used yet
19 hex "circle"
Gargantuan creatures with 3-square reach

[cmbarona]

Originally Posted by Intense_Interest

I've used it as a campaign-specific trope; "Bag Worlds" or combat in places that is bigger on the inside than they are on the outside occur on the hex grid because of the weird non-euclidean geometry present in the area.

Wow, that's... an awesome idea. I'll have to give that a shot some time. I'm sure it will be quite the curveball when I tell the PCs to take their stuff off the battlemat so I can flip it over.

[Dausuul]

Tried it, found it too distracting trying to track movement of Large and larger creatures. Since I find battlemat play too distracting to begin with, that was a deal-breaker for me. I tried using hexes for outdoors/natural environments and squares for indoors, but these days I just use squares for everything.

If you can deal with Large creature movement, though, everything else works fine.

[Windjammer]

Here's something to consider. Belongs to 3.5, but its d20 after all.

Hex Grid :: d20srd.org

[Plane Sailing]

I would have thought it would play pretty much exactly the same, to be honest.

[Pbartender]

Originally Posted by Dausuul

Tried it, found it too distracting trying to track movement of Large and larger creatures. Since I find battlemat play too distracting to begin with, that was a deal-breaker for me. I tried using hexes for outdoors/natural environments and squares for indoors, but these days I just use squares for everything.

If you can deal with Large creature movement, though, everything else works fine.

For creatures that are centered on an intersection, the easiest way is to look at it like the cities in Settlers of Catan... One "space" of movement moves the center of the creature to any of the six intersections that are two intersections away. Like so:

Originally Posted by Windjammer

Here's something to consider. Belongs to 3.5, but its d20 after all.

Hex Grid :: d20srd.org

An interesting thought...

Blasts could be easily turned back into "cones" when using a hex grid. A Blast 3, for example, would simply be a triangle that has 3 hexes to a side.

[wedgeski]

Originally Posted by cmbarona

Wow, that's... an awesome idea. I'll have to give that a shot some time. I'm sure it will be quite the curveball when I tell the PCs to take their stuff off the battlemat so I can flip it over.

Agreed, what a neat idea!