Base measurement in DDN

[StAlda]

Last night I ran a 5e session with 3 foot squares. It went very well - after the initial shock of how much distance characters and creatures can cover in a round. The battles were as dynamic as before, burning hands now covers 5 squares instead of 3 - which actually worked well. I simply mapped as if the squares were 5 foot from the dungeon map, but we played the squares as 3 foot squares. So a 2 square wide hallway was now 2 yards, and 25 feet movement was 8 squares, for instance. Converting on the fly caused absolutely no slow down, dividing by 3 is pretty easy.

Our group has decided to give up on our 4e campaign and continue to play the playtest rules beyond the caves of chaos. Once we finish CoC, we will create new characters based on what we know about 5e (and supplemented by previous editions and sub-systems found here and WotC forums) and start a campaign.

 

[CypherWulf]

TLDR: Easy way for WOTC to handle this, don't use yards/meters OR feet. Call it a pace and let the players/GMs decide what that means. With special bonus "if I ruled the world" solution to grid size.


Like I said upthread, 5'/1 pace/1.5ish meters is a good representation of a melee 'control area' for a human sized creature. switching to yards/meters creates more problems than it solves in my book. Small creatures are not well represented with a 5' grid, unless you jump through some mental hoops and assume that a small creature would be maneuverable enough to dart and bounce around and control the same amount of battle-space as her larger companions.

It wasn't well recieved, but here's how I would handle yards/meters, with the HUGE caveat that it would only be remotely feasable if the last 30 years of 5/10' square gaming hadn't happened.
1 Meter/yard is 1 cm square
Small creatures occupy 1 square
Med = 2x2
Large = 3x3
etc
All creatures have reach equal to their occupied area.

This allows there to be a difference between the size and tactics of small and medium creatures. As it stands, there is no practical difference between a small and a medium creature.

Directly converting 5' grids to 3' grids ignores the 3rd dimension. The "squares" are actually supposed to be cubes. A 3' grid means that a human is 1 square viewed from above, but 2 squares tall, or forces the abandoning of the relatively simple system of cubes for three dimensional space. This may or may not be an issue for your gaming group, depending on how often you find yourself dealing with 3 dimensional movement.

I'm in favor of simply stating that each square is a "pace" and leave it up to each gaming group to decide if that's a single step pace (roughly 1 yard/meter) or a full pace (roughly 5') That fits into the "play how you want" mentality of the rest of 5ed. The way I would remedy the homogeneity between small and medium in a 5' grid would be to simply state that 2 small creatures can share the grid square if they are allies. This creates an a situation where a large number of small creatures could more readily attack larger foes 2 on one.

 

[Kavon]

I voted for yards/meters.

I can be a bit of a scatterbrain when it comes to math, when I'm also thinking of other things going on (which is what happens when playing D&D), so having to convert feet to meters in my head really slow play down for me.
I grew up with the metric system, my brain is wired that way. While I know that a foot is 30.48 cm and an inch is 2.54 cm off the top of my head, it doesn't mean I can think in these units. To me, a foot is 30.48 cm - a thing I put in my calculator when I want to see how much it is in something I can understand.
If you say something is 50 feet long, it says nothing to me. The first thing that comes to mind for me is 50 meters, which is over 3 times the length.

Now, 30 feet being somewhat equivelant to 10 meters is easy enough (you know, when you can easily divide it by 3).
But when I need to, for example, convert 55 feet to meters, I need to stop and think about it, taking me out of the game, or else I'll mess it up. The way to convert these things isn't second nature to me, so each time I need to remind myself exactly what I need to do to get to the number I want (divide it to get to the number of 5 feet units, which are about 1.5 meters - then I need to multiply the number by 1.5 in my head - which for me works by dividing the number in half and adding that to the total).

I'm sure there are people out there (with metric wired brains) that have an easier time with these things than me, but I can't imagine that I'm the only one that has problems with this. I can also imagine that there are people that totally trip over on these things, instead of just being slowed down by it.

So, arguing about weapon reach, or fitting into a yard/meter wide square is all fine and dandy.. When you don't have to work with this mess every time something concerning feet comes up in the game.
For me, I'd take all these issues any day over having to deal with feet again while playing a game with my friends.

Also, I understand there's this thing where feet feel more archaic and all that, fitting better into a fantasy world. No problem with that sentiment, but when it has to come up in practice, during play, where it is purely a hindrance for many people, how does that weigh out?

Also, I'm fine with them being called 'paces' and having that be effectively a yard, or a meter, or whichever other thing you want to use.


P.S. Insisting on using a system of measurement while "As of 2006, 95 percent of the world's population live in metricated countries"(edit: I thought this might've been incorrect, but it's not far off after checking), while the alternative is "the official system of measurement in almost every country in the world" is, well... I would say something, but I think it would cross the line of a civil discussion.
Is it common sense? As far as my way of thinking goes, it creates barriers where there doesn't have to be.
I can imagine there are people that would like to play the game, but after trying it out they are put off by it, simply because everything is measured in measurements they can't work with out of hand.
In the end, it comes down to whether WotC cares for the RPG market outside of the U.S. (and maybe the U.K).

 

[StAlda]

uh, I stand a little over 6 feet, so a 5 foot cube would make me headless. So I think medium sized humaniods would be at least 2 cubes high regardless.

 

[Argyle King]

uh, I stand a little over 6 feet, so a 5 foot cube would make me headless. So I think medium sized humaniods would be at least 2 cubes high regardless.

A lot of games other than D&D treat it that way. The perfect cube shape of D&D creatures is something I believe is somewhat unique to D&D. I understand the reason for doing it (simplicity), and I imagine that making minis is a lot easier with standard sizes. However, there are a lot of times when I'd prefer a little more granularity with things.

I'd be more than happy to have 6' tall human be 1x2 and to have halflings (and other small creatures) be 1x1. The drawbacks and benefits cancel each other out. While a human would be easier to hit in some circumstances, there would also be circumstances where a human could see over an obstacle or reach something that a small-sized creature could not. Personally, I feel that is a lot more fluid and interesting than most of the seemingly arbitrary limits placed upon the sizes in the various editions of D&D.

I support 1 yard as being the standard measuring unit. Simply make the scale be "1 inch = 1 yard" and make no mention of squares (or hexes or anything else) in the core rules. The scale remains the same no matter if I'm using a square grid, a hex grid, no minis at all, and/or simply using a ruler without a grid and measuring movement like I would in a tabletop wargame.

 

[Klaus]

uh, I stand a little over 6 feet, so a 5 foot cube would make me headless. So I think medium sized humaniods would be at least 2 cubes high regardless.

Think of the cubes as a low resolution screen. You're 6 feet tall, so you fill up the entirety of a 5-foot "pixel", but the remaining 1 foot barely fills 1/5th of another 5-foot "pixel", so that one is considered empty.

 

[Pickles JG]

I want 6' squares with measurements in Fathoms (one fathom =6')

That has a certain archaic charm to it, better than feet anyway & also makes squares work easily. I nicked this from Helldorado minis game.

 

[Hussar]

I would definitely like to go back to diagonals as 1.5 units, though.

Oh, please god no. 1-1-1 is definitely my preferred method. The gain in "accuracy" for 1-2-1 is not worth bogging down play. Sure, it's fine if someone moves in a direct, straight line. But, if someone moves on a bit of a diagonal - say 2 across and 1 up on a grid - counting that is a complete and utter bitch. Never mind trying to calculate ranges on things that are not perfectly 45 degrees away from you.

Quick, plot out a 30 foot radius circle area of effect on a grid using 1-2-1. No thanks. Or, worse, a 30 foot cone, cast on a 30 degree angle.

Yup, square fireballs are a bit wonky, but, wow are they SOOOO much easier to deal with.

 

[Stalker0]

Oh, please god no. 1-1-1 is definitely my preferred method. The gain in "accuracy" for 1-2-1 is not worth bogging down play.

Definitely agree. Its one of those aspects of 4e you really have to try, but once you do, that aspect is just a better system imo.

 

[Argyle King]

Oh, please god no. 1-1-1 is definitely my preferred method. The gain in "accuracy" for 1-2-1 is not worth bogging down play. Sure, it's fine if someone moves in a direct, straight line. But, if someone moves on a bit of a diagonal - say 2 across and 1 up on a grid - counting that is a complete and utter bitch. Never mind trying to calculate ranges on things that are not perfectly 45 degrees away from you.

Quick, plot out a 30 foot radius circle area of effect on a grid using 1-2-1. No thanks. Or, worse, a 30 foot cone, cast on a 30 degree angle.

Yup, square fireballs are a bit wonky, but, wow are they SOOOO much easier to deal with.

This is another reason why I prefer to just not have a grid at all and just measure movement. There are no issues with diagonals because measuring movement works exactly the same no matter which direction someone moves.

I also avoid needing to make my entire world fit into squares or trying to fit hexes into buildings.