D&D 4E Non-Euclidean Geometry in 4E?

[Geron Raveneye]

Ok, you all should stop thinking a diagonal is 5ft.

Nowhere it is stated that you move always 5ft. Your speed is listed in squares. It just means that because of certain "forces" you can more easily move diagonal. Thus you can make 7ft steps when moving in that way.


But if you do, you have to jump and strafe left or right. And it is called bunny hopping and looks very funny.

And come on, your turn is 6 seconds. Your movement distance is an arbitrary number of squares. You can´t accelerate just a bit and still attack. How weird is that?
If your opponent is 7 squares away you do what? Move 6 feet. Wait for him to whack on you for 6 seconds and then strike back?

And don´t argument: fireballs are squares now... it is just to prevent rule lawyers from moving diagonally all the time to avoid it. If you are just playing a game to have fun, use it as intended, use fireballs and have fun.

For the minigame it is a different matter, but there the grid IS ACTUALLY FIXED before you setup your minis. So the disussion is somewhat redundant. And here firecubes and no cones make perfectly sense, because here it actually IS A COMPETITION where 1 square difference can mean win or loss.

This kinda sounds like "It's magic! You should stop looking so closely at it, and it will make sense. It's not so important anyway, it's just an RPG."

 

[HeinorNY]

Ok, you all should stop thinking a diagonal is 5ft.
SNIP

It solves the believability problem, but not the functional problem.

 

[Wormwood]

This kinda sounds like "It's magic! You should stop looking so closely at it, and it will make sense. It's not so important anyway, it's just an RPG."

Sounds good to me.

 

[BryonD]

Sounds good to me.

The GROUND is magic now? Everywhere?

 

[Wormwood]

The GROUND is magic now? Everywhere?

Not the "magic" part; the "this doesn't really matter---can we just play already" part.

 

[HeinorNY]

Are you saying that if people actually use the diagonal 1 for 1, then D&D breaks?

No.
I'm saying that 1-1-1-1 is a broken rule. I really don't think I need to define what a 'broken rule' is.

 

[BryonD]

Not the "magic" part; the "this doesn't really matter---can we just play already" part.

Oh, ok.
Of course I greatly disagree.

To me it matters a lot that taking on the role of a character in a world includes the understanding that the world itself is not absurd. And reality stretching by 40% linearly and 200% in two dimensions simply by turning 45 degrees is plenty far into absurd.

It is really boggling to me that anyone would even consider this as open for discussion, much less a good idea and even vastly less an acceptable trade-off against simply counting 1/2/1/2. Seriously, even now my mind reels trying to grasp the thinking. But clearly there is something greatly different going on in my mind than a lot of other people's minds. But there are also a lot of people who see it my way.

I'm very sensitive to the whole badwrongfun thing. If you are having fun then that is all that matters and my opinion isn't crap. But my opinion is that if the world isn't plausible, then the characters that "exist" in it also become implausible. And if the character is implausible then really honestly roleplaying is screwed. As I said way upthread, you can tell a story from the point of view of a chess knight, but that doesn't make it roleplaying. And to me this kind of slap in the face of plausibility or versimiltude is like the fun equivalent of anti-matter.

And to be clear, obviously one can deep roleplay a dwarven warlock to the nth degree and the grid on a table has exactly zero to do with that. But to me the real experience and joy of roleplaying is integrally linked with how the players actions and the pretend world mesh. Its like two gears and the player can do his thing perfectly but his gear is just spinning because the teeth on the world's gear are all pointing in the wrong direction.

And if you are just playing kick in the door / empowerment by proxy, then none if this applies. But there are many kinds of roleplaying. And for the kind that I really love, this idea is a total failure. Even if it just a "little" error. It is the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Its a constant thumb in the eye to any attempt at building a world that really works.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

Really? Then how can I move 10 feet on a diagonal in 3.5 edition?

You can't move 10 feet on a diagonal in 4th edition either, you move 2 SQUARES, that are about 14 feet. Theres NO WAY to move 10 feet diagonaly in a 5' grid.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

Like I said about rotating huge monsters 45 degrees - suddenly my sides aren't 15 feet, they're 20 feet. Oh, but, wait, I can't actually do that. Why not? Because the battle grid is abstract and I can't rotate myself 45 degrees, I have to make full 90 degree turns, no matter what and make sure that my "base" fits into the squares.

For the love of God!!!! there's NO FACING IN d20 system!!!!! Not in 3e and not in 4e!!!!!!

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

Just to make things even clearer:

Feet measurement doesn't matter because rules are in squares.
The second diagram is a larger space in an euclidian world, but not in the 1-1-1-1 world.

Both rooms have the same size in squares considering the 1-1-1-1 rule.

I see people trying to explain this inconsistency using euclidian rationalization, but it doesn't apply here, the rule is simply wrong and it assumes something that we can't accept because we live in an euclidian world.

Another point I saw here is that its was better to be the Blue dot on the second diagram because it's simply a larger space. But it's not. The Blue dot can use any 6 square range power (like Point Blank Shot) on the X dot in both situations, but the X dot can only reach the Blue dot in one round on the 1st situation. It's un unfair advantage that comes from a broken rule.

It breaks the game because we use a square grid. Get used to it or use a hex grid.

Are you even reading the other guys in this thread? The rule is:

-Every step you take in any direction, even diagonals, is worth 1 square of movement.

Not:
-The diagonals of the squares are just as long as their sides

It is about MOVEMENT SPEED! Not about SPACE!
I even believe we wont have firecubes. They haven't stated anything on areas, just movement.

(sorry for the multiple posts, I was just catching up)