Mike's Law of Minimum Encounter Area

[moritheil]

Hmm, the one thing I would note is that this encourages certain build styles that would ordinarily be curtailed by the surroundings.

 

[Celebrim]

I think I'd change the rules from 5' steps to 3' steps before I required every room to be larger than a gymnasium.

Part of the problem is the 3.5 ruleset with its incredibly ridiculous rules for bases and reach greatly increased the size a larger creature supposedly occupies. If you stick with a 5'x5' base for a large (tall) creature, you don't have near the problem.

 

[blargney the second]

Celebrim, you can make the math easier by saying 1 square = 1 meter/yard.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

Celebrim, you can make the math easier by saying 1 square = 1 meter/yard.

We experimented with something similar in AD&D. It was entirely house-ruled, but we were using the idea that three squares equal ten feet. So, each square was a little over a yard across.

It worked really well. The only issue is that it takes up more of the battlemat to draw out rooms. Other than that, if one square were changed to 3.333... yards across, it would work fine.

Iron Heroes changed the 5' step rules to allow characters to go farther than 5' when adjusting. I don't remember how far, but the faster the character, the farther it could move when taking the action that 3.5 calls the 5' step.

 

[Huw]

A good technique I've found is to compare your fight to a sports match with similar participants. Examples:

1) One on one fight. Boxing, martial arts, wrestling: pick any. Typically fought in a 20' square
2) Fight between five PCs and five monsters. That's a basketball match. A basketball court is about 90'x50'
3) Party versus four large creatures. That's a polo match. A polo pitch is 300'x150'.

Since these pitch sizes are there to give maximum manoeuvrability to both sides, just about any combat, even on the exagerated scales used in D&D, is going to feel cramped.