Considering Hexes instead of squares

[DerekSTheRed]

I'd be all for it. The thing to find is a transparency marked with 1" hexes. Where would you buy that I wonder?

There are hex battle mats out there. In fact the one I use for my 3.5 game has hexes on one side and a grid on the other.

Derek

 

[Olfactatron]

Yeah, other than adjudicating the spaces of bigger than medium monsters, hexes work out fine. One thing the rogue in the party noticed is that, because there aren't as many hexes around a monster as squares, it's much easier to flank.

 

[Dausuul]

There are hex battle mats out there. In fact the one I use for my 3.5 game has hexes on one side and a grid on the other.

Hex battlemats are not hard to find, but Plane Sailing was asking about a hex transparency... not sure where you'd get that.

 

[Mort_Q]

Just curious, but why not just use an octagonal grid? Sounds like it would satisfy all your movement and blast concerns.

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/octagon/

It's not really different than squares.

 

[Kobu]

I think I will be running KotS with offset squares or hexes. I am going to try scanning the maps and use GIMP to remove the grid and replace it with hexes. A printing later and I've got a hex map.

If that is too difficult, I have found that white-out tape works well on the WotC dungeon tiles. I put a bit on the centers of one row of squares, then a bit on the lines of the next row and alternate like that. These mark where characters can stand. It scrapes off easily with a fingernail so it doesn't hurt the pieces. I'm not sure how that would work with the adventure maps.

What WotC ought to do is make offset square/hex versions of their maps available along with the PDF versions of the adventures. It shouldn't take them much effort to make.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

Yeah, other than adjudicating the spaces of bigger than medium monsters, hexes work out fine. One thing the rogue in the party noticed is that, because there aren't as many hexes around a monster as squares, it's much easier to flank.

Yeah bigger monsters would be a problem. It's not too bad though. You would have to pick a hex as the primary and move it accordingly, but you have to be careful it doesn't occupy a PCs square.

Maybe gridless is the way to go. I wonder how you implement AoE attacks in gridless though. For a burst you pick a spot and measure out the number of inches I guess. But what about for a blast? Do you just do a 180 degree semicircle of the appropriate radius?

Derek

 

[Kobu]

Yeah bigger monsters would be a problem. It's not too bad though. You would have to pick a hex as the primary and move it accordingly, but you have to be careful it doesn't occupy a PCs square.

Large and bigger creatures are treated the same as they are in squares. It's no harder. See the UA SRD on it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I am seriously considering converting to hexes for the new edition. I never really liked the 1, 2, 1, 2 counting for diagonals in 3E, but I don't really like 1 for 1 diagonals either. I also just like hexes.

Certainly, hexes do reduce the number of people who can be adjacent to a target, but I think that is a good thing. Allowing eight people to flank equally well is nothing more than an oddity of square grids. Hexes get this closer to what it should be, since there is no longer a slight difference between types of flanking.

I don't see what is so hard with larger than medium size creatures in a hex grid...

 

[Dausuul]

I don't see what is so hard with larger than medium size creatures in a hex grid...

It takes a little getting used to when you're tracking movement, but that's about it.

 

[DreamChaser]

Just curious, but why not just use an octagonal grid? Sounds like it would satisfy all your movement and blast concerns.

Unless I misremember my geometry, because octagons do not tesselate and thus must be interspersed with other shapes to create a grid. This seems like it would make things harder, not easier.