3 1/3 ' squares

[heirodule]

1. people keep saying that encounter areas have to get larger for better combats. the old 10' corridor is boring. The 20x20 room is lousy

2. Miniatures keep creeping up in scale. True 25mm (Thunderbolt, Partha, Wargames Foundry) are dwarfed by Reaper, Warmachine, and D&D minis.

2.5 Those 5' squares with minis always look pretty cramped compared to when I look around myself (6'2, 240 lbs) in a 5' square

3. The old D&D standard IIRC used to be about three people in the front rank, and three in the back rank.

4. I say a solution is something i think I recall from the 1e DMG, which was to use 1" = 3 feet or so as a scale. At 1" = 3.3333 feet, a 10' wide corridor would have spots for three PCs across.


The following issues come up

I. regiggering movement and spell areas. Just do everything in terms of the old squares. Movement in 3.5 is already in squares.

II. Tiny creatures might reasonably be said to get AoOs now. Good for them

III. Weapon size is now an issue. 3 greatsword wielders in the front row? no way. But we accept a 10' reach spiked chain hitting and cleaving all over without worrying about other PCs, so maybe not an issue. Maybe some big weapons could say "without an empty square next to you, you take a -2 penalty to attack"

IV. Dungeons with 3.3' wide tunnels are more claustrophobic, but easier to draw and run on the battle mat. Fun for the halflings and gnomes.

V. More force projection in the 10' corridor. Good!

VI. A regular door can fill the whole side of a square. You can open the door and make a wall, instead of handwaving it. More dynamic combat.

VII. 8' tall Ogres can take up a 6.666 area, and 14' tall giants take up a 10 foot area.

VIII. Some unnecessarily Huge or Gargantuan creatures should probably come down a bit in size. Or you can keep them at 3 squares and 4 squares.

Thoughts?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I think they'll stay with five foot squares for ease of use, but I can see your point. At Gencon, they had a 5-ft square grid laid out in one large room with a large troll and beholder for scale. It kind of made it clear how large five feet really is.

 

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

1. people keep saying that encounter areas have to get larger for better combats. the old 10' corridor is boring. The 20x20 room is lousy

2. Miniatures keep creeping up in scale. True 25mm (Thunderbolt, Partha, Wargames Foundry) are dwarfed by Reaper, Warmachine, and D&D minis.

2.5 Those 5' squares with minis always look pretty cramped compared to when I look around myself (6'2, 240 lbs) in a 5' square

3. The old D&D standard IIRC used to be about three people in the front rank, and three in the back rank.

4. I say a solution is something i think I recall from the 1e DMG, which was to use 1" = 3 feet or so as a scale. At 1" = 3.3333 feet, a 10' wide corridor would have spots for three PCs across.


The following issues come up

I. regiggering movement and spell areas. Just do everything in terms of the old squares. Movement in 3.5 is already in squares.

II. Tiny creatures might reasonably be said to get AoOs now. Good for them

III. Weapon size is now an issue. 3 greatsword wielders in the front row? no way. But we accept a 10' reach spiked chain hitting and cleaving all over without worrying about other PCs, so maybe not an issue. Maybe some big weapons could say "without an empty square next to you, you take a -2 penalty to attack"

IV. Dungeons with 3.3' wide tunnels are more claustrophobic, but easier to draw and run on the battle mat. Fun for the halflings and gnomes.

V. More force projection in the 10' corridor. Good!

VI. A regular door can fill the whole side of a square. You can open the door and make a wall, instead of handwaving it. More dynamic combat.

VII. 8' tall Ogres can take up a 6.666 area, and 14' tall giants take up a 10 foot area.

VIII. Some unnecessarily Huge or Gargantuan creatures should probably come down a bit in size. Or you can keep them at 3 squares and 4 squares.

Thoughts?

Given 3.3333...' squares, I would suggest using metric, at least partially or temporarily.

3,33333' is almost exactly one meter.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Until 3.0, I used 3' squares/hexes almost exclusively. I could return to that with no problem.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Until 3.0, I used 3' squares/hexes almost exclusively. I could return to that with no problem.

Prior to 3E, I used 3.33' squares, too. I'd forgotten that; maybe I'll return to it (I'm not playing 3E, anymore, so there wouldn't be any "compatibility" issues).

 

[T. Foster]

I've always prefered 3 1/3' squares to 5' squares, for all the reasons you mention. I don't normally use minis in my games, but when I do I use 1" = 3 1/3' scale. Regarding your issue III, OD&D and 1E AD&D had a "space required" listing for large weapons (flails, two-handed swords, halberds, etc.) for a reason...

 

[TerraDave]

its an interesting idea. Another take is to allow for squeezing/close fighting by small and medium creatures. The closest we get know is grappling, and that does have a "size" limitation.

 

[heirodule]

One could also arbitrarily say that Outdoors 1" = 5'

Shades of 1e

The old bugaboo was spell areas had to be made smaller when used outdoors, even though ranges were proportionately larger

Another benefit is that, if combat started in a 5' ->> 6.6' corridor, the 5 PCS, 1 NPC and one animal won't stretch in a line 35 feet long. And in a 3.3 foot corridor, the line would be 23.3 feet long

 

[HugeOgre]

mmmm. meters. I like it. Course, if Im going to go to all the trouble to realign the game mechanics I might even go to the foot. Once you do though you HAVE to use miniatures

diminutive = 1/2 ft (no AoO)
tiny = 1 ft
small = 1 ft.
medium = 2 ft.

AoOs and reach could be based on arm length and weapons employed, and you could add another size increment in, oversized, to account for larger humanoids and fat people. Youd definitely have to retool weapon sizes and the rules for determining AoOs. Youd also have to make different thicknesses of lines to help you cover distances quickly (I SOOOOO dont want my 12 year counting out 40 1' squares for his barbarian)

Maybe we'll just go with a meter per square and just convert 5ft to 1 meter. Yea, that sounds better...

 

[frankthedm]

Another benefit is that, if combat started in a 5' ->> 6.6' corridor, the 5 PCS, 1 NPC and one animal won't stretch in a line 35 feet long. And in a 3.3 foot corridor, the line would be 23.3 feet long

Actually, that party could have chosen to be a lot closer.

Moving Around In Squares
In general, when the characters aren’t engaged in round-by-round combat, they should be able to move anywhere and in any manner that you can imagine real people could. A 5-foot square, for instance, can hold several characters; they just can’t all fight effectively in that small space. The rules for movement are important for combat, but outside combat they can impose unnecessary hindrances on character activities.