Get your armour! Squares, hexes, or measure? Which is better for up close and dungeony (not the world map).
There is a great video where a guy who calls himself Gray defends the hexagon, because it is the bestagon... but I disagree.
With squares you can choose to go up, down, left, right, and the four diagonals. That's 8 moves. And the diagonals aren't even that much more space. The square root of 2 is 1.4142ish, meaning it rounds down to 1 space, and that's for traveling at a 45 degree angle, i.e. the maximum extra distance.
Compare this to hexes. You can go front, back, and the four diagonals. That's 6 directions and 6 < 8... and you can't even go right! Just ew.
For play on a VTT, measuring is trivially easy as most (all?) virtual tabletops have an option to measure dynamically as you move your token. Roll20 for example lets you set waypoints as you move if you want to take indirect paths. This means you get precision without being restricted to a grid, square or bestagon, which is great for me because I design and select my maps without caring about grids. As such, things like cover don't line up with where my players might be inclined/forced to place their tokens
For in person play back in the before times, I'd also use the measure option, but I'd save time by drawing maps on gridded paper. Basically this meant that no precise measuring was necessary as everyone had a scale reference in front of them, all over the map. Basically it'd work a bit like grid based movement, except you don't have to keep your token aligned to the grid, you just use it as a reference. Ultimately this worked fine because I wouldn't sweat 2 or 3 feet here or there and would always err in favour of the players/monsters being in range rather than not.
Having played 40k a lot, where a quarter of an inch could make the difference between success and victory, I've moved away from that style of precision in favour of dynamic scenes and fast paced combat. I'm not going to say a players arrow or spell can't reach an enemy because they're 121 feet away rather than 120, or they can't get into melee range with speed 30 because the enemy is 32 feet from them. I don't sweat those little things and instead keep things fast and loose, focusing on the dynamics of the scene
Prior to 3rd edition, Theater of the Mind was pretty much the standard. In my groups at least. We might sketch out the lay of the land for combat, but that wasn't necessary most of the time and we certainly didn't bother to measure anything out. It's not that ranges etc didn't exist, they did, but we just had the DM make judgments and trusted them to be fair about it. It's not until 3rd's increased tactical precision (AoOs and 5-ft steps) and later on 4th's abundance of movement powers that we started to use maps for every combat. I kinda miss the old days sometimes. Might be there are some rose-tinted glasses involved with those memories, but I have the distinct impression we were a lot more creative about our actions back then.
Anyway, right now it's square grids all the way. Faster than measuring, it's the standard set by 3rd ed, and along the diagonal 2 squares require as much movement as 3 squares horizontal or vertical (approximately, but for conventional ranges it's easily close enough).
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I'm a big fan of hex grids, because it reduces the movement gained or lost through diagonals. The 2 ways it works with square grids are:
option 1: you can move diagonals, as 5 feet. So a character moving diagonally "30 feet", IE 6 squares, actually moves 42 feet. This is a major issue as weapon ranges are generally built around having "X" turns of shooting before the barbarian makes it to them, assuming 30 feet per move. Alternatively, weapon ranges also stretch when done diagonally. A dungeon therefore has to be stretched in the diagonals, making it a weird and warped thing, just to make the ranges work.
Opetion 2: you can't move diagonally. Therefore, a diagonal move costs you a sideways and a forwards move. This means for every 10ft of movement, you're only moving 7ft, which again starts to interfere with ranges.
Hex grids are somewhat smoother - sufficiently so to make it easy to estimate ranges and move much more realistically. If you count the number of tiles via the shortest route between two tiles, that's the range (x5ft.), more or less. It is a lot more accurate than square grids. And more importantly, the hex grid gives to 6 equal movement options, as opposed to square grids 4 normal and 4 longer options.
Measure is probably the best approach, though it makes it harder to gauge your movement in the next turn, which could slow the game down. No-one wants someone measuring the table whilst you're having your turn, whereas people can easily count grid hexes to plan their turn ahead, speeding things up and making it more fun for everyone!
I'm a big fan of hex grids, because it reduces the movement gained or lost through diagonals. The 2 ways it works with square grids are:
option 1: you can move diagonals, as 5 feet. So a character moving diagonally "30 feet", IE 6 squares, actually moves 42 feet. This is a major issue as weapon ranges are generally built around having "X" turns of shooting before the barbarian makes it to them, assuming 30 feet per move. Alternatively, weapon ranges also stretch when done diagonally. A dungeon therefore has to be stretched in the diagonals, making it a weird and warped thing, just to make the ranges work.
Opetion 2: you can't move diagonally. Therefore, a diagonal move costs you a sideways and a forwards move. This means for every 10ft of movement, you're only moving 7ft, which again starts to interfere with ranges.
what about option 3: diagonal movements count as 7.5 ft? Even if you have to round off the last step, you won't be off by more than 2.5 ft and that only happens if a character moves it full speed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
No measure. Math is bad after a week of working with math. I like hexes because it is an inch in each direction and less minion around a mini. But if freaks some people out when I split a hex while drawing a room, and tell them to treat the half of hex as a full square. Since most battle mats are squares, I have defaulted to squares and not worrying about the 5, 7.5, diagonal movement. so
SQUARES are for us L 7 swho want to play fast and loose with math.
I prefer theater of the mind, so no grids, no squares, no hexes, no micromeasurements.
Things are either melee (engaged), close (near within 30 feet), or distant (far beyond 30 feet).
Sometimes, it is useful to sketch out a complex scene.
Computer simulations can calculate values automatically, but even then I prefer they calculate the default distance categories (melee and close 30) of the mind-style, and avoid any micromeasurements.
I've seen one DM use a combination of TotM, grids, rings, and little measuring sticks on different occasions. (No cubes or strings, yet.) He uses models, drawings, and or greaseboards when he's doing mapping - gridded or not gridded. Sometimes with the grid, he'll still use rings and measuring sticks.
(Part of the reason is that they're 100% metric where he is. It simplifies things without having to recalculate/rewrite the English sources.)
It's both situational and preferential. None are necessarily wrong. Do what feels right for you with the group and situation in front of you.
(EDIT: He doesn't do all three mapping methods at the same time.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Measure works best but annoying slows down the game.
Hexagons are designed to let you easily count spaces to tell the distance between two locations and/or move there. They really are the bestagon. They do everything you need, an unless you are foolish, have none of the problems you mentioned. There is nothing preventing you from going a 7th or 8th direction. Movement never needs follow any set direction, just count the hexes you touch. No need to do a square root thing.
There is a PRESUMPTION that you can only surround a person with 6 people, rather than 8 that is implied by a square. In real life, typically 6 people are more likely to surround you, not 8. And people can move, occupy a friendly square, and retreat. So using hexes 18 people can surround someone using the hex system and get an attack every round. This is less than the 24 that a square system implies. But in real life, 24 people can not effectively attack a single person. Honestly I think no more than 12 could do it.
Square maps are designed to help you locate things on the map. At third from left, 2nd from bottom, there is a barrel of whisky. It is NOT realistic in any way. There only real advantage is FINDING things, nothing else.
We've always used squares. Is it realistic? Not particularly. But it's easy and fun and we're happy to make that trade. TotM is not an option outside of the most minor of encounters for us because fights are just too complicated. We like having lots of enemies and dynamic hazards and alternate goals during combat and I could never hold all that in my brain. But that's my limitation, not the method's.
I do mostly theater of the mind with occasional "you are the salt shaker" table top spatial orientations as a GM (though I do enjoy nitty gritty centimeter and protracted angle gaming too). In games where there's lots of moving parts, including flying, I may actually plot things out on a grid with "Z" axis notations, just for my own head to figure out what's feasible for characters, and will sometimes share the plot or translate it to bottle caps and salt shakers if need be. A six inch ruler and even a protractor isn't that hard to use if you're going for rough positioning as opposed to absolute measurement. Absolute measurement has it's place in wargaming and folks who want to really do miniature combat with a simulationist bent, but I prefer to be a bit more flexible.
For play on a VTT, measuring is trivially easy as most (all?) virtual tabletops have an option to measure dynamically as you move your token. Roll20 for example lets you set waypoints as you move if you want to take indirect paths. This means you get precision without being restricted to a grid, square or bestagon, which is great for me because I design and select my maps without caring about grids. As such, things like cover don't line up with where my players might be inclined/forced to place their tokens
For in person play back in the before times, I'd also use the measure option, but I'd save time by drawing maps on gridded paper. Basically this meant that no precise measuring was necessary as everyone had a scale reference in front of them, all over the map. Basically it'd work a bit like grid based movement, except you don't have to keep your token aligned to the grid, you just use it as a reference. Ultimately this worked fine because I wouldn't sweat 2 or 3 feet here or there and would always err in favour of the players/monsters being in range rather than not.
Having played 40k a lot, where a quarter of an inch could make the difference between success and victory, I've moved away from that style of precision in favour of dynamic scenes and fast paced combat. I'm not going to say a players arrow or spell can't reach an enemy because they're 121 feet away rather than 120, or they can't get into melee range with speed 30 because the enemy is 32 feet from them. I don't sweat those little things and instead keep things fast and loose, focusing on the dynamics of the scene
Davyd, could you expand on your VTT? Or do you already have a thread here? What I think would a really slick would be to have a touch screen monitor that you can lay flat on the table. As you move your miniature forward it shows the radius of what you can see. Secret doors are secret until you move up to it and do a search. Spring traps etc.
Use a combo of game pads (hex and square). I also generate maps on 11 x 17 paper that has 1 inch squares on it. I don't get to worried about the exact inch for movement.
But I also have a set of dowels that I have cut down to specific inches and I have strings for curvy movement.
I also have pre-cut cones that they can use to see area of effect.
Generally I let combat flow and don't get to worried unless it is outdoor combat and someone wants to take a long shot. But a small tape measure comes in handy for that.
I have been experimenting with all three as a new DM, and have found that measure just isn't something that I want to deal with until I get more DM experience.
Now squares, the tried and trusty, are just great as long s you keep in ming the 3:2 horizontal/vertical:diagonal ratio in mind, and everthing is set out for them.
Hexagons, I find I very much prefer, unless a player is trying to move a multiple of 5ft that isn't a multiple of ten in a corner direction. The hexagons are very much smoother, but take some getting used to. AOEs are a PAIN on hexagons half the time though.
Squares, on the other hand, already have everything calculated for them.
But then the debate of area or circle approxamation. Playing around with graph paper, pencils a protracter and arithmetic (plus a bit of simple algebra and deductive thinking), the best way seems to be to kinda find a mean. But that's just me, and the calculations cam be a pain, but it only takes a couple of hours, plus trial and error.
Anyway, my official consensus is that for the most part, as long as my players aren't OCD and don't use too many abilities that involve a cone AOE, hexagons are better, but squares do have their advantages. Measuring could be good, with a bit of system revision, but would require practice.
If I had easier access to tools to use hexagons, I would.
But I don’t! So I use grids, and with diagonals we just say 5/10/5/10, works perfectly, favours players, simple enough, makes AOEs the right shape and everything, it is very nifty!
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Get your armour! Squares, hexes, or measure? Which is better for up close and dungeony (not the world map).
There is a great video where a guy who calls himself Gray defends the hexagon, because it is the bestagon... but I disagree.
With squares you can choose to go up, down, left, right, and the four diagonals. That's 8 moves. And the diagonals aren't even that much more space. The square root of 2 is 1.4142ish, meaning it rounds down to 1 space, and that's for traveling at a 45 degree angle, i.e. the maximum extra distance.
Compare this to hexes. You can go front, back, and the four diagonals. That's 6 directions and 6 < 8... and you can't even go right! Just ew.
And then measuring takes too long. No.
Debate!
For play on a VTT, measuring is trivially easy as most (all?) virtual tabletops have an option to measure dynamically as you move your token. Roll20 for example lets you set waypoints as you move if you want to take indirect paths. This means you get precision without being restricted to a grid, square or bestagon, which is great for me because I design and select my maps without caring about grids. As such, things like cover don't line up with where my players might be inclined/forced to place their tokens
For in person play back in the before times, I'd also use the measure option, but I'd save time by drawing maps on gridded paper. Basically this meant that no precise measuring was necessary as everyone had a scale reference in front of them, all over the map. Basically it'd work a bit like grid based movement, except you don't have to keep your token aligned to the grid, you just use it as a reference. Ultimately this worked fine because I wouldn't sweat 2 or 3 feet here or there and would always err in favour of the players/monsters being in range rather than not.
Having played 40k a lot, where a quarter of an inch could make the difference between success and victory, I've moved away from that style of precision in favour of dynamic scenes and fast paced combat. I'm not going to say a players arrow or spell can't reach an enemy because they're 121 feet away rather than 120, or they can't get into melee range with speed 30 because the enemy is 32 feet from them. I don't sweat those little things and instead keep things fast and loose, focusing on the dynamics of the scene
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Prior to 3rd edition, Theater of the Mind was pretty much the standard. In my groups at least. We might sketch out the lay of the land for combat, but that wasn't necessary most of the time and we certainly didn't bother to measure anything out. It's not that ranges etc didn't exist, they did, but we just had the DM make judgments and trusted them to be fair about it. It's not until 3rd's increased tactical precision (AoOs and 5-ft steps) and later on 4th's abundance of movement powers that we started to use maps for every combat. I kinda miss the old days sometimes. Might be there are some rose-tinted glasses involved with those memories, but I have the distinct impression we were a lot more creative about our actions back then.
Anyway, right now it's square grids all the way. Faster than measuring, it's the standard set by 3rd ed, and along the diagonal 2 squares require as much movement as 3 squares horizontal or vertical (approximately, but for conventional ranges it's easily close enough).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I'm a big fan of hex grids, because it reduces the movement gained or lost through diagonals. The 2 ways it works with square grids are:
option 1: you can move diagonals, as 5 feet. So a character moving diagonally "30 feet", IE 6 squares, actually moves 42 feet. This is a major issue as weapon ranges are generally built around having "X" turns of shooting before the barbarian makes it to them, assuming 30 feet per move. Alternatively, weapon ranges also stretch when done diagonally. A dungeon therefore has to be stretched in the diagonals, making it a weird and warped thing, just to make the ranges work.
Opetion 2: you can't move diagonally. Therefore, a diagonal move costs you a sideways and a forwards move. This means for every 10ft of movement, you're only moving 7ft, which again starts to interfere with ranges.
Hex grids are somewhat smoother - sufficiently so to make it easy to estimate ranges and move much more realistically. If you count the number of tiles via the shortest route between two tiles, that's the range (x5ft.), more or less. It is a lot more accurate than square grids. And more importantly, the hex grid gives to 6 equal movement options, as opposed to square grids 4 normal and 4 longer options.
Measure is probably the best approach, though it makes it harder to gauge your movement in the next turn, which could slow the game down. No-one wants someone measuring the table whilst you're having your turn, whereas people can easily count grid hexes to plan their turn ahead, speeding things up and making it more fun for everyone!
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what about option 3: diagonal movements count as 7.5 ft? Even if you have to round off the last step, you won't be off by more than 2.5 ft and that only happens if a character moves it full speed.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
No measure. Math is bad after a week of working with math. I like hexes because it is an inch in each direction and less minion around a mini. But if freaks some people out when I split a hex while drawing a room, and tell them to treat the half of hex as a full square. Since most battle mats are squares, I have defaulted to squares and not worrying about the 5, 7.5, diagonal movement. so
SQUARES are for us L 7 swho want to play fast and loose with math.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
I prefer theater of the mind, so no grids, no squares, no hexes, no micromeasurements.
Things are either melee (engaged), close (near within 30 feet), or distant (far beyond 30 feet).
Sometimes, it is useful to sketch out a complex scene.
Computer simulations can calculate values automatically, but even then I prefer they calculate the default distance categories (melee and close 30) of the mind-style, and avoid any micromeasurements.
he / him
I've seen one DM use a combination of TotM, grids, rings, and little measuring sticks on different occasions. (No cubes or strings, yet.) He uses models, drawings,
andor greaseboards when he's doing mapping - gridded or not gridded. Sometimes with the grid, he'll still use rings and measuring sticks.(Part of the reason is that they're 100% metric where he is. It simplifies things without having to recalculate/rewrite the English sources.)
It's both situational and preferential. None are necessarily wrong. Do what feels right for you with the group and situation in front of you.
(EDIT: He doesn't do all three mapping methods at the same time.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I can't believe that I forgot about TotM. It's how my first DM ran us in AD&D. TotM is just a great method.
Measure works best but annoying slows down the game.
Hexagons are designed to let you easily count spaces to tell the distance between two locations and/or move there. They really are the bestagon. They do everything you need, an unless you are foolish, have none of the problems you mentioned. There is nothing preventing you from going a 7th or 8th direction. Movement never needs follow any set direction, just count the hexes you touch. No need to do a square root thing.
There is a PRESUMPTION that you can only surround a person with 6 people, rather than 8 that is implied by a square. In real life, typically 6 people are more likely to surround you, not 8. And people can move, occupy a friendly square, and retreat. So using hexes 18 people can surround someone using the hex system and get an attack every round. This is less than the 24 that a square system implies. But in real life, 24 people can not effectively attack a single person. Honestly I think no more than 12 could do it.
Square maps are designed to help you locate things on the map. At third from left, 2nd from bottom, there is a barrel of whisky. It is NOT realistic in any way. There only real advantage is FINDING things, nothing else.
We've always used squares. Is it realistic? Not particularly. But it's easy and fun and we're happy to make that trade. TotM is not an option outside of the most minor of encounters for us because fights are just too complicated. We like having lots of enemies and dynamic hazards and alternate goals during combat and I could never hold all that in my brain. But that's my limitation, not the method's.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I do mostly theater of the mind with occasional "you are the salt shaker" table top spatial orientations as a GM (though I do enjoy nitty gritty centimeter and protracted angle gaming too). In games where there's lots of moving parts, including flying, I may actually plot things out on a grid with "Z" axis notations, just for my own head to figure out what's feasible for characters, and will sometimes share the plot or translate it to bottle caps and salt shakers if need be. A six inch ruler and even a protractor isn't that hard to use if you're going for rough positioning as opposed to absolute measurement. Absolute measurement has it's place in wargaming and folks who want to really do miniature combat with a simulationist bent, but I prefer to be a bit more flexible.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Davyd, could you expand on your VTT? Or do you already have a thread here? What I think would a really slick would be to have a touch screen monitor that you can lay flat on the table. As you move your miniature forward it shows the radius of what you can see. Secret doors are secret until you move up to it and do a search. Spring traps etc.
Use a combo of game pads (hex and square). I also generate maps on 11 x 17 paper that has 1 inch squares on it. I don't get to worried about the exact inch for movement.
But I also have a set of dowels that I have cut down to specific inches and I have strings for curvy movement.
I also have pre-cut cones that they can use to see area of effect.
Generally I let combat flow and don't get to worried unless it is outdoor combat and someone wants to take a long shot. But a small tape measure comes in handy for that.
I have been experimenting with all three as a new DM, and have found that measure just isn't something that I want to deal with until I get more DM experience.
Now squares, the tried and trusty, are just great as long s you keep in ming the 3:2 horizontal/vertical:diagonal ratio in mind, and everthing is set out for them.
Hexagons, I find I very much prefer, unless a player is trying to move a multiple of 5ft that isn't a multiple of ten in a corner direction. The hexagons are very much smoother, but take some getting used to. AOEs are a PAIN on hexagons half the time though.
Squares, on the other hand, already have everything calculated for them.
But then the debate of area or circle approxamation. Playing around with graph paper, pencils a protracter and arithmetic (plus a bit of simple algebra and deductive thinking), the best way seems to be to kinda find a mean. But that's just me, and the calculations cam be a pain, but it only takes a couple of hours, plus trial and error.
Anyway, my official consensus is that for the most part, as long as my players aren't OCD and don't use too many abilities that involve a cone AOE, hexagons are better, but squares do have their advantages. Measuring could be good, with a bit of system revision, but would require practice.
If I had easier access to tools to use hexagons, I would.
But I don’t! So I use grids, and with diagonals we just say 5/10/5/10, works perfectly, favours players, simple enough, makes AOEs the right shape and everything, it is very nifty!