In 3rd Edition, what's your preferred wilderness hex size?

[fletch137]

The few 3rd Ed. adventures I've seen with wilderness hexes seem to prefer 5miles/hex, but I can't see why.

Looking at the hourly travel rates in the PHB, an average party (20'/round) would travel 2mph, while a group traveling on light horses would likely by traveling at 4mph. The only time a 5-mile hex would be useful would be if everyone were riding heavy horses...which I guess is possible.

Anyhoo, looking over the mostly likely move rates, it seem the 4mi/hx or 6mi/hx would be more practical.

I'd like to engage my 3.5e group in some hexploration, but can't decide the best hex size to use.

Thoughts?

 

[Celebrim]

I generally have always preferred 1 mile hex size as it allows for some granularity in describing travel and terrain during wandering encounters. However, 1 mile hex size is generally not convenient as a size for overland travel, as a typical wilderness would require far too much detailing using any of the manual methods I have for building maps. So I typically in the past have used a 6 mile hex size as a compromise except for very small scale maps. That said, now that you are forcing me to question my assumptions, I'm wondering whether the additional work involved in a 4 mile hex size might not be worth it.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I read an article a while ago that I found really interesting. I've never used hexes, but here it is: http://steamtunnel.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-praise-of-6-mile-hex.html

In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex
It is good to be back in action. I have been away on personal business, but I should be posting a little more regularly now.

So just today I stopped by Chgowiz's page and noticed that he was talking about wilderness hexes. (and it looks like Bat in the Attic has been playing with hexes a little too here and here)(and Chgowiz got Stirgessuck thinking a bit). When I left I had actually just started to kick around the old hexagon myself on this blog. And so I have some thoughts about hexagons already to go. I hope they are helpful to Chgowiz and everybody else.

As you can tell from the title, I think that the 6 mile hex is the ideal hex for wilderness adventuring hexcrawls. I used to be a big fan of the 5 mile hex as published by Judges Guild. But someone over at the Necromancer Games (was it Rob S. Conley?) pointed out back in like 2005 that it was actually a lot easier to use 6 mile hexes. And then I learned some more things about hexagons. Check it out:

1. Navigation. Estimateing a party's route through a 6 mile hex is a lot easier than any other hex. No other hex size breaks down as cleanly as a 6 mile hex. Trust me, I did the math. The numbers above are accurate to the first decimal. Thats good enough for general overland travel. Take a look at the diagram above. Its six miles from face to face. Vertex to opposite vertex is 7 miles. From the center to any face is 3 miles (half of 6). From the center to any vertex is 3.5 miles. From a navigation standpoint pretty much any route through the hex in general is covered. Enter from the vertex and leave through a face? You can approximate it pretty easily. 5 mile hexes do not lend well to this. If you wing it go with a 6 mile hex, you'll be glad you did.

2. Horizon. Your average human in a flat area without any obstructions in view (think a becalmed sea) can see up to 3 miles. Thats the distance to the horizon best case scenario. So a party travelling straight through a 6 mile hex is not going to see out of it. Unless they climb a tree or find a high place with a view. But the idea is that a 6 mile hex with varied terrain covers the distance that the party can see. A good rule of thumb is that if they take the time to survey the surrounding land then a party should be able to be aware of the terrain of the next hex over. Some pushback might come with the idea that you can see a mountain quite a ways away. But mountains are tricky in that you really can't tell how far away they are until you are a few hexes away. Getting a good vantage point (like the top of a hill or mountain) could be the opportunity for adventure in itself and being aware of the lay of the land can be its own reward. If you want to be able to tell your players how far they can see when they climb up the hill or tree or tower a good rule of thumb is that the distance to the horizon is the square root of thirteen times the height they are viewing from (http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/horizon).

3. Sub hexes. The 6 mile hex can break down into half mile sub hexes. That is 12 hexes accross. (Mr. Chgowiz, this next bit is for you) If you put a dungeon or a settlement or some other important element in a hex, it is good to know where in the hex it is. Thus it makes sense to map out the hex in subhexes. Having these is good for distant encounters, chases, and well looking for that dungeon that is supposed to be around here somewhere. But wait, theres more. Each of these hexes can break down into sub hexes that are 1/24 of a mile accross. At this point your hexes can start measureing thing like furlongs, chains and all the other medieval land measurements. Thats really convenient when you want to figure out how many hexes should a farm take up. Also, 1/24th of a mile is a distance you can put on a battlemat. 5280ft/24 = 220 ft. 220 ft/5 = 44 battlemat squares. A Chessex Mondomat covers that area. Furthermore, if you are always using hexes that have 12 subhexes accross you only have to use one type of graph paper to keep track of all the projections. That is, the graph paper that you use for your sub hexes is the same as the graph paper you use for your subhexes of subhexes.

 

[S'mon]

If I want my maps to show everything interesting then 1 mile/hex is best, 2 miles/hex with a bit of scrunching. For large scale overland movement of the Lewis & Clark sort then 12-15 miles/hex works well.

IMO 5-6 miles/hex is an uneasy compromise - too big to show everything, too small for large-scale movement. 8 miles/hex did work pretty well for the Mystara Gazetteers where they needed to get a nation on a map.

 

[Celebrim]

As it happens, I'm going to do some hex mapping this weekend. I can and probably will end up on paper, but I'm wondering if it might be time to buy an electronic tool.

Thinking about the feature set I want, of most interest would be the ability to turn a map at one resolution into a map at a different resolution. For example, if I had a map at a 36 mile resolution, and I wanted the same map at a 6 mile resolution, the software would automatically create the second map by replacing each single hex with a small number of hexes of the same type. The reverse, averaging blocks of hexes to produce maps of lower resolution would also be nice. This would let me resolve my problem with what scale to represent things at nicely, since it would not be as much work to produce maps of multiple scales.

Ideally the tool would also be able to handle maps with a large numbers of hexes - at least 20,000. Anyone know of such a thing that is easy to work with?

 

[Random Bystander]

As it happens, I'm going to do some hex mapping this weekend. I can and probably will end up on paper, but I'm wondering if it might be time to buy an electronic tool.

Thinking about the feature set I want, of most interest would be the ability to turn a map at one resolution into a map at a different resolution. For example, if I had a map at a 36 mile resolution, and I wanted the same map at a 6 mile resolution, the software would automatically create the second map by replacing each single hex with a small number of hexes of the same type. The reverse, averaging blocks of hexes to produce maps of lower resolution would also be nice. This would let me resolve my problem with what scale to represent things at nicely, since it would not be as much work to produce maps of multiple scales.

Ideally the tool would also be able to handle maps with a large numbers of hexes - at least 20,000. Anyone know of such a thing that is easy to work with?

There is such a thing. Unfortunately, I have since forgotten even the name of the program. But I can tell you that it exists, or existed.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], Hex Mapper is the program in question. Its a pretty simple mapping program that can zoom into hexes up to 8 times.

For the horizon, the formula for viewable miles = 1.22 * SQRT (height in feet). Wikipedia
For those not inclined to use a slide rule the following table is close enough, using 6 mile hexes:

Standing     1 hex
50'             1.5 hexes
100'           2 hexes
150'           2.5 hexes
200'           3 hexes
300'           3.5 hexes
400'           4 hexes
500'           4.5 hexes
750'           5 hexes
1000'         6 hexes
+500'        +1 hex

Somewheres around I had an alternate set of rules for Spot that took into effect the distance.

{edit}
[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], good stuff for Old/New wilderness rules!

 

[Random Bystander]

@Celebrim, Hex Mapper is the program in question. Its a pretty simple mapping program that can zoom into hexes up to 8 times.

Would you happen to know how elevation works? My land hexes next to sea tend to turn into about half sea when interpolated, and despite having a -31 to 31 (or was it -6 to 6?) mile theoretical range for height, I cannot enter a height greater than 32,768 or less than 0. My land hexes are set to 2,600 feet, mountain hexes are set to 13,000 feet and sea hexes 0 feet.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

[MENTION=6702095]Random Bystander[/MENTION], I just dabble with the program. I don't think the propagation rules pay any attention to the elevation, just what the neighboring hex terrain is. Actually, I haven't even used the elevation feature yet as I am primarily just creating 'regional' wilderness hexes to adventure through and playing abstract combat.. so I don't drill down under the 1-mile hex size.

 

[Random Bystander]

[MENTION=6702095]Random Bystander[/MENTION], I just dabble with the program. I don't think the propagation rules pay any attention to the elevation, just what the neighboring hex terrain is. Actually, I haven't even used the elevation feature yet as I am primarily just creating 'regional' wilderness hexes to adventure through and playing abstract combat.. so I don't drill down under the 1-mile hex size.

Thanks. That does explain quite a lot, actually.