So that's why you like it

[kenmarable]

A lot of science was created due to the scientists not believing in the superstitious answers. Storms weren't caused by God's punishment, or whatever explanation was given. But in a world where the supernatural exists, and they DO cause things to happen, then there would be less of a reason to doubt the given explanations. With less doubt, you get fewer questions. Fewer questions, fewer desire for answers.

Huh, this got me thinking. What if science just doesn't work? If electricity is created by god of lightning, why would he deign to have his power trapped inside a lightbulb? If there is no physics, just the world as the gods created it, there's no more reason to believe you can make a microchip in future Faerun than you can make a wand of magic missiles here on Earth.

Sure the gods, or uber-gods or whoever created a world where objects fall if dropped, and fire burns, but that was just their will at the time and no individual god can change any of that. They can only play in their own limited domain. So why would they create a world where magic can eventually be replaced with steam locomotives, gasoline engines, and iPhones? Maybe technology beyond decent irrigation and repeating crossbows simply cannot exist because the gods didn't create the world to include electric power? Heck, even biology might be out the window if evolution doesn't exist and all species were created by the gods just as they are.

So a D&D world isn't "medieval Earth + magic", it's an entirely different reality where there is no physics, only magic and the will of the gods, which sometimes, but doesn't always fit clean mathematical formulas.

(Hmm... now I gotta try and think of another thing I don't understand...)

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I can get over it, but it still makes my head hurt that if I move in a straight line, I move 30 feet but if I move in a diagonal line, I move 60 feet. Why would I ever run straight again?

How exactly are you moving 60 feet? 6 squares diagonally is 42 feet. But the real point to me is that as long as everyone in the game uses the same movement rule it really doesn't matter IMO. It's all just tactical approximation, not a model of real-world movement.

If you're going to be bothered by 1-1-1-1 movement, what about the fact that you can continue to move the same speed for an entire combat. Shouldn't you tire out and start moving slower? In fact under the rules you can keep up that same pace for 8 hours or so without even checking to see if you get fatigued.

 

[Cadfan]

Well, you only move 60 feet in relation to other squares; you still moved 30 feet because you moved 6 squares of 5 feet.

It's just one of those quirks of a square grid. If you switched over to hexes, you probably wouldn't come to that, but then you'd have hexes cut in half by walls, and that raises other issues. Not to mention drawing things on hexes and measuring, and some think hexes are the devil, etc.

Hexes have the same problem, just reduced slightly. If you're going "against" the grid, ie, if you're going in a line that requires you to bounce back and forth from left to right as you proceed forwards, you travel the same distance forwards as if you were going diagonal "with" the grid, but without the extra diagonal distance.

Its exactly the same problem, except with 30 degree angles instead of 45. Which might make it a lesser problem, I guess, but it still exists.

 

[Mallus]

If you're going to be bothered by 1-1-1-1 movement, what about the fact that you can continue to move the same speed for an entire combat. Shouldn't you tire out and start moving slower?

I've got another moving example of rules-wonkiness (har har!)

A character can charge in one direction --even better, a character on horseback (the more mass the better sillier)-- then charge at a right angle to his initial direction --or turn 180 degrees and charge back the way he came-- during the next round.

Everything moves like a lightcycle from Tron.

 

[coyote6]

I've got another moving example of rules-wonkiness (har har!)

A character can charge in one direction --even better, a character on horseback (the more mass the better sillier)-- then charge at a right angle to his initial direction --or turn 180 degrees and charge back the way he came-- during the next round.

Everything moves like a lightcycle from Tron.

If you want to make your physicist brain explode, consider that M&M uses essentially the same movement rules -- so the same "charge forward one round, charge in the other direction the next" thing can be done. Except in M&M, the character in question can have a movement rate most easily measured in miles per round.

 

[Mallus]

Except in M&M, the character in question can have a movement rate most easily measured in miles per round.

As a matter of fact, our M&M group has a ray gun-toting, jet pack-wearing talking gorilla with Flight 7...