D&D 4E New Podcast: New DDM rules and their 4E origins

[Hussar]

The problem with moving diagonals was never really if you simply move in a straight line. The problem was, straight 3, diagonal 1, straight 1, diagonal 1. How far did I just move? Oh crap, that's an extra 5 feet in there, let me try that again.

Things like that.

I like the sound of combat being more mobile. That sound interesting.

It's also interesting to hear a developer expressing some disappointment with how the rules turned out - he wasn't all that thrilled about dropping the diagonal movement.

 

[HeinorNY]

The problem with moving diagonals was never really if you simply move in a straight line. The problem was, straight 3, diagonal 1, straight 1, diagonal 1. How far did I just move? Oh crap, that's an extra 5 feet in there, let me try that again.

The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th... diagonal movement always cost twice 1 extra square. It's not harder than taking into account difficult terrain.

 

[Fifth Element]

Seriously, I'm all for simplifying, but it's really hard to defend this against the charge of dumbing down the game.

So why would you consider this "dumbing down" rather than "simplifying"? It's certainly simpler this way. Why is it dumber?

Many things in D&D combat are abstract. Why couldn't diagonal movement be one, without it being dumb?

 

[Fifth Element]

The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th... diagonal movement always cost twice 1 extra square. It's not harder than taking into account difficult terrain.

Yes, but it comes up much more often than difficult terrain. It has the potential to come up every time any PC or NPC moves more than 5 feet.

And really, it is more difficult than difficult terrain. In difficult terrain, everything costs an extra square of movement. For diagonals, it's only every second one, so you have to remember whether you're on an odd or an even diagonal move. And if you're moving diagonally in difficult terrain, each even diagonal costs 3 squares. So it's 2-3-2-3 rather than 1-2-1-2.

So now that I think about it, it's completely different from difficult terrain. And more complex.

 

[Hussar]

The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th... diagonal movement always cost twice 1 extra square. It's not harder than taking into account difficult terrain.

Oh, hey, I agree with you. I never found it all that bad. But, then, I LIKE using battle grids. Doesn't faze me at all.

But, it did create some wonkiness in other places as well - such as reach weapons. Why does a 10 foot reach not take the extra 5 feet into account? Because it would make it to easy to get around - just attack on an angle.

But, yeah, I do agree, there's nothing terribly difficult with the extra 5 feet every other diagonal move.

 

[Deverash]

Yes, but it comes up much more often than difficult terrain. It has the potential to come up every time any PC or NPC moves more than 5 feet.

And really, it is more difficult than difficult terrain. In difficult terrain, everything costs an extra square of movement. For diagonals, it's only every second one, so you have to remember whether you're on an odd or an even diagonal move. And if you're moving diagonally in difficult terrain, each even diagonal costs 3 squares. So it's 2-3-2-3 rather than 1-2-1-2.

So now that I think about it, it's completely different from difficult terrain. And more complex.

While I agree with your point, moving diagonally through difficult terrain is actually really easy: each diagonal square costs 3.

Difficult terrain doesn't add 1 square of movement, but doubles it.

 

[delericho]

The problem with moving diagonals was never really if you simply move in a straight line. The problem was, straight 3, diagonal 1, straight 1, diagonal 1. How far did I just move? Oh crap, that's an extra 5 feet in there, let me try that again.

The easy way to resolve this is count diagonals as 1.5, and round fractions down (as is the convention through out the book). So, the distance travelled is 3, 4.5, 5.5, 7 in the example given.

If, however, the move was straight 3, diagonal 1, straight 2, then the distances would be 3, 4.5, 6.5, which then rounds down to 6.

So why would you consider this "dumbing down" rather than "simplifying"? It's certainly simpler this way. Why is it dumber?

Because it's far from accurate. As I noted in my first post, it's the difference between an Elf moving 35 feet on his move, and him moving just under 50 feet. And I'm sorry, but counting diagonals as 1.5 is not hard.

An example of the problems this causes is the classic 'chessboard' trap. Imagine the character has to avoid stepping on any of the black squares. In 3e, this means that the character has to either take the hit of stepping on black, or has to make only diagonal movements, paying a premium for his move.

In 4e, he just steps diagonally on every step, and suffers no consequence for it.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

So here's a very gamist approach, but when you think about it, most combats are approach, fight, maneuver. So, consider starting battles facing the enemy diagonally, then the over-movement (50 vs. 35) mostly goes into approaching or leaving the main thrust of melee, over which you might expect to move quicker (and the movement rates for characters are abstract not absolute).

 

[Black Knight Irios]

I'm happy if diagonal moves cost 1 square all the time. It's not insulting intelligence or something like that, multiple damage multipliers are not really like multiplying, are they?

And there was talk about 4E having more movement during combat, meaning counting squares will show up more often, well...and that means diagonal movement will show up more often.

To be honest I never had the impression that the existing rules for diagonal movement added anything to the game except for extra counting, recounting to put it simple they had no positive impact on our games. Spell area effects and reach make it even worse.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I am for counting diagonals as 1.44 squares.

I don´t understand the problem. As soon as you play the game on a board, you should use board rules (chess works fine that way).
The most easy houserule is using a 7 square long thread to have an easy way of determine your movement length correctly if you deem it worth the effort.