Over on imgur, a user called DoofusDad created a real-life five-foot square to illustrate what it actually looks like.
Looks about right for the space a human-sized creature can control in close combat.
Really wish D&D would make the switch to metric. Especially cause you could make squares meters and then it would be 1-1. Maps would be a bit smaller, but I think that’s a worthwhile change.
Mother Nature issued us with a pretty inconvenient number of fingers for mathematics, truth be told. If the Revolutionary French had been smart, they would have created a dozenal system rather than a decimal one. (And also done a few other things differently, but that's clearly the most important issue.) A dozenal meter can handle sixths and thirds as easily as fourths and halves, and eighths aren't so bad. It still can't handle sevenths (seven is just a real ornery number), and it loses fifths, but overall it would be a tremendous improvement in usability.Until you are dividing into 1/3rds. The Imperial system was designed around fractional notation for a era when people didn't have calculators. Look up the Imperial system of liquid measures. It's seems really bizarre until you realize that barrels are designed to neatly divided into 1/8ths, 1/7ths, 1/6ths, 1/5ths, 1/4ths, 1/3rds or 1/2s as you like. Trying doing that with decimals.
I think there’s more to why base 10 is so universally embraced by humans than just the number of fingers we have. If base 12 was really superior, we could just as easily count our knuckles.Mother Nature issued us with a pretty inconvenient number of fingers for mathematics, truth be told. If the Revolutionary French had been smart, they would have created a dozenal system rather than a decimal one. (And also done a few other things differently, but that's clearly the most important issue.) A dozenal meter can handle sixths and thirds as easily as fourths and halves, and eighths aren't so bad. It still can't handle sevenths (seven is just a real ornery number), and it loses fifths, but overall it would be a tremendous improvement in usability.
Or if they were feeling ambitious, there's always the Babylonian base-60 system. Look at all the divisors on that bad boy!
The seximal/senary system (base 6) works better, actually. It handles everything prior to 11ths cleanly. Both 5ths and 7ths are fine (though repeating). And it's easier to work on your hands.A dozenal meter can handle sixths and thirds as easily as fourths and halves, and eighths aren't so bad. It still can't handle sevenths (seven is just a real ornery number), and it loses fifths, but overall it would be a tremendous improvement in usability.
Fair.You say "universal", but a lot of cultures do count on their knuckles...
To my knowledge, the German translation of Pathfinder uses squares of 1.5 meters, which is pretty much the same as 5 feet.You can just fudge it so the squares are 2x2 meters, at which point the only conversion problem ends up being when there's a jump check across a very precise distance.
I can't remember who did them, but I think I got these from Owen K.C. Stephens's social media. It's the same image flipped so you can see the space with two combatants, then photoshopped with sword and shield (though the swords look a bit large, like 2-handed swords being used one-handed).
No sir, that looks to be just the right size for a plain ol' longsword to me; if he stood up straight and put the point on the ground (which you really shouldn't do) the pommel would come about to just around his shoulder, which is just right for a longsword (they are called "long" swords for a reason. ) Remember, 5E adjusted the definition of "longsword" to match the real world definition, or what the game used to call a "bastard sword.") Of course, "greatsword" has no actual real world definition so in the game it could mean just any old big-ass sword, but actual Two-Handed Swords used in real life Renaissance warfare were huge ungainly things that were the full length of the wielder or a bit longer, and were used almost more like a polearm than they were other swords.