1.5 instead of 1-2-1?

Before I learned that AoE spells now had square areas, thereby making any Euclidian movement solution a mistake, I considered just expressing movement thusly; 6/4.

Six squares, only 4 of which can be diagonal.

Probably still to complex in practice.
 

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Evanta said:
This is with regards to the diagonal movement problem.

1. I'm proposing that instead of doing 1-2-1 which people tend to lose track of, how about making diagonals 1.5 movment instead.
No offense, but I'd rather minimize the use of fractional values during game session.
 

I've said it before, I'll say it again: there is so much more behind the decision to go to 1:1 than just "it's easy." It now has my full support, and this is coming from the guy that started the first thread on what a poor decision I thought it was at the time.

Do what you will, but I'm fairly certain that houseruling 1-2-1 back in will have ramifications to overall balance.
 

Reaper Steve said:
I've said it before, I'll say it again: there is so much more behind the decision to go to 1:1 than just "it's easy." It now has my full support, and this is coming from the guy that started the first thread on what a poor decision I thought it was at the time.

Do what you will, but I'm fairly certain that houseruling 1-2-1 back in will have ramifications to overall balance.

So what is the reasoning (or linkage, if you don't want to type it again)? I've missed it, apparently, and I'm genuinely curious; while I disagree with 1-1-1, I'd be interested to see why it's been decided that it's a good call, from a design standpoint.
 

GnomeWorks said:
So what is the reasoning (or linkage, if you don't want to type it again)? I've missed it, apparently, and I'm genuinely curious; while I disagree with 1-1-1, I'd be interested to see why it's been decided that it's a good call, from a design standpoint.

Because squares are intended to be an abstract form of unit measurement for an abstract combat system, rather than a simulation of Euclidean geometry.
 

Mourn said:
Because squares are intended to be an abstract form of unit measurement for an abstract combat system, rather than a simulation of Euclidean geometry.

Oh. And here I thought maybe there was more than the "gamist v. simulationist" argument. That's too bad.
 

Reaper Steve said:
I've said it before, I'll say it again: there is so much more behind the decision to go to 1:1 than just "it's easy." It now has my full support, and this is coming from the guy that started the first thread on what a poor decision I thought it was at the time.

Do what you will, but I'm fairly certain that houseruling 1-2-1 back in will have ramifications to overall balance.
I don't mind if that's for purpose of movement, I just hope distance is resolved differently, especially when it come to radius measurement. Last I recalled my learned math skill, radius should form a circle, not a four-pointed star or heaven forbid a square.
 


The reason for 1-1-1 diagonals is that variable movement cost increases the number of variables to keep track off:
- How many diagonals did I move?
- How many non-diagonals did I move?
- How many movement do I have left?

1.5 instead of 1-2-1 or 1-1-1 has the advantage of removing one set of variables, but it adds a further mathematical aspect - rational values. They are simple enough, one might think, we learn this in elemental school (Or is it later? So long ago...)

In D&D, this is further complicated by stuff like
- Hampered Movement due to terrain features
- Avoiding Attack of Opportunities

It's harder to predict how far you can go if variable movement cost are in place. Which means that sometimes, a distance seems to be coverable, but when tracking your steps to get there, you notice that variable movement cost and the attempt to avoid "obstacles" (potential AoO-takers) will mean you can't reach your intented destination. This in turn leads to people tracking their steps back, trying alternate paths, or changing their destination.

1.5 as cost for diagonal movement means that all the tracking/backtracking of movement means that you don't count, you compute. And that's slower or more error prone then just counting.

1-1-1 cost for diagonal movement at least eliminate one factor leading to this kind of error/backtracking. And thus it enables faster gameplay.

I am sure someone well tell me that they don't allow backtracking at your table, or it never happens. But I am not speaking about that someones special group, I am talking about general tendencies. And if we go by anecdotical evidence, I know that we have this kind of backtracking in each session where we pull out the combat grid, and I am sure no one would mind seeing less of it in my group.

Some may call it dumbing down, I would call it increasing usability.
 

Whenever we're all sitting at home, eyes bleary from seventeen hours of reading the internets and wondering why we can only get the same collection of three people to hang out with us to play our house ruled 3E campaign, we will all be able to look back at threads like this and go, oh yeah, I just spent hours of my time and emotional units of measurement talking about the vast and intransversible gap that erupted over what fraction of a movement point was used to move an imaginary character an imaginary distance.

Understand: squares do not measure real distance. They're an abstract measure of relative positioning. Don't like it? Too 'gamist'? Too bad. When D&D the Role Playing Simulation comes out, we'll talk.
 

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