Has anyone done variant combat rules that remove the 5 ft. grid?

[Kaleon Moonshae]

Ever since 3e came out, I have been less than thrilled with the combat system. We have a small table and small children, so we are *not* going to be using miniatures. Nor do I even enjoy using them -- if I wanted to play a miniatures game, I'd start buying Warhammer. I will admit that miniatures do aid the visualization of scenes somewhat. However, I find that they detract much more than they add -- they slow down combat and they detract from the roleplaying aspects of the game.

The specific reason I'm posting this question is another thread in this forum. Drunkmoogle wants to create a prestige class that gains the ability to use a 10 ft. step. Several people have posted saying that such an ability would be way too powerful under the 3e rules. Now, if making *that* small a change breaks the rules system, I say that there is not something wrong with the idea. There is something wrong with the rules.

The obvious thought (to me) is then to change the rules. However, removing the taint of miniatures from 3e is *not* a small task. Indeed, the rules are so permeated with the hack 'n' slash miniatures rules that I'm not even sure where one would start on a redesign. Miniatures rules are hardly necessary -- most systems on the market *other* than d20 get along without them just fine.

However, I'm not going to launch into such a huge project lightly. So I ask y'all, who are experts in the field of variant rules, if such a thing has already been done. Is there a variant d20 combat system out there, which gets rid of some of the silly aspects of 3e, like space, reach, and the movement rules?

quick offtopic question, is that the lead singer of collide or am i just smoking something?

 

[reanjr]

I spent a few hours thinking about this on a road trip once, and came up with this rough system.

There are various Ranges in the combat system.

Melee Stage: This is about a 20- or 30-ft. radius area.

Medium Range: Roughly a 150-ft. radius area, which may contain several melee stages. Moving between two melee stages, or from melee to medium range, is a full round action.

Long Range: Roughly an 800-ft. radius area. Moving from Medium to Long Range takes a full round action, and counts as running.

Tactical Range: This a mile out. It's a range you can manuever at, but not attack from. Only a few weird weapons can be used at this distance.

Strategic Range: Beyond tactical range. This would be used for armies.

When you design combats, you could create different stages. Things like: the bridge, the river, the open field, the exterior of the boathouse, the interior of the boathouse, etc.

Perhaps to keep movement speed important, give changing a range a Difficulty Class. Call it a 'Move check.' Every character has a speed score, which is pretty much the same as what his speed would be in the core rules. But it grants a bonus to 'Move checks,' just like any stat. So if your speed is 30, you have a +10 bonus to Spd-based checks. If you're a halfling in Full Plate (Spd 15), your modifier would be +2.

Making a Move check is a move action.

Move checks between:
Stage and Stage - DC 25
Close and Medium - DC 30
Medium and Long - DC 50
Long to Tactical - DC 200
Tactical to Strategic - DC 1000

You can keep trying turn after turn, adding your results together for each check.

If you are in the same melee stage as a foe, you can make an Engage check, which is basically a Move check modified by how many foes are also in the stage, or who are already engaging the foe. You can attempt to engage once a round as a swift action, or you can spend a move action, automatically engage the foe, and incur an AoO from that foe.

I haven't worked out the specifics yet, but probably some weapons might provide a bonus to engage checks, like longspears, and they might raise the DC of your opponent's attempts to engage you. You could also try to avoid everyone for the round, making your own Move check, which sets the DC to engage you.

Instead of having ranged increments, weapons would have listed penalties for different ranges. So a crossbow might have a -2 penalty if you attack from Medium range, whereas a spear might have -4.

How does that sound?

I don't know if making a check to move fits with the D20 system. I think it might be too radical of a change. And I think adding different ragne penalties for different weapons creates added complication to the otherwise elegant system.

Despite the fact that I disagree with using a check to determine movement, I do really like the adding together the results to finally accomplish a long range movement. I think making a DC based on terrain would be better though and a certain number of successes would be required to move between particular ranges. It just seems more D20 to me.

 

[Dogbrain]

I have done the removal. I'm very old-school when it comes to running combat, which means that I eschew grids as much as possible. I use miniatures/tokens/lego guys/candies/whatever and "free-form" scale movement. It works because I can keep on top of it. I do not believe that it would work for everyone. However, using candies as monsters does give an added incentive to the players. They get to eat what their characters eliminate from combat.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Mini's in!

Just an an opinion from outside.. my biggest gripe with pre D20 gaming was the often occurance of the positioning problem. There was always a misinterpretation of where a character was.. whether it meant in the line of a fireball or just being seen by the guards. IMHO the D20 mini system speeds up combat and eliminates those arguments.

I usually play on a small table as well, and my fix is to have maps of the combat areas drawn up on sheets of paper with a 1' grid on them. As encounters occur, the paper gets dropped on the table, mini's get placed and the encounter moves on.

One of my recent games inlcuded the group engaging in combat and splitting up into 3 teams... something I would have torn my hair out over pre D20. I simply made room on the table for 3 sheets of paper. No character was ever out of place, I didn't have to 'pause' a player while I figured out what was going on.

Anyway, back on topic: removing mini rules open up other issues that you and your group will either need to ignore or alter. Reach is an ability that potentially increases the CR, if you are not using a system that integrates Reach, you need to lower the CR of those creatures. The same goes for COmbat Reflexes and a variety of other related abilities. There are alot of areas that are impacted by changing the combat rules.
Admittably, they are all related to combat, so if your group avoids combat its no big deal.

As to movement, I saw somewhere on these boards an idea where you actually roll your movement, so you potentially can get caught in the open. The way it worked, IIRC, is you take your movement rate - 10 and add that to a D20 roll. The concept is that normal rules you are taking a '10' on your move roll.

Anyway.. time for work

 

[Liquidsabre]

We use hex graph paper!

Seriously.

 

[Terath Ninir]

I think I like the different "ranges" of combat, but I think die rolls for movement would be... weird. I just can't wrap my head around the concept...

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, if you make ranges abstract, and simply require you to spend a move action to switch ranges, then what you're effectively doing is making a halfling in full plate move as quickly as an unarmored human, since both would have to expend the same resources to move the same distance. The halfling is getting a great bonus, and the human is just having to suck it up.

Now, if you require a roll to reach a destination, you can still keep speed and mobility as useful traits in the system. If you don't, you have to find some other way to penalize those who are slow or encumbered, or else you skew the system in favor of the heavily armored.

You could have speed improve your Armor Class. That takes movement ranges out of the equation without ruining the coolness of nimble, dodging folks. Of course, there's still the oddity that a halfling can charge into combat at the same speed as a mounted warrior, but heck, that happened in the Return of the King, so I won't sweat it too much.

 

[reanjr]

Well, if you make ranges abstract, and simply require you to spend a move action to switch ranges, then what you're effectively doing is making a halfling in full plate move as quickly as an unarmored human, since both would have to expend the same resources to move the same distance. The halfling is getting a great bonus, and the human is just having to suck it up.

Now, if you require a roll to reach a destination, you can still keep speed and mobility as useful traits in the system. If you don't, you have to find some other way to penalize those who are slow or encumbered, or else you skew the system in favor of the heavily armored.

You could have speed improve your Armor Class. That takes movement ranges out of the equation without ruining the coolness of nimble, dodging folks. Of course, there's still the oddity that a halfling can charge into combat at the same speed as a mounted warrior, but heck, that happened in the Return of the King, so I won't sweat it too much.

Yes, I agree, there are problems with it. But you can still keep speeds for chasing/evasion and of course it still would affect overland movement speeds. When creating an abstract system, you gotta expect some abstraction. Like full plated halflings chargin into battle as fast as mounted knights. Sounds pretty abstract to me.