Re: Abolishing The Grid (was Re: Question about play styles... Targeting AoE spells.)

In article <cv0pf.34498$V7.17457@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
mhacdebhandia@xxxxxxxxxxxxx says...

> >> "The point of origin of a spell is always a grid intersection." (SRD)
> >
> > That's what I meant.
> >
> > If it's a non-combat situation I'll let the spell be placed anywhere,
> > though. If you're careful and take the time to do it right you can
> > make the fireball pop so as to hit only the one guy assuming he's at
> > least as tall as the people around him.
>
> Using this discussion as a springboard:
>
> What are the ramifications of adopting a more freeform approach to the
> battlefield?

I ran a session once without the grid. Either someon forgot to bring it,
or we just didn't bother to clear out all the glasses and dice and
thingies from the table once combat started, I cannot recall.

I thought it worked surprisingly well. (We never did this again,
however, so probably the players didn't think it worked as well as I
did...) There was even a bit of 3D movement, since the PCs started out
on the castle walls, with the attackers on the ground, but it wasn't all
that difficult to track the distances. However, to run it this way, you
need to trust the DM to make impartial decisions, and not worry too much
about 5 or 10 ft. here or there, since it's next to impossible to really
calculate all the distances completely correctly.

The Warhammer method with tape measures and so on is fairer, but I'm not
sure it's an improvement over the current system. It's more natural,
obviously, without a square grid to follow, but it's slower, and I think
it's just as prone to nitpicking about distance as the grid.

It'd be interesting to try it, especiall if someone in the group were
already familiar with Warhammer or something like that, to speed up the
learning process.


--
Jasin Zujovic
.

Relevant Pages

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