This thread is an offshoot of a discussion in another thread that was a little off-topic there, so I'd thought I'd make a new thread for it. D&D rules (to my knowledge) don't give a lot of guidance on how to adjudicate the 3rd dimension, so how do we consistently know what a creatures vertical reach is?
If we go by the chart/graphic in the DMG on size, then you get the following for size and height:
Tiny: 2 1/2' Square, About 2' tall
Small: 5' Square, About 4' tall
Medium: 5' Square, About 6' tall
Large: 10' Square, About 10' tall
Huge: 15' Square, About 20' tall
Gargantuan: 20' Square (or bigger), About 30' tall (or taller)
A DM could say that (height using the chart + weapon reach), equals the total vertical distance that a creature could attack.
That probably works well for most creatures where height isn't given, but there are several fairly common creatures (tarrasque, giants) with stated heights given that don't match the chart, for example, a storm giant at 26' feet tall (per the MM) would barely be able to lift his arms (and weapon) above his head (30' reach). Meanwhile a tarrasque at 50' tall would not even be able to reach it's head at all (45' vertical reach). Do you modify the chart for creatures whose heights are known? how do you handle partial coverage of a vertical square/cube (or do you even use grid play in 3 dimensions)? How might you handle those edge cases? Do you use a different baseline from my way above?
So, following that (and assuming that you can apply the reach portion of the jumping rules for PCs to other creatures) are you saying that total vertical reach is (creature height + 50% creature height + weapon reach, if applicable)? or just (creature height + 50% creature height)?
For a 20 foot tall creature with an attack with 10' of reach, that would either be 30' or (possibly) 40', quite a difference.
I think it's safe to say a creature reaching up to 150% of its height is fully extending their arms - which wouldn't give a whole lot of control on an attack - so I don't think anyone would do that to attack.
Personally I would probably rule height + weapon reach.
Attacks take your normal reach, and just add 5' or (10', with Reach) on top of it. That's not a function of the weapon's length, it's just a function of doing attack stuff (lunging, moving around, hopping, whatever). As a 4 foot-8 foot tall Medium creature, your horizontal reach while standing is somewhere between 2 feet and 4 feet from your body.... in other words, probably somewhere still within your own 5' square if you're standing in the middle of it, or maybe just barely reaching into adjacent squares. And yet, we can attack adjacent 5' squares with our Unarmed Strikes, we know this.
So if your natural reach as a 4' halfling is 6' high, you can attack 11' high without bringing jumping into the equation, even with an Unarmed Strike. Or if you're an 8' goliath, you can attack 17' high, even with an Unarmed Strike, without jumping. If you are jumping, whatever that max height you can reach is (Davyd quoted the relevant rule), just add 5' on top of that for attack distance (or 10' with a Reach weapon).
It doesn't match square cubes, which sucks. Maybe it helps to think of a 3D grid as being composed of 5x10' rectangular cubes? or just give up on using cubes and think of "layers" of 2D 5' square grids, which are a flexible vertical distance above and below each other to accommodate the context of the narrative scene.
Chicken, that makes a lot of sense for PCs, whose height and weapons determine their "reach" separately from the "normal" reach from the rules Davyd quoted, but what about monsters whose abilities aren't separated from any weapons they may be carrying? A monster doesn't (necessarily) have an action reach separate from its vertical reach, or does it? No rule directly addresses it
The difference would be, for our Tarrasque buddy (who has a nice and easy 50' of height), 50' height plus 15' of reach with its claws (65' total), or is it 50' of height plus 25' of "normal" reach plus 15' of reach with its claws (for 90' total)? or our Roper friend, (who is Large, so lets say 10' tall, with 50' reach with its tentacles, but no body shape that would allow for the extension of reach mentioned in the jumping rules), would it have a 60' total vertical reach, or a 65' one (minimal difference maybe, but potentially important in the right situation)
The difference would be, for our Tarrasque buddy (who has a nice and easy 50' of height), 50' height plus 15' of reach with its claws (65' total), or is it 50' of height plus 25' of "normal" reach plus 15' of reach with its claws (for 90' total)? or our Roper friend, (who is Large, so lets say 10' tall, with 50' reach with its tentacles, but no body shape that would allow for the extension of reach mentioned in the jumping rules), would it have a 60' total vertical reach, or a 65' one (minimal difference maybe, but potentially important in the right situation)
The rule of 1.5 times your height would be because you are using your limbs to achieve that extra distance.
As a DM, you are allowed to modify rules, such as saying that a 10 ft tall roper with 50 ft long tentacles can reach up 60 ft to pull itself up (if you deem that the tentacles have the pulling power to lift the body) - but I wouldn't also be applying the 1.5 modifier in this case.
Monsters don't play by PC rules. PC rules always assume a small or medium creature, and start to get wonky when you make them big with Enlarge/Reduce or Rune Knight. You raise good concerns, but I think they can be rationalized by: natural reach extends .5 height from the point you're standing on, not the edge of the squares you fill. On a small or medium creatures, 2-4' of natural reach are going to aproximate that square. On a 10' ogre, that 5' of natural reach beyond its bulk still aproximates its 10x10 square it occupies on the battlefield (we don't really think the ogre's body is 10 wide, right?), plus it can attack 10' beyond that with its Reach attacks. Even on a Huge 20' Giant, it's 10' of natural reach beyond its bulk matches up pretty well with its 15'x15' square, plus 10' more of Reach attacks. It's only when we get to a Gargantuan creature that's over 30' tall that things go off the rails with the size it takes up on the grid starting to fall beyind where its natural reach should extend.... so yes, the Tarrasque's proportions on the grid don't line up with what my weird math would have given it, and if you used my math, you'd end up with a Tarrasque attacking at crazy distances far beyond what its stat block would normally allow.
BTW this is all totally my rationalizations, is not in any way RAW, and if it was "natural reach" would be 100% the wrong thing to call this concept since it would so easily be confused with both Reach property and a creature's natural size-based attack reach. "Body Zone"? But, you get what I'm saying.
I think it's safe to say a creature reaching up to 150% of its height is fully extending their arms - which wouldn't give a whole lot of control on an attack - so I don't think anyone would do that to attack.
Personally I would probably rule height + weapon reach.
Good point I think. Also, 5e is about simplifying some things, so it would make sense to simplify this.
I just keep it simple and consistent for attack reach:
Size+reach. Large creature with 5 foot reach? You can hit something up to 15 feet in the air.
That way it is consistent with 2d attack range and doesn't require you to know the exact height of all 1850 monsters.
I agree that this is the most consistent (and the same conclusion that I reached in the other thread). It doesn't make sense to me that a gnome wizard can't hit a baddie that is the same distance away if that distance happens to be vertical rather than horizontal.
This thread is an offshoot of a discussion in another thread that was a little off-topic there, so I'd thought I'd make a new thread for it. D&D rules (to my knowledge) don't give a lot of guidance on how to adjudicate the 3rd dimension, so how do we consistently know what a creatures vertical reach is?
If we go by the chart/graphic in the DMG on size, then you get the following for size and height:
A DM could say that (height using the chart + weapon reach), equals the total vertical distance that a creature could attack.
That probably works well for most creatures where height isn't given, but there are several fairly common creatures (tarrasque, giants) with stated heights given that don't match the chart, for example, a storm giant at 26' feet tall (per the MM) would barely be able to lift his arms (and weapon) above his head (30' reach). Meanwhile a tarrasque at 50' tall would not even be able to reach it's head at all (45' vertical reach). Do you modify the chart for creatures whose heights are known? how do you handle partial coverage of a vertical square/cube (or do you even use grid play in 3 dimensions)? How might you handle those edge cases? Do you use a different baseline from my way above?
A creature can reach above themselves 1.5 times their height.
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So, following that (and assuming that you can apply the reach portion of the jumping rules for PCs to other creatures) are you saying that total vertical reach is (creature height + 50% creature height + weapon reach, if applicable)? or just (creature height + 50% creature height)?
For a 20 foot tall creature with an attack with 10' of reach, that would either be 30' or (possibly) 40', quite a difference.
I think it's safe to say a creature reaching up to 150% of its height is fully extending their arms - which wouldn't give a whole lot of control on an attack - so I don't think anyone would do that to attack.
Personally I would probably rule height + weapon reach.
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Attacks take your normal reach, and just add 5' or (10', with Reach) on top of it. That's not a function of the weapon's length, it's just a function of doing attack stuff (lunging, moving around, hopping, whatever). As a 4 foot-8 foot tall Medium creature, your horizontal reach while standing is somewhere between 2 feet and 4 feet from your body.... in other words, probably somewhere still within your own 5' square if you're standing in the middle of it, or maybe just barely reaching into adjacent squares. And yet, we can attack adjacent 5' squares with our Unarmed Strikes, we know this.
So if your natural reach as a 4' halfling is 6' high, you can attack 11' high without bringing jumping into the equation, even with an Unarmed Strike. Or if you're an 8' goliath, you can attack 17' high, even with an Unarmed Strike, without jumping. If you are jumping, whatever that max height you can reach is (Davyd quoted the relevant rule), just add 5' on top of that for attack distance (or 10' with a Reach weapon).
It doesn't match square cubes, which sucks. Maybe it helps to think of a 3D grid as being composed of 5x10' rectangular cubes? or just give up on using cubes and think of "layers" of 2D 5' square grids, which are a flexible vertical distance above and below each other to accommodate the context of the narrative scene.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Chicken, that makes a lot of sense for PCs, whose height and weapons determine their "reach" separately from the "normal" reach from the rules Davyd quoted, but what about monsters whose abilities aren't separated from any weapons they may be carrying? A monster doesn't (necessarily) have an action reach separate from its vertical reach, or does it? No rule directly addresses it
The difference would be, for our Tarrasque buddy (who has a nice and easy 50' of height), 50' height plus 15' of reach with its claws (65' total), or is it 50' of height plus 25' of "normal" reach plus 15' of reach with its claws (for 90' total)? or our Roper friend, (who is Large, so lets say 10' tall, with 50' reach with its tentacles, but no body shape that would allow for the extension of reach mentioned in the jumping rules), would it have a 60' total vertical reach, or a 65' one (minimal difference maybe, but potentially important in the right situation)
The rule of 1.5 times your height would be because you are using your limbs to achieve that extra distance.
As a DM, you are allowed to modify rules, such as saying that a 10 ft tall roper with 50 ft long tentacles can reach up 60 ft to pull itself up (if you deem that the tentacles have the pulling power to lift the body) - but I wouldn't also be applying the 1.5 modifier in this case.
I just keep it simple and consistent for attack reach:
Size+reach. Large creature with 5 foot reach? You can hit something up to 15 feet in the air.
That way it is consistent with 2d attack range and doesn't require you to know the exact height of all 1850 monsters.
Monsters don't play by PC rules. PC rules always assume a small or medium creature, and start to get wonky when you make them big with Enlarge/Reduce or Rune Knight. You raise good concerns, but I think they can be rationalized by: natural reach extends .5 height from the point you're standing on, not the edge of the squares you fill. On a small or medium creatures, 2-4' of natural reach are going to aproximate that square. On a 10' ogre, that 5' of natural reach beyond its bulk still aproximates its 10x10 square it occupies on the battlefield (we don't really think the ogre's body is 10 wide, right?), plus it can attack 10' beyond that with its Reach attacks. Even on a Huge 20' Giant, it's 10' of natural reach beyond its bulk matches up pretty well with its 15'x15' square, plus 10' more of Reach attacks. It's only when we get to a Gargantuan creature that's over 30' tall that things go off the rails with the size it takes up on the grid starting to fall beyind where its natural reach should extend.... so yes, the Tarrasque's proportions on the grid don't line up with what my weird math would have given it, and if you used my math, you'd end up with a Tarrasque attacking at crazy distances far beyond what its stat block would normally allow.
BTW this is all totally my rationalizations, is not in any way RAW, and if it was "natural reach" would be 100% the wrong thing to call this concept since it would so easily be confused with both Reach property and a creature's natural size-based attack reach. "Body Zone"? But, you get what I'm saying.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
That's without a weapon.
If they're using a weapon the reach would go further than that.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
Good point I think.
Also, 5e is about simplifying some things, so it would make sense to simplify this.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I support this notion.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I agree that this is the most consistent (and the same conclusion that I reached in the other thread). It doesn't make sense to me that a gnome wizard can't hit a baddie that is the same distance away if that distance happens to be vertical rather than horizontal.