D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5e] Movement, squares, facing, reach and squeezing

[nikolai]

How does this all work in 3.5e. It seems like one of the more important changes and I can't really get my head around it. Specifically, how does this effect fighting on horseback and how do large monsters squeeze into small spaces? One of the "blind spots" of 3e was always that if two people shared a 5 foot square or a person tried to squeeze into a small space (say 2.5 foot tunnel) it was never clear how combat worked.

nikolai.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

You can read the relevant page about squeezing from the scans up at Gaming Report.

 

[EricNoah]

Well let's start with "squeezing". Let's say you're Large (2 squares wide) and you want to go down a 1 square wide corridor. You can -- each square of movement counts as two squares (so you're essentially moving at half speed), and you take a -4 penalty on attacks and AC.

If you want to move through something narrower than that, you use Escape Artist checks.

 

[Murrdox]

You'll have to wait and read the book.

Fighting on horseback won't change... except now you take up more space.

Monsters can "squeeze" past each other, but I'm assuming won't be able to end their turn in a "squeezed" area where they can't take up their full facing.

Bad news for 5' X 10' creatures in a 10' wide corridor. Suddenly, they'll no longer be able to fight abreast of each other.

Granted, I haven't read the rules yet, so I'm just guessing.

 

[Dimwhit]

This strikes me as a rule change that looks ok on the surface, but is going to cause some real havoc down the road. So that 40' long giant snake (yeah, probably doesn't actually exist) enters the 40' square room, and suddenly he takes up the whole friggin' room? I don't buy it. And the -4 to attack AC seems steep if a 10x10 is fighting in a 5' corridor. -2 seems more realistic. It's not like it's a requirement for larger animals like a brown bear to swivel around all the time while he's fighter. He can, sure, but to penalize him is a bit extreme.

I've heard a lot of people say the uneven spacing in 3.0 was complicated and broke the game. I just don't see it. We never (ever) even thought of having an issue with it. Seemed just fine to me.

 

[Murrdox]

I found the irregular facing rules to be a pain in the butt and really dumb in 3.0.

I had a Giant Centipede face my party... he's 15' x 60'. I had to figure out HOW he would actually take up that space... how he MOVES is complicated enough. How do I move a space like that around the board... and keep track of what squares he actually MOVES through, who he provokes AoO from and so on.

Plus you have the stupidity that his sides and rear are defined... unlike everyone else. So I ruled that this centipede only actually THREATENED the squares around the front 3x2 section of him... the rest was just legs. Now, if I just went by the rules, he threatens everything around him, so he can make bite attacks against creatures by his rear. Huh?

Removing facing from irregularly shaped creatures is good. It was either THAT, or add facing rules for everything, which makes the whole game more of a pain to keep track of. How they DID it, I'm not sure about, and I think I'll have to get used to it.

Like Dimwhit said... suddenly my Centipede would take up most, if not ALL of the room he's in. The penalties to attacking while "squeezed"... seem odd. They work for an Ogre, which is just large. But what about a giant centipede fighting in a tunnel? Certainly he should have some kind of advantage, and not have to "squeeze", because he's not wide at all, he's long! However, from what I've seen of the 3.5 rules, both the Ogre and the Centipede will suck a big penalty from being in a tunnel.

It seems really odd now. In all honesty, I'm going to have to play with it, and perhaps I'll learn to live with it.

 

[Dimwhit]

In fairness, when you're dealing with extra long creatures, like the centipede, I don't think there is any good way to handle it.

But I thought the 3.0 rules were fine for 5x10 creatures and the like. Maybe didn't make much sense sometime, but we never had a problem.

 

[Aaron2]

I'm already working on my 3.5 house rules. I was thinking of reducing the space required by Tall type creatures but also reducing the Squeezing penalty for Long type creatures. I'm still at a loss for the Ogre. 5x5 is a little too small but 10x10 seems way too big.


Aaron

 

[nikolai]

Thanks to everyone who's posted. You've really helped. Some more queries?

1) Snakes aren't going to have to squeeze to fit down a 5' tunnel are they? That is just weird...

2) Horseback. How does this work? When you sit in the center of a 10' x 10' "horse" what's your reach, which squares do you threaten?

 

[geezerjoe]

Here's a possible cure which might add some flavor if you like the basic idea of "squeeze".

New (house ruled) Feats

[Squeeze Familiarity - Preq.: none. Benifit: You suffer only a -2 penalty while fighting squeezed.
Improved Squeeze Familiarity- Preq.: Squeeze Familiarityor being a Long creature. Benifit: You suffer no penalty while fighting squeezed.

What a waste of a monster's feat. Maybe it should just be an ability gained by long creatures and prc's used to tunnel fighting.

*shrug*

Just my idea for a house rule.

l8r

Joe2Old