1 square Diagonal Movement: Reaction from Players

[HeinorNY]

Ah so that's what your going for. Still in the second scenario the blocker actually blocks the monster from reaching the archer. That seems like a good thing. The only real issue is that the blocker doesn't actually block when they are on a straight line and that's something that will only come up in a perfectly setup scenario like that. Move anyone 1 square in any direction and that the no block examples either falls apart or is unchanged from 1-2-1.

In 1-1-1-1 it's easier to defend by forming a diagonal line instead of a orthogonal line. Much easier. It's not just in that "perfectly setup scenario".

This gigantic discrepancy doesn't happen in 1-2-1-2.

Your point is saying that's a corner case...
A striker in the back, a defender in the front, and a monster going to attack the weaker character.
Yeah, very rare in D&D....

But yeah there will certainly be cases when 1-1-1 breaks believability a bit, just like there are cases when 1-2-1 currently does.

No, let me make it clearer for you and everyone else the read your post so that they can understand it right.

1-2-1-2 breaks believability a bit.

1-1-1-1 breaks believability a LOT.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Nice joke, you almost got me.

Huh? Does the defender not count or something? The SRD doesn't even define "line of sight" and the WOTC glossary thing says something about drawing a line to see if LOS is "clear." Seems to me like if there's a dude between you and your target, you don't have clear LOS.

 

[Stalker0]

I'll admit when I first read this thread I thought very highly of the 1-1-1-1 ruling. I felt that the increased simplicity was worth the loss of "realism".

However, those on the 1-2-1-2 have made very persuasive arguments, and you should know you have made at least one convert.

To me, it comes down to these points:

1) Consistent pathing. In 1-2-1-2 it doesn't matter which route you take to get to a target, for the most part it will always be the same distance. The biggest factor in a player's decision is avoiding any movement based Aoos (for which we don't know how those work yet in 4e).

However, with 1-1-1-1, in many cases 1 path is far faster than others, causing players to take extra time trying to eek out the distance.

2) Abusive use of direction. As many in the 1-2-1-2 crowd has noted, there are several cases where due to moving in a certain angle you can completely blow by a defending enemy just by the path you take. A situation that is far rarer in the current system.

So while I will give the 1-1-1-1 movement a shot when I try out 4e, I will definitely be watching these problems to determine if I'll stick with it.

 

[HeinorNY]

Huh? Does the defender not count or something? The SRD doesn't even define "line of sight" and the WOTC glossary thing says something about drawing a line to see if LOS is "clear." Seems to me like if there's a dude between you and your target, you don't have clear LOS.

The monster has cover in both cases.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Also, maybe in all these examples, the real answer is to have the defender actually stick close to the person he's supposed to be "defending," rather than 20ft away.

Before: (B trying to defend C from A)

---C---  "Exactly 30 feet from my enemies... the safest place to be!"
--6----
-5-----
4------
3--B---  "'Defending' means 'wandering into a big empty area,' right?"
-2-----
--1----
---A---  "Thorg hungry! Thorg want eat!"

After:

--7C---  "Protect me, you big, surly hunk of a Defender!"
-6-----
-5-B---  "I'll stay close to you, o squishy one, as my job title implies!"
-4-----
-3-----
-2-----
--1----
---A---  "Thorg boned! Thorg incur AOOs if he wants to attack this round!"

EDIT: I guess in the second case Thorg could do this:

---C---  
--6----
-5-B---  
-4-----
-3-----
-2-----
--1----
---A---

...and he wouldn't draw an AOO just from moving, but from what we've heard of 4e defenders, it still might be hard/not a good idea to attack a squishy while you're in range of a defender.

 

[FadedC]

Your point is saying that's a corner case...
A striker in the back, a defender in the front, and a monster going to attack the weaker character.
Yeah, very rare in D&D....


.

Yes that happens all the time. What's rare is a situation where the defender can effectviely block him in 1-2-1 but can't in 1-1-1. The fact that moving any of the figures in your example a single space in almost any direction completely ruins it illustrates this point perfectly.

 

[Asmor]

Yes that happens all the time. What's rare is a situation where the defender can effectviely block him in 1-2-1 but can't in 1-1-1. The fact that moving any of the figures in your example a single space in almost any direction completely ruins it illustrates this point perfectly.

It's not a matter of whether the defender can block the attacker... Actually, in his example, the defender can't block the attacker even in 1-2-1-2.

It's a matter of whether the attacker has to risk an AoO or not. It's risky to run past an opponent.

 

[DarkKestral]

Yes that happens all the time. What's rare is a situation where the defender can effectviely block him in 1-2-1 but can't in 1-1-1. The fact that moving any of the figures in your example a single space in almost any direction completely ruins it illustrates this point perfectly.

If anecdotal evidence from DDM players is worth anything, the reports from DDM players on this board conclude that ainatan's examples are more common than you suggest at all levels of DDM skill, as some board members say that's 90% of all defensive situations faced in DDM. It's also the logical choice of anyone used to a physics that tries to depict motion in a way that tries to closely approximate what we see in our world. It's NOT intuitive to a new player that the practical effect in play is to favor playing the diagonals only and charge every round. So if the newbie is a ranged character or a tank, they are likely to make choices which lead either to character death or character uselessness. Neither of which are fun when you can't understand WHY you died.

And the examples presented by ainatan are NOT spoiled by "one square of movement in almost any direction"... if you move 1 space to either side horizontally (to be clear, I'm saying the characters are aligned vertically to), the attacker compensates by moving in the other direction. So no tanky. Same if they move in a diagonal direction. So we only have two practical choices: forward and back.. and sticking next to the ranged is ineffective because the attacker still ends up in the ranged's square. So stopping a charge requires that the defender be able to reactively prevent withdrawals. As it looks like such an ability is likely one of those things that will be at least a per-encounter ability, I exptect this will have a heavy cost to defenders. As for multiple defenders: you can effectively mitigate one defender in per 2 squares of difference in movespeed above the amount needed to close against a target in a single charge. So a monster with a 8 square move can largely mitigate two defenders in a single charge action in a 6 square difference.. 10 three, 12 four and so on... This actually makes higher move speeds significantly more powerful than they sometimes are in 3.5, because that likely makes the monsters vastly more difficult to use defender powers against, while in 3.5 that only means that the monster may get one or two extra full attacks in.

 

[hong]

It's broken because the distance between the ranger and the moster is the same in squares.

And this is a problem because...?

The ability of the ranger to PBS the monster remains but the ability of the monster to reach the ranger is hindered.

And this is a problem because...?

And not because the ranger "took advantage of obstacles", but because he took advantage of the alignment of the grid.

No. There is an obstacle on the map. If there was no obstacle, the monster would be able to reach the ranger in both scenarios. Therefore he took advantage of the obstacle.

The fact that things would be different under 1-2-1-2 is beside the point. Just because things play out differently under a different ruleset does not make the first ruleset "broken".

If the ranger did the same under 1-2-1-2, or even in the real world, he would gain no advantage by moving like that.

So things work differently under 1-2-1-2. Is this a revelation or something?

 

[FadedC]

And the examples presented by ainatan are NOT spoiled by "one square of movement in almost any direction"... if you move 1 space to either side horizontally (to be clear, I'm saying the characters are aligned vertically to), the attacker compensates by moving in the other direction. So no tanky. Same if they move in a diagonal direction. So we only have two practical choices: forward and back.. and sticking next to the ranged is ineffective because the attacker still ends up in the ranged's square. So stopping a charge requires that the defender be able to reactively prevent withdrawals. As it looks like such an ability is likely one of those things that will be at least a per-encounter ability, I exptect this will have a heavy cost to defenders. As for multiple defenders: you can effectively mitigate one defender in per 2 squares of difference in movespeed above the amount needed to close against a target in a single charge. So a monster with a 8 square move can largely mitigate two defenders in a single charge action in a 6 square difference.. 10 three, 12 four and so on... This actually makes higher move speeds significantly more powerful than they sometimes are in 3.5, because that likely makes the monsters vastly more difficult to use defender powers against, while in 3.5 that only means that the monster may get one or two extra full attacks in.

Actually you illustrate the very few circumstances in which the example isn't spoiled. Move the attacked back or forward any number of spaces and it the situation is unchanged from 1-2-1 to 1-1-1 (either the attacker always reaches the defender or he never does). Move the defender and the same thing happens. Move the blocker up a bit or back a bit and again the situation would be the same for both rules sets. Yes there are a few ways to move them (out of dozens) that don't effect the example. Hence I said almost all, not all.

So yes if your unfortunate enough to move exactly 1 move away from your foe and trust a blocking defender to protect from the dead center of the board without actually moving up to the thing he's supposed to protect you from, or standing next to you then 1-1-1 puts in extra danger compared to 1-2-1. Perhaps your campaigns are different fom mind, but I don't think I've ever seen that happen. I have however seen players complain about the reverse stupidity created by 1-2-1 and how for example somebody in the center of a 10' radius effect can always 5' step to get out. To me that is just as immersion breaking and situations like that come up a bit more often, but your mileage may vary depending on campaign style and party composition..