Square Grid or Hex Tile Battlemat?

[Nifft]

What do people like more: Hex Tiles or Square Grids?

IMHO, Hex Tiles make more sense -- there's no annoying corner-movement issues, circles are easier, etc.

-- Nifft

 

[Shapermc]

My bases for my mini's are squares, hence. . .

 

[Mulkhoran]

What do people like more: Hex Tiles or Square Grids?

IMHO, Hex Tiles make more sense -- there's no annoying corner-movement issues, circles are easier, etc.

-- Nifft

Bah! Squares! No flanking with 6 people, thankee veddy much. Despite these excellent points you make, they can have my squares battlemap when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. Designed for it, I say!

All opinions property of *thwunk*

Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

OMG. *That's* where raves come from!

 

[Henry]

This poll really should be split: I personally LOVE hexes because they solve a lot of problems about diagonal movement and flanking, However, My group is in love with square grids, because walls and buildings are easier to draw. For me personally, It's not a big deal eithe way.

 

[Tiberius]

The game is designed for square mats, so square mats it shall be! None of this "I travel 2 leagues north" "No you don't, you can't go north. You can only approximate it by going NE, NW, NE, NW, until you reach your destination" nonsense.

-Tiberius

 

[Henry]

Re: Re: Square Grid or Hex Tile Battlemat?

Bah! Squares! ...Despite these excellent points you make, they can have my squares battlemap when they pry it from my cold dead fingers. Designed for it, I say!

Well, I guess I know what I'll be bringing to the gameday...

 

[ejja_1]

Both

My battlemats are doublesided with hex on one side and squares on the other, my characters seem to prefer the squares. I use hex mostly when the party or the monsters are using lots of ranged weapons, easier for line of sight stuff that way.

Ejja_1

 

[Mulkhoran]

Re: Re: Re: Square Grid or Hex Tile Battlemat?

Well, I guess I know what I'll be bringing to the gameday...

Hey, I'm not a barbarian. I'll have a double-sided chessex by then.


I'm honestly torn. I love the smooth movement fix. But things like the 6-man flanking vs the 8-man flanking worry me.

 

[Kershek]

Hexes are a godsend for spell effects. Cones are very easy this way. Burning hands doesn't require you to be in the middle of two squares like the picture in the DMG.

Personally, I like hexes better, but the lopsided nature of them make me wish actually that mapmakers actually made staggered squares instead. Mapping a dungeon with hexes looks weird because one side is longer than the other. Plus you have all those half-hexes to deal with.

Squares are just messy. Counting 5-10-5 slows the game down. pole fighters and creatures get screwed, especially down diagonal hallways. If you don't require 5-10-5, then people are strafing on the diagonal to move further than normal which is silly. Yet, it's the grid of choice for modules. Therefore, unless you want to convert to hexes on the fly or remake the maps, you're stuck with squares with modules.

 

[KDLadage]

We use a square grid. However...

We do something a little different. Here is how it works:

1. Take your speed and divide it by 5 (For example: 30 ft / 5 = 6)
2. Now, double this value (6 x 2 = 12)
3. Now, this is the number of movement points you have to work with. In the square grid, the four base movements cost 2 movement points each; the four diagonal movements cost 3 movement points each.

We do the same thing when calculating ranges and so forth as well...

This is a fair approximation of diagonal shift in distance... (technically, it should be 41% or so more, 50% is close enough for a game...)