I do.
It's ok for us to have differing points of view, but it is NOT ok for you to call my POV Stirges and Stooges because I disagree with you. Chill out dude.
I'm not insulting your point of view. I'm insulting the dunderheads in such a party who cannot manage a system of communication and expect to slay dragons.
It breaks my versimiliatude to think they cannot.
In real life, I have 300 trees on my property. There are 40 in the front yard. I can guarantee that you CANNOT get a buddy of yours to find the exact spot next to the exact tree that you know something is located next to, just by pointing your arm in that direction and saying 50 feet away and how wide the tree is.
This example is already on a scale outside a dungeons and dragons adventure.
First off, people have a very poor sense of distance unless it is their job.
You mean... like... adventurer?
That's my point, this sort of thing IS their job!
4th edition sort of takes the assumption that player characters eventually get good at adventuring. How is that so hard to understand?
I suspect your buddy would start with 32 feet away and then 35 and eventually as you keep refining your directions, they might finally get it. Course, the target might not be 50 feet away, so your original distance can be horked as well.
I don't need to pinpoint between 32 and 35 feet. That's the mistake you're making. I only need to get it approximately 30-35 feetish which is about the size of a square. Then he can rely on his own instincts to attack with a -5 penalty (total concealment) unless he has some small part he can actually see if he tries (-2 penalty, normal concealment) and that penalty reflects the lack of precision.
If I needed an exact, pinpoint location, then the universe would involve a quantum state of locations where you must only ever be in exact increments of five feet in two coordinates, and as such, being a quantum location universe of such coarse granularity, it would be easy to go 'Look he's 4 quantums that way, and three quantums to the side' because it would be impossible for him to be elsewhere.
So, are squares an abstract of location, in which case communicating approximates is good enough? Or do I need a precise location, meaning the grids are precise and it's a law of their universe and therefore they know about it?
You can have it either way. But you can't have it half way.
If precise directions are difficult to state in real life, then they are difficult to do so in the game. Stating directions next to the only statue in the room is easier because a landmark exists, but exact squares most of the time?
'Exact squares' is actually 'he's in that general area over there.'
That's the POINT, isn't it? Squares are not an exact description of location!
The DM is well within his rights to disallow that. The best way is to take the miniature off the board, not let players point to the exact square, and let the players give a quick general (but not precise to the nth degree) description of the square (and not use the word square to state it, no "the third square in from the statue" type nonsense, PCs don't know about squares).
Except if the creature is not hidden, you're giving it an advantage it does not have a right to. It's -not hidden-. It's location is -known- to that accurate level of degree.
A creature MUST be hidden in order to have players guessing it's location.
This is certainly a good houserule, but the rules are certainly not intended to convey this spirit, just beacuse you don't personally like the idea of players going 'He's about so-and-so over there' and have him point out what is in reality a cloud of probability.
You're assuming there is a level of precision here that simply does not exist.
The players are using approximations to indicate abstract approximations. This is NOT a problem, unless you start thinking there's any level of precision here.
Why would you think a 5 foot by 5 foot area would be a precise indicator of something that could, for example, only be half a foot thick by a foot and a half wide? (and he's darting around a bit to avoid arrows)
The -idea- that it is precise at all is absolutely preposterous.
The argument that the game is not fun unless the players are entitled to share all of their PC information between each other is not valid.
The argument is that the game is designed to allow players access to information so they can make reasonable decisions, as opposed to having information hidden so they can be trapped by things they could not know about because people not trained in what they do could not have that information.... even tho we're talking about adventurers here and not high school students.
The former makes players agents, and the latter makes players pawns.
Which is more fun is entirely subjective.
