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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ZombieRoboNinja" data-source="post: 4080344" data-attributes="member: 54843">My first 3e group didn't use minis and had zero problems... because we ALSO didn't use any attacks of opportunities, and didn't even know about things like bull rush and charge. (This was right after 3e came out, when to a casual player the importance of these rules wasn't immediately obvious.) Any time range came into play - like when a wizard cast a fireball into a group of enemies - the DM would just eyeball it and say, e.g., "You can hit six of them."As I got more experienced playing and DMing 3e, it became apparent that in any encounter where players knew and tried to use all the combat rules, a grid was really important. Five-foot steps, large monsters with reach, etc. were all just a pain in the butt to run without an exact understanding of where everyone was positioned. The exception was in RP-heavy campaigns, where everyone was willing to let the DM handwave combat rules at his discretion to make the game run faster - in those games, everyone was satisfied as long as there was a decent narrative explanation for the flow of combat. ("Gamist" versus "narrativist" gameplay, maybe? I dunno.)So I'm thinking 4e won't be TOO much different from 3e here. If you never had a problem running combat without minis in 3e, you're probably letting the DM handwave a lot of combat rules already, so the extra tactics in 4e should be just as easy to work in.</blockquote>