If for no other reason than supporting that Minor Illusion can easily recreate medium sized creatures (even big ones like Minotaurs!), I think its helpful. I wonder if there'd be any realistic way to conceive of the grid, not as squares or hexes, but as overlapping 8.33 foot diameter spheres with their center points spaced 5' apart? I mean, that sounds super messy and impractical as a physical way to draw a grid, but the shorthand for how we picture 5' cubes also fails to model vertical space pretty much right away (do medium characters over 5' height take up two 5' cubes? Does a halfling mounted on a pony require two stacked 5' cubes, or do they occupy the same 5' cube, or...?). Maybe a 3D dot matrix instead of grid lines, and you locate creatures by saying "you're here at this point, which means everything on your person is within about 4 feet in any direction from that point, and 5 foot reach lets you influence the entire 4' radius sphere drawn around one dot away in any dimension, 10 foot reach two dots, etc..."
If for no other reason than supporting that Minor Illusion can easily recreate medium sized creatures (even big ones like Minotaurs!), I think its helpful. I wonder if there'd be any realistic way to conceive of the grid, not as squares or hexes, but as overlapping 8.33 foot diameter spheres with their center points spaced 5' apart? I mean, that sounds super messy and impractical as a physical way to draw a grid, but the shorthand for how we picture 5' cubes also fails to model vertical space pretty much right away (do medium characters over 5' height take up two 5' cubes? Does a halfling mounted on a pony require two stacked 5' cubes, or do they occupy the same 5' cube, or...?). Maybe a 3D dot matrix instead of grid lines, and you locate creatures by saying "you're here at this point, which means everything on your person is within about 4 feet in any direction from that point, and 5 foot reach lets you influence the entire 4' radius sphere drawn around one dot away in any dimension, 10 foot reach two dots, etc..."
Biggest problem with the current system is that it was not designed to accommodate vertical distances. Creatures control "5' squares", not "5' cubes" (which is obvious by what you point out, that many Medium creatures are taller than a 5' cube is). Yan-C-Bin is Huge, but is described as being 30' tall.
There's an entire 5' difference between the shortest and tallest races that occupy a 5' square. I can understand saying that a gnome might have a harder time climbing a tree than a Goliath, but I don't like saying that a gnome can reach a target the same number of horizontal squares away from it than the Goliath but one fewer vertical squares.
I would suggest maybe vertical reach is "round height up to the nearest 5' and add weapon reach" It's not a perfect solution but it would be a consistent one, at least for PCs
There's an entire 5' difference between the shortest and tallest races that occupy a 5' square. I can understand saying that a gnome might have a harder time climbing a tree than a Goliath, but I don't like saying that a gnome can reach a target the same number of horizontal squares away from it than the Goliath but one fewer vertical squares.
I would argue that for most races, horizontal movement on the ground is much more tenable than vertical movement (you can jump, but barring magic or wings, you won't stay up there), so I'm fine with the limitation on vertical reach but not horizontal reach. Small races/lineages have other benefits and detriments as well so it's not a new thing for them to be more limited in some ways.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If for no other reason than supporting that Minor Illusion can easily recreate medium sized creatures (even big ones like Minotaurs!), I think its helpful. I wonder if there'd be any realistic way to conceive of the grid, not as squares or hexes, but as overlapping 8.33 foot diameter spheres with their center points spaced 5' apart? I mean, that sounds super messy and impractical as a physical way to draw a grid, but the shorthand for how we picture 5' cubes also fails to model vertical space pretty much right away (do medium characters over 5' height take up two 5' cubes? Does a halfling mounted on a pony require two stacked 5' cubes, or do they occupy the same 5' cube, or...?). Maybe a 3D dot matrix instead of grid lines, and you locate creatures by saying "you're here at this point, which means everything on your person is within about 4 feet in any direction from that point, and 5 foot reach lets you influence the entire 4' radius sphere drawn around one dot away in any dimension, 10 foot reach two dots, etc..."
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Biggest problem with the current system is that it was not designed to accommodate vertical distances. Creatures control "5' squares", not "5' cubes" (which is obvious by what you point out, that many Medium creatures are taller than a 5' cube is). Yan-C-Bin is Huge, but is described as being 30' tall.
There's an entire 5' difference between the shortest and tallest races that occupy a 5' square. I can understand saying that a gnome might have a harder time climbing a tree than a Goliath, but I don't like saying that a gnome can reach a target the same number of horizontal squares away from it than the Goliath but one fewer vertical squares.
Agreed?
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I would suggest maybe vertical reach is "round height up to the nearest 5' and add weapon reach" It's not a perfect solution but it would be a consistent one, at least for PCs
I would argue that for most races, horizontal movement on the ground is much more tenable than vertical movement (you can jump, but barring magic or wings, you won't stay up there), so I'm fine with the limitation on vertical reach but not horizontal reach. Small races/lineages have other benefits and detriments as well so it's not a new thing for them to be more limited in some ways.