The 5 foot grid

[Jackinthegreen]

The problem is that 15' or 20' wide corridors are not that realistic... From the sounds of it though, no one here thinks a 2.5' grid size is a good idea (something to do with realism ... in a fantasy game... we are an odd bunch us gamers aren't we?).

Yes, we're an odd bunch. But much like the corridors feeling realistic, the space the players play in has to have at least some believability to it too. Having a player's human character take up 2.5x2.5 feet is going to raise questions once you start thinking about how much space the character actually takes up while fighting. It's not like they stand there rigidly with their arms at their sides going "I need to conform to a 2.5 foot square space."

I can see why you want the idea of partial squares since the world itself definitely doesn't conform to 5 foot squares (or cubes), but codifying it into splitting a 5 foot square into 4 2.5 foot squares seems like it would make the game more complex but not offer any real depth to make that complexity meaningful since it's really at odds with how the game was created in the first place.

 

[Umbran]

Changing the granularity of the grid does not change the size of people.

I am over 6' tall. My shoulders are over 2' across. In armor (I have worn armor), standing at attention with arms at my sides, I am already about 2.5' across. Put a weapon in my hands, and put me in an action pose able to actually use the weapon, and I'm taking up more than a 2.5' square. I certainly cannot be expected to be restricted to that kind of space in action. Standing people in a 2.5' grid would be packing them in like sardines.

Thus, I think this change would be poor for modelling the action of a game. I'd stick to 5' squares, if I were you.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I liked Monte Cook's solution - pretend everything was built by giants, and rooms are all twice as big as they would be in reality. Problem solved.

 

[Stormonu]

At the same time, I think having characters occupy a 5 foot square and having 5' of reach all around (covering 15 square feet) to be pretty ridiculous as well.

 

[Sunseeker]

The average human arm is roughly half the length of your height. So, if we assume the average humanoid is somewhere between 5 and 6 feet, the reach of a normal arm is going to be 2.5-ish feet. If you stick a 2 to 3-foot pointy metal object on that, you're spanning another set of squared.

Standing dead-center in a 2.5 ft square, the tips of the average fingers will reach to the second-closest square. Add in a pointy metal object, and that will cover another square.

Your normal "melee reach" would cover the full area of two squares in any direction. Limiting reach to only the adjacent squares is highly unrealistic and will give far too much maneuvering room for foes.

 

[Argyle King]

I'm a big fan of 1 yard (3 feet) equals one square as scale.


I also support what others have said. Ditch the grid entirely and just measure distances similar to how tabletop wargames work. The scale can still be the same. One inch is still one inch even if you don't have squares drawn on your play area. Personally, I also feel that going gridless solves a lot of the problems involved with both squares and hexes. In the case of squares, you don't have weird issues when dealing with diagonals, and you're also no longer require to think of your world in blocks. In the case of hexes, you don't run into some of the issues with trying to fit hexes into square buildings.

 

[Umbran]

At the same time, I think having characters occupy a 5 foot square and having 5' of reach all around (covering 15 square feet) to be pretty ridiculous as well.

Well, yes, in a peaceful situation where all the entities are calm and not doing much, you can put folks closer together. But recall that the system is really designed for use in action scenes where time is a bit abstract. So, it isn't like your character is standing stock-still with one foot nailed to the center of that 5' square. That square represents the entire area the character will move in over the course of a round. So, one moment the character has come up to the edge of the square for a lunge, and then the next the character has hopped back and left, crouching a bit into the far corner of the square to dodge the lance of a lightning bolt (making a save) and so on.

Given that the time and many of the details of the physical action are slightly abstract, it makes sense that the area you occupy must also be abstracted.

 

[frankthedm]

I liked Monte Cook's solution - pretend everything was built by giants, and rooms are all twice as big as they would be in reality. Problem solved.

Yeah, cramped corridors are good for more narative games, but in tactical game if half the characters have to Ready / Delay / Prepare Action to get into the combat, there is a problem.

 

[fjw70]

I was just going to mention the 1e thing about 10' being wide enough for three squares, and I am also a DM named Frank.

When converting basic /1e adventures to 4e I sometimes double the size of rooms.

 

[Argyle King]

I'm a big fan of "1 square = 1 yard" as a scale.

More accurately, I prefer the scale of "1 inch = 1 yard." I say it that way because I often prefer to play without a grid; this fixes most of the problems I have with both squares and hexes. In particular, I'm not forced to think of my world in purely squares and rectangles when it comes to squares, and I don't have the odd issues caused by trying to fit hexes into square rooms. You can buy a few cheap plastic rulers from WalMart, a dollar store, or a hobby store, and have enough for everyone; alternatively, one for the table may be enough.

The biggest learning hurdle some of my players had for this was trying to visualize bursts and blasts. This was easily fixed in the beginning by having a few of the common sizes cut out and made into templates on construction paper. Though, we soon stopped using those because it was only a short amount of time before we were able to eyeball most distances. Worst case scenario, we'd take a quick moment to use the ruler and measure distance from the source. For example, a "burst 1" effect would be 1 inch in all directions from the source point. The measuring sticks used in war games are relatively cheap as well.

If you don't mind spending around ten bucks, you can also get a flexible curve and have and accurate tool for many types of measuring. http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/448551/Staedtler-Mars-Flexible-Curve-24-Light/
That's what I did, and it comes in handy for a lot of different reasons.

Honestly though, it didn't take long for most of the group to be able to eyeball most distances and not even need to measure most of the time.