Rotating area bursts to be off-grid

[jkohlhepp]

I have a wizard player that has been requesting to be allowed to rotate his area bursts to not align with the grid. This would allow him to "sneak" his bursts in to either hit more enemies, or hit enemies while avoiding allies, where the standard mechanics would not. Obviously this improves the realism of things and his flexibility in combat but does cause issues for mechanics. Does anyone have experience with a houserule like this? If I go through with allowing it, how should the rule be constructed? What should be the rule for whether creatures in a given partially-covered square are affected? Are there any obvious pitfalls where a houserule like this will completely mess up the game?

And obviously, if his wizard gets to do this with area bursts, so too will my monsters...

 

[Klaus]

He can't do it anymore than he can tell his computer monitor to rotate the pixels 45º.

The squareness of the bursts are just an approximation of a circle for ease of use (think of the squares as a very low resolution representation). A fireball is a ball, not a firecube, even if, in game terms, it's a cube.

 

[jkohlhepp]

Hmm. This is a good point. So what you are saying is that an area burst 1 is approximating a spherical burst with a diameter of 3 squares, and it is treating every square within that burst as equally affected, even though some squares are only partially covered. This actually does make quite a bit of sense to me.

 

[Shin Okada]

Hmm. Rotating? For example, usually, burst 1 is like this.

If you rotate this area by 45 degree, which squares should be included?

And if you rotate the area by 60 degree?

At this moment I cant think of any simple and smart solution.

Other than actually rotating the current area, I can think of 2 possible solutions.

One is to use hex map instead of grids. It will work fine for representing areas centered on an origin hex. But you may be have some trouble resolving flanking and such. Also, hex map does not help you much when a combat involves 3D.

Another is to use older 3.5e-type area template. Basically, 3.5e spell area rule uses a crossing point of the grids, instead of one square, as the origin of an area. So you would better use Space and Reach template in 3.5e DMG P.308-309 instead. This gives you somewhat circle-like areas. I guess it may work. But there is a reason why 4e did not adopted that. You must make templates for each size of areas. Also, you must use different template when the user of burst X power has bigger space (large or larger creature).

 

[AngryMojo]

If you really want a changeup from the grid and square fireballs, here's a radical concept.

Don't use a battlemat at all. Use a large dry-erase board, and give every player a tape measure. Make some circular templates that are 3, 5 and 7 inches in diameter for burst 1, 2 or 3, and change every reference of a square into an inch.

Once you get used to it, it actually speeds up combat considerably, especially when long ranges are used. Instead of counting squares, you just measure the distance. Plus, you get real, organic measurements, and a bit of a better idea of where things are.

 

[BobTheNob]

The concept of using a square grid is an abstraction, like the entire game is. Its not meant to be "super realistic", never was.

Frankly, to you wizard I say : You have chosen an artillery class, and part of that (like ever class in the game) is accepting the mechanics and its limitations. You cant simply say the mechanics should not apply because you don't like them.

As a DM, If you allow this, you are just making AOE classes more powerful than they were ever intended. The ability to get around AOE mechanics resides in Feats like War Wizardry.

There is a well defined model for how AOE is meant to work. Its not "super accurate" , but no standard ever is. Thats life!

Be a DM, tell your player that there are rules in place that are perfectly in scope with game balance and work well as intended. His attempts to persuade you otherwise just sounds like a player trying to convince the DM to give his character more power for no justifiable reason and with no price being paid.

If your player cant accept this, maybe he needs to take a good long look in the mirror...

 

[NMcCoy]

Geometrically speaking, a circle is defined as the set of points that are a certain distance from a center point. An area burst N is circular - it includes all squares that are N or fewer squares away from the origin square.

In 4e battle-grid geometry, all circles are also squares, but not all squares are circles. An area burst is fundamentally defined as being circular (in the equidistant sense). If you rotate the square, it ceases being a circle.

Encourage your player to look into feats like Enlarge Spell and War Wizardry, and items like Architect's Staff.

 

[shamsael]

I would absolutely not allow this in my game.

When 4e first came out, I hated the squared-circle geometry. I had implemented houserules to have diagonal moves use up 1.4 moves, and mode a whole set of templates for proper blast radii. It was too complicated and sucked all of the fun and simplicity out of the combat system.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

No. Simple as that.

 

[RangerWickett]

What about when the Medium PCs are fighting a Large monster. Can you have your fireball explode in the air, so that the bottom of its area misses the 1 square lowest to the ground that your allies are occupying?

If you're riding a horse and you use a close burst 1 attack, do you burst from just one square out of the horse's 4, or do you burst out 1 square from the horse's space? If the former, do you hit your own horse?