D&D 5E How Do I Figure Out A Room Size On A Diagonal Room On A Grid Map?

[Wofano Wotanto]

One of the issues with a grid, is that people will often feel like everything should conform to it in regards to movement, range, etc.

Yep. It's even worse of a problem when the grid is hexagons instead of squares. Most floor plans do not look or work great with hexes, as several old SPI games (DragonQuest, Universe), Champions and The Fantasy Trip show to their detriment. It's even weirder looking when the map forces rooms and hallways into aligning with a hex grid so there are no partial hexes - IIRC SPI's Sniper series of wargames did that.

 

[cbwjm]

Yep. It's even worse of a problem when the grid is hexagons instead of squares. Most floor plans do not look or work great with hexes, as several old SPI games (DragonQuest, Universe), Champions and The Fantasy Trip show to their detriment. It's even weirder looking when the map forces rooms and hallways into aligning with a hex grid so there are no partial hexes - IIRC SPI's Sniper series of wargames did that.

Oh wow, aligning to the hex grid so there are no partial hexes would look terrible.

I've had to point out to some of my players that yes, actually you can fit on the ledge that takes up half the square; or that yes, you can position that spell in the centre of two squares. It doesn't come up too often, but it has come up in the past as people get used to everything being on the grid rather than using it as a guide.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Oh wow, aligning to the hex grid so there are no partial hexes would look terrible.

BGG has images of the urban map, you can judge for yourself.

Perfectly normal architecture, you bet. My childhood home was a parallelogram, wasn't yours?

With the scifi Bug Hunter expansion they just gave up altogether, threw their hands in the air and said "It's the future, anything goes!"

 

[O-Castitatis-Lilium]

I want to thank you all for your help and I wish I had of had time sooner to thank you all, but I barely had time to add the likes. Thank you for the precise math and, surprisingly not making it too complicated. I got the gist of it and I will have to still figure out how it works for my brain, but none the less thank you. I also get close enough is good enough, and I do like to use that on some maps if I absolutely have no choice. I do like to be as accurate as possible, especially with how big my table usually is; there's always one of my family that takes a look at it and regards it lol. It's an on-running joke and it makes map making fun for me.

As for this:

This is the thing you are looking at? Yeah, I would not worry that perfection would get in the way of fun.
View attachment 349830

Another thing I learned on a grid is to make the diagonal in the middle of the side on the square instead of corner to corner. This creates one square that is about 80% and another next to it about 20%. It is better for moving minis and knowing if they can be in a square or not. More like the 2nd in the image below. I have never tried the 3rd, but I like it as well.

View attachment 349833

Yes, this is the map that I'm using. I did manage to find one online that can be zoomed in and used to help draw it, I think my plan here is to draw all the easier more direct rooms first, leave the room in the section for the diagonal rooms so that I can play around with the size and make it look decent if I have to just eyeball them. Also the diagonal drawing, I didn't know there was more than one way to draw lines diagonally on a grid, that might be what's happening and why it seems misaligned on the grid in the book; it's probably not it's just me not knowing there was more than picture 4 to drawing the lines. I will keep this in mind from now on when I see something that seems misaligned. I will make comparisons lol.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

You could always carefully cut the room out with an X-Acto knife, then weigh it with drug dealer scales.

 

[O-Castitatis-Lilium]

You could always carefully cut the room out with an X-Acto knife, then weigh it with drug dealer scales.

I would rather not ruin my book lol. It's an oddly specific way of getting room size lol, If it works for you then sure lol. Thanks for the giggle, though I think I have my plan of attack now for the map. I'm almost done actually lol.