D&D 3E/3.5 3.5/Pathfinder WITH minis WITHOUT grid/hex

[dagger]

I have an urge to play with minis (since we have a ton of WotC ones), but get away from being tied to the grid/hex.


Do you have any advice or see any problems? Thanks!!

 

[billd91]

I have an urge to play with minis (since we have a ton of WotC ones), but get away from being tied to the grid/hex.

Get a big roll of butcher paper to roll out on the table and draw on. Eyeball the distances and threatened areas and go with best guess (or a tape measure). For spell radii, maybe use a compass to draw real circles instead of boxy areas of effect.

As with any non-grid version, communication is important. If the rogue player says he wants to get around the enemy to flank while trying to avoid AoO, either let it happen in one move (if the area's open) or tell him it'll take a couple of 5' adjustments and let him make the choice. Allow the distances to be a bit fuzzier and be flexible in your use of strict movement, position, and AoO rules.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Lay down some felt, use terrain from warhammer and such. Now declare what your going to do before you do it, then measure with a tape measure and see if it worked out for you just options take and leave what you want from it.

 

[frankthedm]

Do you have any advice or see any problems? Thanks!!

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-le...ng-combat-off-grid-who-has-written-rules.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/221603-gridless-combats-how-do-you-do.html

#1 Round bases really help. Square bases will make lots of corner cases.

#2 DM will need to decide if they want to place all Small creature 3/4" [20mm] bases onto 1" [25mm] bases and place large creatures that have 1.5" [40mm] bases onto 2" bases. If not, these two types of bases become almost their own size category. Metal washers & Bluetac are cheap enough to do this on a temporary basis, though I prefer small-20mm & large =40mm. Large is very brutal on the square grid since as soon as you are bigger than one square, you now must take up 4 squares. Before the grid, small minis ate up 20 MM of fighting space, medium minis took a 25 mm chunk and large minis took a 40mm[1.5 inch] bite from the battlefield. All reasonable sizes.

#3. Decide how close melee attacks have to be. For me "Touching = 5' reach" so mediums needed to base to base for melee & to trigger AoOs. This way rulers were only needed to check for critters with 10' reach and more. I could picture a few other ways of doing this though

• Victim just needs to have any part of base within melee reach to strike.
• Victim just needs to have 50% of base within melee reach to strike.
• Attacker can strike at those partially within reach at penalty >.25" -8, >.50"-4 & >.75"-2

#4 Note that measurement in general also assumed adjacent was 5' away. Measurements need to be taken from center to center unless you want to add an extra 5' onto ranged attacks.

Flanking is an interesting issue, notably when larger creatures are involved. If the group want to keep that flanking vulnerability, here are some measurements...

EN World D&D / RPG News - View Single Post - Why Keep a Grid? Measurement in 4E

Anyhoo, here is another example of ''grid flanking" represented without grid involving 25mm medium, 50mm large and 75mm huge minis.


Since using lines to determine cover was more of a square grid thing...

Here is a remake of the 3.0 cover diagram

[ 25% cover -2 ] ~ [ 50 % cover -4 ] ~ [ 75% cover -8 ] ~ [ 90% cover -10]

Hex Grid :: d20srd.org < may have tips.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/246325-valid-use-wall-ice.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/219060-what-geometry-do-you-prefer.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-house-rules/252293-abstract-gridless-3-x-combat.html

 

[dagger]

Thank you for that Frank...guess you have done that before.