Squared FireBalls?

[Mouseferatu]

Area: 20-ft.-radius spread

Sure, that's what it is in the game world. But by all the rules of the grid--including the templates that WotC themselves provided--it certainly did not appear as a circle.

So it may be the same in 4E. The game might well say "20-ft. radius" or "5 square radius" or what have you. And in the context of the game world, that's what it is. But its appearance on the board is abstracted to match the constraints of the grid.

Or, in other words, if its non-spherical nature in 3.5 was "an illusion," that's certainly the same in 4E. It's an illusion designed to correspond to the battlemap.

 

[Counterspin]

Ainatan - Your conclusion directly conflicts with the D&D fireball template.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Uh... are 3e fireballs insufficiently spherical for your tastes?

Yes squares and square-like objects are sufficiently spherical for my taste.

But they do make lousy basketballs.

 

[HeinorNY]

Sure, that's what it is in the game world. But by all the rules of the grid--including the templates that WotC themselves provided--it certainly did not appear as a circle.

So it may be the same in 4E. The game might well say "20-ft. radius" or "5 square radius" or what have you. And in the context of the game world, that's what it is. But its appearance on the board is abstracted to match the constraints of the grid.

Or, in other words, if its non-spherical nature in 3.5 was "an illusion," that's certainly the same in 4E. It's an illusion designed to correspond to the battlemap.

I agree. But that's a helluva abstraction

 

[Engilbrand]

I don't think that the movement issue is important enough to care. Just let it happen. Wouldn't it make things a little easier, though, if D&D moved to being on a hex-grid rather than just squares? I'll just go with it, whatever is decided.

 

[HeinorNY]

Anyway, I wonder about rounded towers. Let's say a tower is 20 ft. radius. On the 1-1-1-1 grid it's a square. Could we asbtract towers on the grid too? Because those squares cutted by the edges of a rounded wall may complicate the game and are hard to adjudicate. Is that a possibility? (It seems snarky, but I'm being really honest)

How much abstraction can we take for tha sakes of simplicity and a faster game?

 

[Mouseferatu]

I agree. But that's a helluva abstraction

I'm sorry, I just don't agree. I don't think it's any harder to accept than a horse and rider taking up a 10-ft. square, or a halfling occupying a 5-ft. square.

 

[Counterspin]

I think a tower is a bad comparison, because spells and their effects must be constantly worked out and applied to an existing map, whereas a tower only has to be drawn once. I fail to see how the 1-1-1 grid is different, when dealing with a tower, than the 1-2-1 grid. You have to adjudicate how the partially filled squares work, in either case, so I'm not sure what's supposed to have changed.

 

[Imban]

I said this in the other thread, and I'll say it again here:

If fireballs are square, so what?

People aren't actually 5-ft. square creatures, but that's what they occupy in the abstraction of the board.

Horses aren't square. Dragons aren't square. Beholders certainly aren't square. Trees aren't square. Boulders aren't square. But all of them are abstracted to squares on the board, be they creatures or objects.

Why, then, should spell effects be any different? That's the nature of a grid-based battlemat--things are abstracted to squares.

I responded to this on the other thead, so I'll respond to it again here:

There's a difference between all of those other examples, which are basically "pixellation", and this, which is... something else. While we accept a restriction on monster shapes (for example, you could certainly conceive of a perfectly U-shaped Colossal-sized monster that shouldn't take up its entire square space) because the alternatives are an incredible hassle, when describing trees and other structures on a battlemat, we are under no obligation to make them square, just to pixellate them to squares. We can envision a hollow, 3x3 U-shaped boulder, for instance, that can be entered from only one direction, and put that on the battlemat just fine.

Nonetheless, after thinking about this change a lot, I've come to the conclusion that my opposition to it is primarily because I already play D&D using virtual tabletops, and adjudicating 1-2-1-2 movement or 3e-style burst areas literally can't be slower than adjudicating 1-1-1-1 movement or square burst areas. Heck, I could toss out the grid entirely and run "free" distance-based movement, ala Warhammer, with minimal slowdown. I would still prefer that the more "accurate" rule be the official one, simply because there exists significant pressure to play by the official rules of D&D (for instance, RPGA players are entirely constrained from houseruling and it is quite likely that players interested in the official virtual tabletop community at large will be significantly encouraged to play by the D&D rules + RPGA "house" rules exactly), but whatever.

 

[HeinorNY]

I fail to see how the 1-1-1 grid is different, when dealing with a tower, than the 1-2-1 grid. You have to adjudicate how the partially filled squares work, in either case, so I'm not sure what's supposed to have changed.

It's different because, with the 1-1-1-1 grid, the rounded tower becomes a square, so it's easier since there are no "cutted" squares.