Diagonals revisited

[HeinorNY]

The worst of this all is that we can't just house rule back to 1-2-1-2.
One of the rogue powers allow him to move 2 squares before attacking. It works completelly different under both rules.
There will be certainly more powers like that.
We are bound to 1-1-1-1.

Roll sanity check!

 

[Geron Raveneye]

So, characters were "moving cautiously, carefully, and with an eye on traps, monsters in shadows and other dangers" in combat? And - of course, there was an option to move in "yards" if you were willing to take more risks?

I don't know how versed you are in the details of classic movement rates...Basic D&D gave movement rates in the form of 120'(40'), which meant "120 feet per turn dungeon movement rate, 40 feet per round encounter movement rate". Note that all movement rates were given in feet, not in inches (I wonder if you get that from AD&D...got to check). Overland movement rate was simply triple your indoors movement rate. If you want a "simple" explanation, assume dungeons were viewed as "difficult terrain" that reduced your movement rate to 1/3rd.
And yes, the option to move in yards was there...it was called DM's fiat, and would (in my game) have led to a loss of chances to check for traps before activating them, chances to notice hidden adversaries, secret doors, etc. You also would have warned more monsters up ahead in the dungeon, since moving three times faster causes more noise, which carries a lot better in a dungeon hallway. And yes, sorry, Basic D&D was expressively a game that left options like this to the DM. But at least it DID leave them to the DM.

And, if you are willing to accept that inches can mean "x number of feet" and "3x number of feet", are you also willing to accept that "square" can mean "5 feet" or "7 feet"?

Nope. Want to know why? I'm sure you're practically burning to hear it.
IF you take inches and translate them to feet indoors and yards outdoors, and explain it with the different circumstances of the surroundings, all you're doing is using a sort of "map scale" to describe to different movement conditions with one number. You might disagree with the condition importance, or the scale, but in all other respects, it conforms to standard geometric and physical understanding. And as I pointed out, Basic D&D didn't use inches at all, everything was given in feet, overland movement was tripled.
Edit: I see that AD&D 1E indeed used an "inch=feet/yard" scale to describe movement. Add another thing to the heap of "learned useless information"
If I'd accept that square can mean 5 feet orthogonally and 7 feet diagonally, I would also accept that a character moves faster in one direction than in the one at a 45° angle. And nothing he could try would change that...everything affecting a character's movement speed (in squares per round) would equally increase the speed differences of both directions. So one direction penalizes movement, and this is a direct effect of a property of the world you move in. And that simply doesn't work with me if D&D is supposed to describe a similar reality to the one I live in. If it works for you, fine.

 

[Piratecat]

To argue otherwise is to demonstrate ignorance of the way 4e measures distance.

Hey, please don't use implied insults to make your point. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but it comes across a little harsh.

Thanks.

 

[jeffh]

Yes. The artists have to have some way of distinguishing between male and female diagonals.

Funny, that argument didn't seem to hold for the DDI models.

 

[Hussar]

I always wondered about the inch thing in 1e and 2e. Why fireballs, for example, were three times larger outside than inside. Always though it was strange. Didn't bother me much though. Shrugged and moved on.

Pretty much like I'm going to do with 1-1-1 movement.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I always wondered about the inch thing in 1e and 2e. Why fireballs, for example, were three times larger outside than inside. Always though it was strange. Didn't bother me much though. Shrugged and moved on.

Actually, from what I remember the area of spell effects was the one thing that didn't scale up in an outdoor setting. A fireball was the same size in a dungeon or on a mountain. I can't remember if spell range scaled up or not ... probably so.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, from what I remember the area of spell effects was the one thing that didn't scale up in an outdoor setting. A fireball was the same size in a dungeon or on a mountain. I can't remember if spell range scaled up or not ... probably so.

Aw, man, is this yet another rule we completely screwed up around our table? Bloody oath. I really gotta wonder about my reading skills back then. sigh. :\

 

[Delta]

I always wondered about the inch thing in 1e and 2e. Why fireballs, for example, were three times larger outside than inside. Always though it was strange. Didn't bother me much though. Shrugged and moved on.

From 1E PHB, "Distance", p. 39:

Distance scale and areas of effect for spells (and missiles) are designed to fit the game. The tripling of range outdoors is reasonable, as it allows for recreation of actual ranges for hurled javelins, arrows fired from longbows, or whatever. In order to keep magic spells on a par, their range is also tripled. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT OUTDOOR SCALE BE USED FOR RANGE ONLY, NEVER FOR SPELL AREA OF EFFECT (which is kept at 1” = 10’)...

(Emphasis same as in book.)

 

[Hussar]

ROTFLMAO. Yuppers. Sigh. I'm really not illiterate, but, looking at this, I really have to wonder. Jeez, I played in more than a few groups that didn't know this.

 

[sunmaster]

What I don't understand is : Even with more and more GMs who use laptops as GM screen _and_ as "rule book collection", with the ongoing use of DDI for the game , in short with more and more computing power on the game table easy to use,

WHY are the rules going "structurally" easier? Noone should today bother about "computing" exact, and "realistic" distant rules and based on that "realistic" attack and combat actions, right?

So, where is the need for such "easy" rules?


For all who want to answer me with , that they don't have a computer with them at their table:
Can you, please, call someone ?