If your group has no problem dealing with the extra complications then go with the increased movement cost, which is more realistic really.
Keep in mind though, you might want to alter the way you use areas too, since things like Blast and Burst are all based on the equal distance diagonals. That's why we get squares instead of circles.
cheers,
Meshon
The rule suggested seems wonky because how do you track the 10ft movement, is it every even numbered diagnonal over all time (that you'd have to track your step count) or per move action (which you could avoid by only taking an odd number of diagonal steps.) You'd also need to consider whether AOE effects, normall cubes, would become more circular under this new ruling, or whether it inconsistantly only effects movement.
If your group has no problem dealing with the extra complications then go with the increased movement cost, which is more realistic really.
My thoughts exactly, for burst/blast I've been just using the radius as normal and sometimes if a diagonal comes into the 10ft category i just count the square as half covered and use a d20 roll to determine wether something is hit by saying 10 or lower is miss, 11 or higher is a hit. I know it's inconsistent thats why I was considering changing it.
The conversion is very simple and very clean. Blasts are the only things that are slightly different for us, in that they are cones, instead "adjacent area bursts"
A straight line is still a straight line, no matter where you go.
Was a good argument for me. The reason I had it in the first place was that it didn't take any "Extra" movement to get around a monster, because moving in a diagonal to get around the monster cost the same as if you charged through it (and it wasn't there). If, however, the math is closer to the diagonal not mattering anyways, good enough for me.
If you count 5/5/5/5, then he can move 42.43 feet diagonally but only 30 feet in any other direction.
Personally I prefer to think about the grid as just a memory aid to show the rough position of characters in relation to each other. Rather than thinking about each square of movement as a five-foot step, I just think of the move as a single action. The fact is a character in the midst of combat probably never walks in a straight line anywhere, and probably does a lot of dodging, ducking, sliding, rolling and tumbling in the course of traversing 30 feet of floor. That level of detail just isn't worth representing on the game map in my opinion.
1) You can't move diagonally "through" an obstacle or corner. So it's not quite as easy to zig-zag around obstacles as you might think. If you put the PC's in a twisting hallway with corners, they'll have to move 2 squares to get to the diagonals around corners anyway, not 1, so it mostly evens out.
2) All the bursts and blasts are square, as are all the large creatures. So getting around a huge square dragon or death cloud when you can move quickly diagonally takes almost the same amount of squares as getting around a circular dragon or death cloud when you move slowly diagonally.
Personally I prefer to think about the grid as just a memory aid to show the rough position of characters in relation to each other. Rather than thinking about each square of movement as a five-foot step, I just think of the move as a single action. The fact is a character in the midst of combat probably never walks in a straight line anywhere, and probably does a lot of dodging, ducking, sliding, rolling and tumbling in the course of traversing 30 feet of floor. That level of detail just isn't worth representing on the game map in my opinion.
QFT. Heck, HackMaster 4e takes that idea a step further: Mages who lack Complex Geometric Approximation (I think that's the name of the skill; books aren't handy) can't precisely position fireballs and such; they have to make a best guess and drop the spell where they think it will work best. That further reinforces the idea that the squares/hexes on the map are only rough guidelines to show where everyone is in relation to everyone else since most people can't eyeball 32 degrees left 27.5 feet away and 18 feet high. Instead we call that three squares and get on with our lives.
If you did want more "realistic" movement then you'd pretty much have to switch to hexes as that pretty well solves the distance issue with minor hassle. However, if you really want the extra level of detail, you can borrow from GURPS' tactical combat rules:
* Your "Speed" becomes "Movement Points" (MP)
* Stepping Forward (into one of the three hexes you are facing) cost 1 MP. Moving into either the left- or right-hand one forces you to "Face" that square as you move into it.
* Stepping Sideways or Backwards costs you 2 MP but your facing does not change.
* If, at the end of your turn, you took a Move or Move and Attack action and used half or more of your MP, then you can change your facing by 1 hex-side. If you moved less than half your speed, then you can face any direction you like after moving.
Now personally, even though I primarily GM GURPS and have done so almost since 4e came out six years ago, I have never used the tactical combat rules. We've always preferred D&D's rough approximation of relative position to cracking out tape measures and straight edges (although we do the latter for MechWarrior and Mage Knight but those aren't generally roleplaying games).
Sometimes we even take things a step further and go with OVA's combat assumption: everyone can generally reach anyone with an attack. It frees us from needing a tabletop at all (except as a dice rolling surface) but most of us are Clix geeks so we like our minis. 8o)
The thing that could muck up this house rule is moving diagonal in difficult terrain. Oh god I am having algebra nightmares just thinking of it
lofgren: You have shattered my faith in my friend's math... lemme grab a pencil and paper real quick...
Wow. Yeah, he was wrong on a huge level. Every other is a MUCH closer approximation.
If you want further reasoning, I had this houserule in an old game as well. One day one of my players got bored at work and did math on actual distances. Apparently (and I've never run the math myself), simply counting each diagonal as 5ft rather than 5ft/10ft/5ft/etc gets closer to the actual number.
Was a good argument for me. The reason I had it in the first place was that it didn't take any "Extra" movement to get around a monster, because moving in a diagonal to get around the monster cost the same as if you charged through it (and it wasn't there). If, however, the math is closer to the diagonal not mattering anyways, good enough for me.
Actually 5/10/5/10 is closter to the real distance. Your player's math is wrong.
Consider a dwarf d that is 10 diagonal squares to an ogre o.
The actual distance square_root(10*10 + 10*10) = square_root(200) = 14.14 which is approximately 14 squares.
Using the 5/10/5/10 rule, you get 15 squares and using the 5/5/5 rule you get 10 squares. So the 1-2-1-2 rule is better (but only by 3 squares in this instance).
I have played both ways, and the 1-2-1-2 rule is only better in that it encourages players not to try to game the diagonals. The actual difference in play is relatively trivial (even though the 1-2-1-2 rule is more accurate).
If you really want to make obstacles more meaningful, make more blocking and near blocking terrian features that are close together and that have hard corners, add more hazards, and large swaths of difficult terrain and more funky and interesting terrain features.
But there is nothing wrong with the 1-2-1-2 rule. Its just not a silver bullet for making movement in combat interesting.
Yeah, those hard corners are a bear since you can't cut through them. We generally allow people to skip across hard corners over drops (we figure that if you can't hop over a 1.5' gap then you probably shouldn't be out adventuring) but you have to go the long way 'round walls and such.
EDIT: Speaking of terrain: in order to better learn the HackMaster Basic, I actually ran the free demo module that leads the party into the forthcoming Frandor's Keep module. The final encounter involved the party either invading a Kobold den to retrieve some stolen goods or trying to lure them out. The went with the former and the ensuing battle was interesting in large part because the cave was littered with scattered stolen crates that the Kobolds were hiding behind so they could safely shoot at the invaders. So the PCs had to navigate their way past the volleys of arrows and around the crates before they could even attack the bloody things (except for the one PC who had the sense to bring along a sling with which he returned fire so his compatriots could circle around).
So in other words, interesting terrain leads to interesting encounters.
I have house ruled in diagonal movement as 1st diagonal sq = 5ft, 2nd diagonal sq = 10ft, 3rd diagonal sq =5ft. etc. As I think the 4e rule for diagonal sqaures allows too much movement.
Exactly what do you mean by allows too much movement? The idea of 4E is to make combat more dynamic instead of just standing there and attacking.
If anyone has a good explanation as to not implementing this house rule I'd really like to hear it. I'm torn on the subject and some of my players are as well.
The explanation I'll give is that there is not very much gain for the extra complexity. Yeah it just feel a little weird at first, but in practice, not one really notices any of the discrepancies of the non-euclidean geometry. At least for my group, the 4E system makes things faster than 3E. I don't have to explain the AoE of spells and such.
There's really nothing wrong with this houserule. It won't cause any balance issues. It might even bring a little higher sense of realism to the game. Just keep in mind that it was changed for a reason. Combat is already an abstraction so slowing it down for an attempt at realism isn't necessarily a good thing, especially since the only time it really affects suspension of disbelief is during oddball scenarios like when a character's entire movement is diagonal, which doesn't happen all that often. The game works fine either way, just weigh the pros and cons before implementing it.
Going along with this: several times in 3.5 if an entire fight took to diagonals we'd re-orient the grid for our own sanity. It's not some force of magnetic poles, just an aide.
I have house ruled in diagonal movement as 1st diagonal sq = 5ft, 2nd diagonal sq = 10ft, 3rd diagonal sq =5ft. etc. As I think the 4e rule for diagonal sqaures allows too much movement. If anyone has a good explanation as to not implementing this house rule I'd really like to hear it. I'm torn on the subject and some of my players are as well.
Well, everything else in 4E is designed on the assumption that 1 square diagonal is one square. A burst 2 goes 2 squares in every direction from its origin square, hypothetically producing a 5-by-5-by-5 cube assuming nothing intervenes (normally the floor, if nothing else, intervenes).
Yes, you will occasionally find people talking about throwing fireblocks or firecubes.
The big advantage of this approach is that it is vastly easier to precisely visualize an area of effect or a zone.
The disadvantage is that it's less realistic. But even prior editions of D&D were not exactly paragons of realism.
For example, using a Mercator projection (a projection used for many World maps), shape and direction are preserved (distorted minimally), but area and distance are highly distorted as you increase in distance from the equator. This is why landmasses in the Arctic (as well as Antarctica) look enormous on some World maps. This doesn't reflect reality, but no map can accurately capture all 4 properties on a World map (only a globe can do that, since it's also a spherical object). Another common projection for world maps is the Robinson projection, which is basically a big compromise, distorting all properties moderately. Still, Robinson is a good "average."
While a battle grid isn't exactly the same as a map (it's a small, localized area and it has the additional task of facilitating tactical movement), you can still assign properties to it. Obviously direction is different in square vs hex maps, but what we're really concerned with are 3.x vs 4 edition rules for a grid (i.e. diagonals counting as 1 square, or 1.5 squares). Shape is obviously distorted in 4e, hence the existence of "square fireballs." The 3.x bursts and cones were more accurately shaped, but they were also a slightly bigger pain to use (i.e. 4e is easier to eyeball). In 4e, distance is also distorted, but only along diagonals (this is one of those goofy side effects of the battle grid facilitating tactical movement vs a map; the whole area is overlaid with a fairly fine grid).
The pattern here is that there is another property that varies between "projections" (game editions), and that is simplicity. This property is directly dependent on the assumption that players want to be able to quickly and easily resolve and depict the results of their spells, etc. during their turn. While it's not a physical property on the map, simplicity is a very real phenomenon when dealing with D&D combat. 4e preserves simplicity extremely well (as it should, with its increased level of tactical/movement options), whereas in 3.x simplicity could be described as being "distorted" (I'm assuming here that an increase in complexity is not desirable, and that it's separate from the abstract, overarching pseudo-property "realism").
The spatial distortions (shape and diagonal distance) that are compromised to preserve simplicity are irrelevant from a balance standpoint, as any advantage that a player can gain by "extra movement" on diagonals can also be gained by the monsters.
Essentially, just keep in mind that the battle grid + minis is not a diorama, but rather an abstract tool used to depict a combat. Some people prefer realism (less spatial distortion), while others can live with it, especially if it allows powers/movement to be adjudicated more efficiently (i.e., the grid is working better as a tool, but worse as a diorama).
There's my 2 coppers.
I don't find burst areas any harder to see, but sometimes blasts could be.
lofgren: You have shattered my faith in my friend's math... lemme grab a pencil and paper real quick...
Wow. Yeah, he was wrong on a huge level. Every other is a MUCH closer approximation.
Just a quick note on the math.
You are only comparing the two models for 45 degree angles. There are however other angles where 1:1:1:1 is closer than 1:2:1:2. Not that I could recall them but there was a huge thread about it in the early days of 4E.
90 degree angles on hex. They are a pain to map, but easily possible.
Main rule is a character can only occupy a hex that is at least half available (as in not cut by a wall).
Then Draw as such, its pretty easy to determine which hexes you can and cannot enter.
(The red dots are flanking the blue dot.)
lofgren: You have shattered my faith in my friend's math... lemme grab a pencil and paper real quick...
Wow. Yeah, he was wrong on a huge level. Every other is a MUCH closer approximation.
Just a quick note on the math.
You are only comparing the two models for 45 degree angles. There are however other angles where 1:1:1:1 is closer than 1:2:1:2. Not that I could recall them but there was a huge thread about it in the early days of 4E.
This is what your friend's math was based on. The 1:2:1:2 rule is great for a corner to corner diagonal, but is considerably to long for a move of something like 5 squares forwards and one to the left. Hexes don't really solve this problem either, they just make it less of an issue by having greater sensitivity. If you want realism, drop the grid and just play on the table with a tape measure and 6 inch long string.
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html_removedIn 3rd edition, moving diagonally didn't always take one square: every other diagonal square of movement counts as one square more.
Based on this, the following rules could be created:
During a turn, each odd square of diagonal movement costs one square, and each even square of diagonal movement costs one additional square (a.k.a. Two for normal terrain, 3 for difficult terrain)
This rule also applies for range calculations and bursts: a spell with range 10 can only target creatures diagonally who are up to seven squares away (1-3-4-6-7-9-10 )
Close Blasts are slightly more complex: in 3rd edition, cones were used:
1) draw a line, as straight as you can, starting from a adjacent square
2) copy that line, rotating it 90 degrees and start from the same adjacent square.
3) anything in this area, within range, is the cone. Now, as you might have figured out, the bigger the area, the more squares will be lost. For this I suggest upgrading all blasts larger then 2, with 1 square (a close blast 3 becomes close blast 4, …)
Note however, that although it looks complex, it actually isn't that difficult: practically you will execute step one and two (i.e. determining the borders of the cone, and you will check to see if possible targets are in walking range you (something that you see quite fast after some experience with the system.