Magus Coeruleus said:
I don't mean to threadjack, but could you share any thoughts on how you facilitated gridless play? Assuming you have done so in the past with 3.x, how would you compare the experience? Many people argue that if you can do it in 3.x you can do it just as easily in 4e, but others see the increase in the number of enemies and, especially, the emphasis on powers that emphasize shifting, pushing, pulling, sliding, etc. as factors that could make it more difficult. Did you have any specific strategies for implementing 4e mechanics without a gride? Thanks!
Right, here's the thing. The actual 4E rules could add on layers of complexity, and who knows what play looks like at 25th level vs. 1st level.
So, for the 4E rules lite at 1st level:
It was a lot easier for my group to play gridless, eh, erm, scratch that, correction...
It was a devilish lot easier for me to
run it gridless than it has been for me to run 3.X gridless.
My group was different. First of all, I don't know how they feel about grid vs. non-grid in 3.X except that they don't like grids much. So I don't know how they feel about comparing gridless play from one edition to the next since it should just feel like play to them.
Second of all, they really got into maneuvering. They were zipping around the battlefield, flanking things, manipulating distances, and trying to set up cross fire. So I would say they were absolutely having a lot more fun doing things then they did in 4E. Since they were trying more complicated things, though, I don't know how a grid would make that easier for them or not.
It certainly makes the impression that running things was easier pretty interesting since, thinking about it in those terms, the players were trying much harder stuff.
Here's the breakdown player vs DM:
Good Gridless:
DM:
- squares made it very easy to compare speeds: 5 vs 6 is easier to read than 25 vs 30
- OA were a lot easier to figure out than AoO
- combat advantage is a broad easy to apply concept. Didn't have to think well, he's invisible or he's flanked, just combat advantage, yes or no?
- Reach seemed to be a lot less of a problem
- Better Ranged Characters: Warlock, Ranger, et al meant fewer people crowding for melee
- Movement terms - slide, shift, et al made movement a lot easier to call verbally
- gridless means no more worrying about diagnols
Player:
- They loved the new opportunity attacks - the action and movement basis meant fewer worries about positioning
- shifting made sense to them
- economy of actions: they thought in terms of action cost rather than haggled over position
- new movement modes like teleport and warlock concealement made them super happy
- they loved having lots of monsters to fight, options made them less stressed about position
The BAD or at least INDIFFERENT
DM:
- This is the first game that makes minis and grid movement interesting enough that I am tempted to try gird heavy combat based on merit over necessity
- I don't have real rules for traps yet. In gridless play I just assigned movement costs to obstacles: damage if you go straight through & speed costs if you go around
- There is a lot of public information, so without a grid I do recommend some sort of board or public sheet you can write conditions, initiative, and some positioning on:
Brian Horfrost: Init 16, concealed, flanked by Kobold 3 & 4
Kobold 4: Init 18, bloodied, flanking Brian
- There do tend to be more monsters than one, this has tradeoffs and is not too bad.
- There are far better ways to do gridless movement and play, but none that have ever been remotely featured in D&D.
Players:
- They really hated speed in squares. I prefer abstract units since I can assign feet or meters or whatever and the comparative speeds stay the same. But it just annoyed them until I set a standard.
- They did have to ask a lot of questions until I put the white board up, but this is normal for gridless play, IME.
- They got concerned about weapon ranges, since I wasn't it worked out fine.
Some guys stopped after AD&D: Skills & Powers.
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