Abstract or Miniature combat

[Voadam]

How many people do not use miniatures in running their 3e combats?

When it was 1st and 2nd edition I would sometimes use miniatures, (sometimes just dice or even legos,) to give a little feel for the battlefield placement but usually I'd just suddenly yell "Roll Initiative!" and handle it descriptively. So far I have only run 3e combats that were using miniatures and grids. However, sometimes combats can take place in big spaces that don't quite fit on the tabletop (High speed flying battles come to mind).

Anybody with experience in 3e non miniature combat care to share their experiences with it. Is figuring out attacks of opportunities difficult? 5' steps? Other issues?

thanks.

 

[Joust]

Before 3e we would just draw a rough outline of the battlefield on grid paper or white board, with no minis. Since 3e we've only used miniatures on a battlemat, and about once per gaming session (usually during a big battle), someone will say, "How would we ever have done this without minis?!" We all find it really enhances the game.

With 3e rules, it seems like it would really slow the game down to be constantly asking players questions like, "Ok, the evil wizard starts to cast a spell. How close are you to him? About 7' away? Well then you wouldn't get an AofO..."

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Minis add a ton to the game -- even if you're going to do it casually and not measure every move out on a chessboard of 1 inch boxes, just having the figures on the table helps everyone to agree on spacial relationships, etc.

And if you're concerned about minis, there are lots of inexpensive alternatives. I have been buying little plastic figures out of supermarket gumball machines for a while now -- I have a collection of "homies" which add a certain character to our game's urban encounters. I also use a lot of Mage Knight figures, which look a lot more like what they ought to look like, and are already painted.

-rg

 

[Crothian]

I never used minis or anything like that untill I meet a guy who had a bunch of minatures and was a fantastic painter. Half the time we'd just marvel at his minatures. Now, alas, he moved back to California, so we just use chits. And we only use them for the more complex battles. We have no problem not using chits for battles. It's fairly simple as long as there aren't that many playerrs in the fight. Just like chess without the chess board and pieces.

 

[BluWolf]

I have ALWAYS used minis!!

I don't like doing a combat without them. I know some people do without and thats fine. For me it has always been apart of the game.

I think 3E has further enhanced the need for them.

Now the only REAL problem is my collection of minis is never more than 10% painted!!!

Everytime I get 1 painted I have found 10 more really cool ones.

 

[Gromm]

Screw minis. A piece of graph paper and a pencil.
Pick a letter for your character and write him down. Works perfect, is practically free, and allows for plenty of room in almsot any situation (more pieces of graph paper or bigger pieces if you need to).
None of us can afford minis and the whole "Pretend this orc is really a displacer beast because I had to pay the rent this week." never comes up, which is why I can't ever get into minis myself. Well that and I don't have a money tree, or a diamond mine. Instead I got rent, insurance and utilities to pay with little income while I go to school.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I almost always use minis--I did in 1e and 2e because I had them. I do in 3e because I like minis, I like painting them, and it makes it much much easier to keep track of positions on the board.

However, I have found that minis aren't really that helpful when dealing with a running combat. Today, for instance, two bad guys were fleeing at 240 feet per round on their light warhorses being followed by a flying cleric with the travel domain and a fighter/wizard on a "borrowed" heavy warhorse. In this case, I just wrote down the distance the characters had moved from the starting point because tactical positioning wasn't really too important--range increments were what mattered.

 

[hong]

I think having some sort of visual representation of the battlefield is great. It doesn't have to be minis; it could be the counters out of various modules, SJG's Cardboard Heroes, lego men, or anything. I personally find it really hard to keep track of what's going on, unless I can see it in front of me.

This is also why I don't play mages anymore; the last time I tried it, I kept misjudging areas of effect. Not good when you like hurling fireballs around; doubly so when they were 2E, space-filling fireballs.

 

[Shin Okada]

I have been always playing fantasy RPGs with minis. ODnD, Rune Quest, Stormbringer, T&T, GURPS Fantasy, Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Sword World RPG (a Japanese one), etc. I love to use minis even if that combat system do not require minis. It is always more fun to play with minis.

Also, when I was playing RPGs in my high school (ah, long years ago), I found by playing with minis, we can attract more people. When someone is playing RPG just with dice and papers, it looks somewhat "geeky" and bystanders tend to ignore, or avoid. But when playing with colorful minis, bystanders' reaction is quite different.

Today, in addition to metal and plastic minis, I am using tons of cheap plastic toy animals. Some of them are purchased at toy store. Some of them are thrown in for chocolate or other sweets (just like those in Kinder Surprise, but Japanese ones are much better).

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

I havn't really used minis for a long time really, until recently..
With a new group O play with they are very rulew bound and as such the use of mini's is vital for the game to run smoothly
With a group that a DM for of fairly new players I started useing Minis with them after a year without adn found them very useful to allow the players to focus more on their characters rather then haveing to imagine whats going on in the heat of combat...

So I've found them usefull for 2 different reasons, and I get to use the hundresd adn hundreds of minis I have collected over the years..