Fiddly Bits: Feet of Movement

[I'm A Banana]

Look.

Let's just get this out there.

I'm a Theater-of-the-Mind kind of DM. Love it.

Every time WotC wants to put something in precise feet measurements (or even slightly less precise square measurements!), it gets interminably tedious to me.

I don't need it and I don't want it. And this most recent update with its OA's and its Disengage action and its 10-foot pushes and shifts make me a grumpy walrus.

I could use some broader, more obvious guidelines on how comparatively fast or slow or near or close things are. But make me count five-foot increments or one-square increments or even TWO-square increments and it all becomes practice in grid-counting. Which is dull and annoying to me.

I get that other folks love it, and I wouldn't want to rip it out of the game.

What I WOULD like is a simpler distance measurement system, one where the difference between 25 feet and 30 feet is as insignificant as it is in my brain, but where the difference between SLOW and FAST and NORMAL and the difference between FAR and NEAR and CLOSE and NEXT TO are drawn a little tighter.

I do not use grids and I do not use minis and I need a more abstract system for managing distance. Gimmie. Come ooooooooon.

 

[Jester David]

When complaining about the use of "feet" someone suggested swapping it for "paces". A pace s defined as roughly five feet, but could also be a meter or a yard. Leave it flexible which makes it less precise for Theatre of the Mind play.

 

[Pour]

Measuring in precise feet feels like a legacy thing, just like the annoying geometry of cones and spherical explosions and such. My hope is that instead of having to wait for the proper module, the basic game comes with a few dials baked in, namely ranging theatre of the mind to limited grid, with tactical grid getting the full on 4e treatment in the VERY FIRST MODULE.

Having already implemented disengage, I wonder if 5e should just lift the whole combat placement from 13th Age, which basically breaks down long distance (a distance too far to reach an enemy in one turn), short distance (a distance which can be closed in one turn), and the idea of engaging, disengaging, and the rather exciting intercepting (an immediate action only available to disengaged combatants, which allows them to immediately engage and stop enemy movement). Or something like that, anyway.

 

[Raith5]

Just be thankful it is not notated as squares

 

[Gundark]

So Zones ....like Fate

Actually I agree , being an accountant with distance is something I wouldn't mind being gone .

 

[Ahnehnois]

3.X notes spells as short-medium-long most of the time and adds in a number that is easy to ignore. I just kind of know what short/medium/long are. Would be nice if they just gave some guidelines as to that in the general magic rules and just notated spells in that one-word fashion. Other things too.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When complaining about the use of "feet" someone suggested swapping it for "paces". A pace s defined as roughly five feet, but could also be a meter or a yard. Leave it flexible which makes it less precise for Theatre of the Mind play.

Slightly askew of the main point.

Whatever you call the thing I have to count, and how ever much "real world" distance it represents, it is something I do not want to count, and it is something that I do not care about how much "real world" distance is covered.

the annoying geometry of cones and spherical explosions and such

Honestly, a more abstract mapping system + 4e's bursts and blasts would work just fine for me. You avoid "firecubes" because they're spherical, you just don't futz with the precise geometry of the sphere and I don't need my graphing calculator OR square-counting to find out who is fried by the big boom.

It's linked. I zone out every time I read the playtest's rules for the shapes of spells. BLAHBLAHRADIUSPIDIAMETERHEIGHTWIDTHBLAHBLAHBLAH.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd like to go for

Adjacent (within 5' for you grid-counters, arm's reach for everyone else)
Point Blank (within 30', or a standard move action)
Close (within 60' - charge distance)
Medium (within 120' - full-tilt run distance)
Long (about 240' - something you need an archer for)
Extreme (about 480' - ya need a sniper)

So, a push no longer makes the foe adjacent (enemy has to use a move action to get back up next to you, or gives you breathing room for a spell or missile attack).
Shifts give you a positioning advantage if you're already adjacent (give up your move to gain advantage or give your opponent disadvantage; they can counter-move on their turn to cancel (or perhaps as a reaction if they didn't move their turn, if you want to track that), or perhaps the fighter can spend a CS dice to counter - suddenly you have fighters "circling their opponents").

 

[slobster]

Including measurements (in feet, squares, or whatever) doesn't stop you from using theatre of the mind. All you need to know is that a 10 foot push is a little harder and further than a 5 foot push, and that a 30 foot cone is smaller than a 90 foot cone. The actual numbers can safely fade into irrelevance in your actual game.

In my tactical grid game, however, those numbers are necessary. Leaving that information out is fine for you, but makes my game much, much more difficult. Including them leaves us both able to play our game just fine. I hope they give us the hard numbers, but include a good hefty chapter on TotM play which includes ideas (including zones) for hand-waving that accounting stuff for people who neither need nor want it.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Look.

Let's just get this out there.

I'm a Theater-of-the-Mind kind of DM. Love it.

Every time WotC wants to put something in precise feet measurements (or even slightly less precise square measurements!), it gets interminably tedious to me.

I don't need it and I don't want it. And this most recent update with its OA's and its Disengage action and its 10-foot pushes and shifts make me a grumpy walrus.

I could use some broader, more obvious guidelines on how comparatively fast or slow or near or close things are. But make me count five-foot increments or one-square increments or even TWO-square increments and it all becomes practice in grid-counting. Which is dull and annoying to me.

I get that other folks love it, and I wouldn't want to rip it out of the game.

What I WOULD like is a simpler distance measurement system, one where the difference between 25 feet and 30 feet is as insignificant as it is in my brain, but where the difference between SLOW and FAST and NORMAL and the difference between FAR and NEAR and CLOSE and NEXT TO are drawn a little tighter.

I do not use grids and I do not use minis and I need a more abstract system for managing distance. Gimmie. Come ooooooooon.

So what edition are you playing now that doesn't use squares (I loves this) or feet ?