D&D General On simulating things: what, why, and how?

[Thomas Shey]

The best thing about using a grid (IMO) is everyone can see, knows, and agrees on the exact position of everything (creatures, terrain, etc.). Distances, AoE, etc. can be accurately measured, and so forth.

ToM relies on trusting the DM's "vision" of the scene. Sketches can give you some of the above, but not all of it.

IME as long as everyone agrees on the grid rules, I've never had a problem with it, personally. I think some of the rules in 5E could be improved on, however.

On top of that, TotM at least either requires a system that doesn't focus on position much or a GM and players who have good spatial memory (which certainly doesn't describe me). Sketch maps at least help, though I'm not sure unless you have a scale they're very good at handling non-narrative movement on.

 

[kenada]

If I recall, 3E did that?

It did. Large creatures could be long or tall. 3.5e dropped it.

 

[Oofta]

Off topic, but: I'm still not convinced that the grid solves more problems than it creates, compared to everything from rough sketches to theater of the mind.

I've always preferred a grid or at least tokens with a sketched out map and distances based on a set scale to ToTM, even long before using a grid was a thing. On the other hand I have switched to a hex grid for my home campaign. When it comes to walls, if there's half a hex or more not obstructed you can be in the hex so a 10 ft wide corridor can have 2 people side by side. The hexes are used more for distances than absolute spacing.

 

[robus]

With just 4 PCs you could easily get situations where one person is at the tail ... but is still being attacked by a bite.

That seems a DMing issue? I had something similar to this with a purple worm in a tunnel system (the tunnels were actually purple worm trails). PCs attacking the head got the bite attacks PCs at the tail got the stinger. My DMing brain wouldn’t let me make an illogical attack. It wasn’t hard and made for an exciting battle, but theatre of the mind allows for that.

 

[MichaelSomething]

 

[Baron Opal II]

Hey, Star Wars, not Traveller.

 

[cbwjm]

Fireballs don't include concussive force and all the other physical components of an explosion. So what real-world thing do they actually look like?

A flash fire has a very low pressure wave, I'd say fireball looks like that.

 

[Oofta]

That seems a DMing issue? I had something similar to this with a purple worm in a tunnel system (the tunnels were actually purple worm trails). PCs attacking the head got the bite attacks PCs at the tail got the stinger. My DMing brain wouldn’t let me make an illogical attack. It wasn’t hard and made for an exciting battle, but theatre of the mind allows for that.

That works for a purple worm and I think it's one of the few cases where this makes sense. Most monsters don't have an attack front and back, most fights don't happen in a tunnel, most monsters aren't giant worms.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That works for a purple worm and I think it's one of the few cases where this makes sense. Most monsters don't have an attack front and back, most fights don't happen in a tunnel, most monsters aren't giant worms.

Now that's just not true. Studies clearly show that most monsters are in fact giant worms.

 

[jmartkdr2]

And the issue with how 4e did this and your (reasonable) explanation is that all the powers were independent of each other. So you could be "too tired" to do one physical feat, but simultaneously not too tired to do three others, as long as they all were different. More coherent way to model what you suggest would be to have some sort of "vigour points" you'd use to power various physical "powers." (And if the game would have exhaustion mechanic, this should be tied to that. Classes with "vigour points" would lose those when they take exhaustion before suffering actual exhaustion levels.)

Fair enough. I'm a low-fidelity player anyways (dissociated mechanics don't bother me at all) But, arguing the example, superiority dice can be fluffed that way.

Honestly superiority dice are one of the biggest missed opportunities in 5e but some people really really need a simple fighter and barbarian isn't fighter enough.