D&D General 3'33" scale per 1" square

[Marc_C]

1" square = 1" miniature base (square or round) = 3.33 feet (edit: approx. 1 meter). I had completely forgotten about this. Gygax wargaming roots are all over this.

3.33 feet per square makes perfect sense. If you stand and half-extend your arm as if you are holding a sword it comes out to about 18-22 inches (shoulder to the hand). Double that you get approx 3.33 feet of occupied space. The sword extends beyond the 3.33 feet zone to threaten the adjacent squares.

Three men standing side-by-side in close formation, in a 10' corridor, can attack the 3 enemies in front of them. Three other men standing behind can also thrust the enemy using spears. At that scale Gary's beloved pole-arms can be used to pierce from the third rank.

Considering Gary's parties were large and had henchmen, a well prepared party of 9 men can attack 9 times against 3 enemies in a single round. That's a ratio of 3:1. I like those odds in battle!

That is why the AD&D system uses Group Initiative and not Individual initiative. It also makes area spells very powerful in a 10" wide corridor against enemies who are in close formation!

 

[Laurefindel]

1" square = 1" miniature base (square or round) = 3.33 feet. I had completely forgotten about this. Gygax wargaming roots are all over this.

3.33 feet per square makes perfect sense. If you stand and half-extend your arm as if you are holding a sword it comes out to about 18-22 inches (shoulder to the hand). Double that you get approx 3.33 feet of occupied space. The sword extends beyond the 3.33 feet zone to threaten the adjacent squares.

Three men standing side-by-side in close formation, in a 10' corridor, can attack the 3 enemies in front of them. Three other men standing behind can also thrust the enemy using spears. At that scale Gary's beloved pole-arms can be used to pierce from the third rank.

Considering Gary's parties were large and had henchmen, a well prepared party of 9 men can attack 9 times against 3 enemies in a single round. That's a ratio of 3:1. I like those odds in battle!

That is why the AD&D system uses Group Initiative and not Individual initiative. It also makes area spell very powerful in a 10" wide corridor against enemies who are in close formation!

That's also awfully close to 1" square = 1m.

 

[Musing Mage]

The beautiful thing about it is how it aligns with the movement rates for a smooth conversion when determining per-segment movement.

Indoor movement scale (and combat movement), which is 1" = 10ft, means a character simply needs to divide their base movement rate by 3 to find their per-segment movement rate in squares on the battlemap.

For outdoor movement, then the # of squares per-segment is directly equal to their base movement rate.

Yes, the math isn't 100% perfectly aligned, but it's close enough to give you a good representation on the board and it's an easy calculation.

The downside, obviously, is just how much space it takes up on your table and battlemat!

 

[loverdrive]

That's also awfully close to 1" square = 1m.

You just convinced me to switch to 3'33" forever and never look back.

 

[Musing Mage]

I think a metric conversion for 1st ed would probably be the most intuitive...

A 1-inch (25mm) square on a battlemat would become a 1 meter square, then everything else is factored in meters without any real issue. The actual difference between 3.33ft and 1 meter isn't hugely relevant to table top play.

1" = 10ft would simply become 1" = 3 meters (3 squares, no change), where 1" = 10 yards, would simply become 1" = 10 meters (10 squares instead of 9 squares).

Outdoor ranges get a slight boost, where indoor scales are reduced slightly. It's just a matter of remembering that indoor scales in (") are tripled for determining 'zoomed' grid play, and outdoor scales are multiplied by 10 on the 'zoomed' grid.

Hadn't occurred to me to actually go metric in my game given that IRL I pretty much use a hybrid of Imperial and Metric day-to-day, but hey, what could go wrong?

Now - do I cause myself and my players headaches by turning the coinweight encrumbrance system into Kilograms?

 

[Marc_C]

Now - do I cause myself and my players headaches by turning the coinweight encrumbrance system into Kilograms?

Wait until you get into temperature conversions! LOL

 

[NotAYakk]

You just convinced me to switch to 3'33" forever and never look back.

You can also just call them "yards" to keep the fantasy feel.

(A yard is 3 feet, or 90% of a meter, and pre industrial era varied in size by far more than 10%).

So 30' movement is 10 squares. 25' movement is 8 squares, and 35' is 12 squares, and 40' is 13 squares.

One thing you could do is make light weapons have a reach of 1, polearms and whips a reach of 3, and everything else a reach of 2. That gives the "daggers require you to be closer" feel. Or go further:
Light: reach 1
Default: reach 2.
Versatile and Two-handed: reach 3
Polearms and Whips: reach 4

the default category is the interesting one. It consists of flails, war picks, morningstar, mace, javelin.

As 2 of them are chain weapons, I don't particularly like the fact that they have shorter reach than longswords. Hence going with 1/2/3 instead of 1/2/3/4.

Add a penalty for being within your reach, a free attack for closing in past the reach, and a free attack for exiting someone's reach, and you even get a bit of range-play going on.

 

[Musing Mage]

Wait until you get into temperature conversions! LOL

Oh god... I'm already there... I use the WSG weather rules, but need the Farenheit to Celsius conversion chart on hand for my own sake.

My mind is hardwired to Celsius when it comes to temperature, so values in Farenheit mean nothing to me and throw me off every time.

 

[Marc_C]

Oh god... I'm already there... I use the WSG weather rules, but need the Farenheit to Celsius conversion chart on hand for my own sake.

My mind is hardwired to Celsius when it comes to temperature, so values in Farenheit mean nothing to me and throw me off every time.

I get you. In Quebec everything is in metric. When I go to the US I'm all confused when I watch the weather channels.