squares vs hexes?

[invokethehojo]

So I realized last night that one of my old mats has hexes on the underside. Some of my players miss the more realistic movement of 3.5, but everyone agrees that the 4e system is much easier in play. As we looked at the hexes we realized we could have the best of both worlds with them, and we don't use dungeon tiles that much, so we are going to try it next time.

Some of the older players claim that older systems frequently used hexes and they they are better, but the newer players are only familiar with squares. I can see how they would be cool, but you have to give up being certain angles of movement, which definitely feels wierd. I'm on the fence.

So my question is, has anyone else tried to convert 4e to hexes, and if so, did it work? What are the pros and cons?

 

[DracoSuave]

Hexes are marginally better for generating overland and natural terrain like mountains, and such.

The moment you introduce any sort of architecture not made by bee-people, however, they have major disadvantages (can only replicate corridors in one direction without zig zagging, can't actually replicate a general rectangular room, line of sight and effect rules don't work anymore, walls don't work... etc)

These disadvantages are far greater then the very minor advantage of having the mathematics of the simulation work marginally better, provided the party ever fights in or around a building or dungeon.

However, if they only have outdoors or wilderness adventures, or predominantly those, there's no compelling loss for going to hexes.

Personally tho, I prefer the dungeons in my Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Nytmare]

Having straight lines and square angles on a hex map aren't a problem as long as you aren't crazy anal about having the walls line up perfectly on top of map lines. I'm all for having people break that rule on square maps as well.

The problem I've always seen with hexes and D&D are when you have things that are larger than medium size on the map. All of the answers I've seen from people are to just fake it, but that has always seemed to me to be the one thing where 'faking it' wasn't an acceptable answer.

Making things one hex size "larger" doesn't quite work, cause things scale out of proportion too quickly. One possibility might be to jump back and forth between triangular shapes and hexagonal ones. So a large creature would be a 3 hex triangle, and a huge creature would be a 7 hex hexagon. This would keep the widths at least scaling somewhat normally.

 

[DracoSuave]

Having straight lines and square angles on a hex map aren't a problem as long as you aren't crazy anal about having the walls line up perfectly on top of map lines. I'm all for having people break that rule on square maps as well.

Four words.

Ten. Foot. Wide. Corridor.

Either the corridor zigzags back and forth, where if you have this situation:

[ ][ ][A][E][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][A][E][ ][ ]

A reasonable two-on two situation, where both the sides can get at each other... it turns into either this:

{ }  {A}  {E}
   { }  {E}
{ }  {A}  {  }

where a single enemy creates a bottleneck where there shouldn't be one, allowing the other enemy to be absolutely safe from the ally... or:

{ }  { }  { }
   { }  { }
{ }  { }  { }
   { }  { }

where in there's no way for two allies to hold that corridor when by all rights, two should be able to block what is a two square corridor.

It kinda -does- throw things off when you're dealing with square rooms and corridors. You have to become tactically aware of where the hexes are displaced or not, which means that you're actually sacrificing simple versimiliatude to appease the game mat.

So, wait, in order to stop 'gaming' the game mat, you institute a system that asks you to 'game' the game mat in normal dungeon situations?

That's not a win.

 

[Whimsical]

This may be helpful:

From the SRD: Variant Adventuring Rules > Hex Grid

 

[DracoSuave]

Also, what shape is a blast?

 

[Dr_Sage]

"There is no spoon"

Either hexes or squares are both just illusions, a way to put some rules on the game.

I like hexes, but I think they generate an illusion of reality where there is none.

You may think at start that diagonal movement and distances overal are more realistic, but think again: when you move straingt you will be measuring distances "zig-zagging", hardly realistic in my opinion.

Another thing that most people don't get: the "area burst one" is NOT a square, its actually a circle. We just represent it as a square.

A close burst 5 breath weapon is actualy the creature breathing on the ground in front of it, generating a circle of flames. Want a proof? If you are in the center of the effect you spend the same ammount of movement in any direction to escape the blast zone.

Thats why diagonal movement costs the same as straight movement. It's all interconnected.

Sorry, but 3.5 movement was not more realistic, specially when we combinned many movements. It was just easier to immagine.

Previous edition cones in particular were very weird...

 

[DerekSTheRed]

Also, what shape is a blast?

A cone.

 

[Nytmare]

Four words.

Ten. Foot. Wide. Corridor.

I think that if you're switching over to a hex grid to try to more realistically represent a square grid, you should question your motivations. (plus, the 10' wide corridor you were hoping to find wouldn't be represented by either of the halways you were drawing because the first was too narrow and the second too wide)

What I meant by ignoring the grid is that the world doesn't have to conform to a bunch of imaginary lines and angles, and I'm all for turning a blind eye to the fact that they exist while I'm designing things.

Two different widths of "ten" foot wide corridors that can be held by two characters, and that aren't completely shut down by one.

Regardless of that however, the walls are as far apart as they are, and they can be blocked or kept clear by as many or as few things have to stand on them as the rules for that particular grid allow. It's what this map is saying happens, and it doesn't matter if it conforms to what happens on a square grid any more than if what happens on a square grid conforms to what we see in real life.

Sage unfortunately stole most of the better sound bites I usually throw out when we get into "realistic" grid discussions. Just imagine that I said all the things he said that made sense.

 

[Turtlejay]

Another thing that most people don't get: the "area burst one" is NOT a square, its actually a circle. We just represent it as a square.

A close burst 5 breath weapon is actualy the creature breathing on the ground in front of it, generating a circle of flames. Want a proof? If you are in the center of the effect you spend the same ammount of movement in any direction to escape the blast zone.

Thats why diagonal movement costs the same as straight movement. It's all interconnected.

I like this. Kind of off topic, but if you can see things this way, then the altitude of effects is not hard to grasp either. Everything is a big cube (unless you target it at the ground or something).

I kind of like Hexes, too, and think that as long as you felt no need to make walls align with the lines of the hexes you would be okay. No published adventures without some homework, and you'd be giving your players a big nerf.

That's right, with squares you can be adjacent to 8 enemies at a time, with hexes only 6. Powers like Come and Get it just got knocked down a peg. What about Thunderwave? Used to do 9 squares, now it would be 7. Rogues are happy, since flanking is that much easier, but any class that attacks an area just got a little less powerful. This might not make a difference, but I know I would be rerolling if my campaign made this switch.

Jay