Re: Review: 4th Ed

On 2008-06-12, Kyle Wilson <kyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12 Jun 2008 01:07:40 GMT, Seebs <usenet-nospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The movement system's just approximate. If you actually MEASURE it, it's
about 141 feet. Give or take.

That can't be, because the time to walk there and the distance for a
bow shot both correspond to 100 feet.

No they don't! It just looks that way because of the fog of war. The
actual range of a bow is pretty approximate.

The interesting thing is that I tend to use a ruler or tape measure
for longer battle grid distances in 3.5. It looks like you can't do
that in 4e, because depending on the angle from the grid, the distance
will be seriously off (or are you suggesting that the range to your
target depends on how you measure it?).

Of course it does!

It's a GAME.

Squares are just an approximation we use to make it easier to count.

The under 10% differences that 3.5e approximations created were
something I could accept. The nearly 50% difference that 4e creates I
can't get used to.

3.5e gave anywhere from -20% to +40%, depending on how accurately you counted
and how often you forgot whether you were on an even square or an odd square.
:)

A shot on the diagonal is 1.4 times further if measured with a ruler
than counted out. If you allow this then running away on the diagonal
is either brilliant or stupid depending on which distance is measured
how. Maybe I'll eventually get used to it, but so far it really
bothers me.

So just use a ruler.

As far as I've been able to determine, in 4e by the RAW, the distance
across the diagonal of a square room (measured by walking, shooting or
generating a magical effect) is the same as the length of one of its
walls. I'm not sure where or when you cut over to the 1.5 (or 1.414
if you're picky) factor, but for all game mechanical effects it
appears that rooms that seem square are mechanically circular. This
is intended to avoid making folks count 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 as they move.

Exactly. It's just an approximation.

I also would expect that bursts must be visibly cubic in the game as
they very clearly are bounded by lines not curves. A 4e burst that is
the equivalent to a 3.5e fireball is very different in shape and
effect from a spherical burst. Again, the in-game difference should
be highly visible to the inhabitants (unless the whole realm is warped
that way and rulers change length as you rotate them).

No, it's spheres. It's just that it's not worth our time to fix up the
details for the exact radius of a sphere when mapping.

Hmm. Let me see if I can explain this another way.

You're assuming that the measurements are precise, and therefore, either
the world is warped or the measurements are wrong. I'm saying the
measurements are pretty much imprecise, so while it's true that they're
sometimes wrong, we don't care because they're good enough to play a game.

--
Copyright 2008, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
.

Relevant Pages

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