D&D blog: goblin care only about your axe

[Blackwarder]

Here


Warder

 

[Blackwarder]

I like what I read in here (which is not much I admit) but there is one thing that bother me a bit:

Imagine a combat system not too different from previous editions that relied almost solely on the use of the grid, but tweaked so that it works seamlessly for those fights where minis are not used or expected.

I would rather it was the other way around, relied almost solely on for ToM and tweaked took seamlessly with grid. Personally I think it's just a bad choice of words since they said before that 4e style combat system is slated for a module.

Warder

 

[Frostmarrow]

Link, don't quote wholesale.

Interesting. It sounds like they are about to get rid of movement restrictions. Without movement restrictions, expressed in squares or feet, it will be far easier to make a combat system that caters to both styles.

 

[Viking Bastard]

This line of thinking pleases me, since I run combat either ToM or on a grid, depending on what the encounter calls for. Although, I haven't found running 4e off-grid hard at all (although since I never once used a grid for 3e, that probably counts as training).

 

[Blackwarder]

How would getting rid of movement restrictions make it compatible to both systems?

Warder

 

[am181d]

I would rather it was the other way around, relied almost solely on for ToM and tweaked took seamlessly with grid. Personally I think it's just a bad choice of words since they said before that 4e style combat system is slated for a module.

I think you're misreading the quote:

Imagine a combat system not too different from previous editions that relied almost solely on the use of the grid, but tweaked so that it works seamlessly for those fights where minis are not used or expected.

I think his point is that combat won't be too terribly different from what folks have come to expect from D&D over the past few editions, but that it'll be optimized so that it works just as well on- or off-grid.

He's not saying that you will need to make minor tweaks. He's saying the tweaks will be baked in.

(Baked Tweaks are delicioius, by the way.)

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

(Baked Tweaks are delicioius, by the way.)

But baked tweaks make my axe big


I liked what I read, I agree lesser combats got lost in 4e along the way.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is one of the things that has me raising an eyebrow in suspicion.

I like that it's supposed to be seamless. That's a good way for an agnostic combat system to be.

I like that they're not choosing a "winning team." I prefer abstract combat, but I certainly don't want to rule out minis fiends.

I'm cautious, though. I don't ever want to have to play D&D with little plastic toys on a grid again. As long as I can do that, I'll be happy. If at some point they're like "For this vampire fight, use minis," I'll be all, "Nope!" and do something else.

It's positive stuff, but given how minis-centric every WotC edition has been, I'm reluctant to shout praise until I see how it works in practice at my tables.

 

[dkyle]

The first paragraph seemed to be setting up for a rather different topic. I'm not sure the rest of the post says much that wasn't said in the last blog post about grid vs ToM.

My main concern with the agnostic approach is that ToM-compatible mechanics are a strict subset of grid-compatible mechanics, so an "agnostic" design is really just a ToM design. I like the features in 4E that basically require a grid to use properly. An agnostic design simply couldn't include those kinds of features.

The grid-focused stuff could be a module, I suppose. It would be pretty tricky, I think, and the blog post didn't talk about having a grid-based module.

 

[Viking Bastard]

My main concern with the agnostic approach is that ToM-compatible mechanics are a strict subset of grid-compatible mechanics, so an "agnostic" design is really just a ToM design. I like the features in 4E that basically require a grid to use properly. An agnostic design simply couldn't include those kinds of features.

I don't really get this. What, other than presentation, is so different about 4e that makes grid-less combat so impossible (and vice versa)?

Isn't it simply a question of precision? In ToM it's all approximately X many feet and on grid it's exactly Y many squares. On grid it's "I run past him, but stay out of reach of any OAs." *moves mini, counts squares* "Blast! Can't make it in this round." but in ToM it's "I run past him, but stay out of reach of any OAs. Do I make it?"