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Post by skunkape on Aug 31, 2015 20:14:21 GMT
We played AD&D with a gridded battlemat and either water color markers or grease pencils back when AD&D was the new thing, so grid play has been around for a long time!
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Post by runningwolf on Aug 31, 2015 20:53:50 GMT
We played AD&D with a gridded battlemat and either water color markers or grease pencils back when AD&D was the new thing, so grid play has been around for a long time! Same back in 83 we were using minis.
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Post by sgtslag on Aug 31, 2015 21:05:38 GMT
DnDPaladin is referring to using the grid to determine Area of Effect, more than using grids for movement. I played AD&D starting in 1980, and we never counted squares for spell effects. We used them mostly for movement measurement, but even this was only an approximation, as we moved our figures through partial squares if the squares did not equal full moves -- we went based on the base of the mini, not the square it occupied. It never occurred to us to use the squares by themselves, as whole units of A of E, or movement increments.
It was only in 4th Ed. that the grid became the official movement unit, with everything being calculated by the whole square, complete with spell A of E's mapped out in templates of squares... We always measured, and calculated the A of E's, manually, plotting them out on our gridded maps, largely ignoring the grids: we marked 'Ground Zero', and measured out from there with a ruler, or a piece of string. As I posted last year, the 4th Ed. DMG had the first grid-based templates for A of E's for spells, which made that Edition into a board game. Cheers!
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Post by DMScotty on Aug 31, 2015 23:19:42 GMT
I have noticed since 5E puts much less focus on using any kind of grid the controversy has dropped off precipitously.
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Post by thedmg on Sept 1, 2015 11:42:42 GMT
There was a controversy?
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Post by adamsouza on Sept 1, 2015 12:26:23 GMT
There were people who hated 4E and harped on it endlessly.
It never bothered me. I was so used to 1" being 5Ft that conversion between the two was effortless.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Sept 1, 2015 20:30:39 GMT
Variant rules yeah. thats not what i meant there. grids and battlemaps been existing way before 3e. what i am saying is, before 3e. the grid was always an option and never part of the original game. it was develop as a theater of the mind thing. the grid started to appear as people developped a sense of visualisation instead of leaving it all to their imagination.
3e was the first edition to have the grid part of the riginal content and not a variant or an optionnal rule.
and no it wasn't 4e that started the whole thing... its really 3e because there was a book called the miniature handbook and every single battlemap and skirmish thing was appearing in there. from that point on, the game had became a board game like wargame where you'd mount a team and pit it against another team on a battle map with design of your choosing. i never played 4E. but looking at the books and the content i'd say the biggest problem was the style it used... dailys, and stuff. not to mention how much it uses the grid. 3E did that too, but... i'd say 4E was just too different.
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Sept 1, 2015 22:57:31 GMT
Variant rules yeah. thats not what i meant there. grids and battlemaps been existing way before 3e. what i am saying is, before 3e. the grid was always an option and never part of the original game. it was develop as a theater of the mind thing. the grid started to appear as people developped a sense of visualisation instead of leaving it all to their imagination. 3e was the first edition to have the grid part of the riginal content and not a variant or an optionnal rule. and no it wasn't 4e that started the whole thing... its really 3e because there was a book called the miniature handbook and every single battlemap and skirmish thing was appearing in there. from that point on, the game had became a board game like wargame where you'd mount a team and pit it against another team on a battle map with design of your choosing. i never played 4E. but looking at the books and the content i'd say the biggest problem was the style it used... dailys, and stuff. not to mention how much it uses the grid. 3E did that too, but... i'd say 4E was just too different. The Miniatures Handbook didn't do what you said...at all. TMH was largely about converting things that originated in the minis game into usable options for players in the RPG
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Post by DnDPaladin on Sept 2, 2015 17:18:13 GMT
want me to read out the minituare handbook, i have it you know and the first thing they explain int he book is how to use the battlemaps to make a skirmish game. the next thing they explain is how to use the battlemaps to make a DMless game. then they explain how to use the new abilities they made specifically for the game to be more streamlined for skirmish games.
yup, the miniature handbook, was simply a book for those who preffered wargaming parties instead of true story telling RPGs.
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Sept 4, 2015 20:18:30 GMT
want me to read out the minituare handbook, i have it you know and the first thing they explain int he book is how to use the battlemaps to make a skirmish game. the next thing they explain is how to use the battlemaps to make a DMless game. then they explain how to use the new abilities they made specifically for the game to be more streamlined for skirmish games. yup, the miniature handbook, was simply a book for those who preffered wargaming parties instead of true story telling RPGs. I believe that you're looking at the miniatures rulebook that came with the skirmish game, not the actual Miniatures Handbook. Hell, I believe the only setup for the RPG in 3.0/3.5 that's for a DMless game is something in the Dragon Compendium that's about making random dungeons and random monsters for level utilizing the random encounter tables in the DMG along with random loot ones mixed with some variant rules for solitaire style play... Battlemat rules were actually in the players handbook and DMG I've had TMH as one of the major books I carry around since I've played a Marshal quite a bit, and it's one of my favorite 3.5 classes...
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Post by DnDPaladin on Sept 4, 2015 21:48:56 GMT
no im talking about the miniture handbook that has the marshal class in it. the dmless gaming is at the end of the book and they suggest using making a map with the DMG and then using cards to make a dungeon along with drawing 4 cards every times you enter a room until you fall on the goal of the game that you guys decided.
yes most of the rules comes from the players handbook, after all the TMH is called a "SUPPLEMENT" book. but, most of what is in the TMH is all about skirmish games. the porof is that the class you like so much is designed to be a in a party boosting that party with party wide buffs. because in those skirmish you have to work as a team. basically the game consider it this way... every d&d game is askirmish, except the campaign you are playing isa skirmish with numerous players in the same team and is versus the AI (DM) while skirmish games would be player versus player and 1 on 1.
i loved that book, not for the classes in it, they are subpar to what other books came off with. but i loved it cause it made clear ruling about playing on a grid. unlike the PHB who was designed halfly for grid and halfly for theater of the mind. free actions shouldn'T have existed and that TMH introducing interupts and what was the name of that new fast action type thing. was just well done.
and by the way.. its not a 3.5 book, its a 3.0. though there isn't much differences between both system.
back to what we were saying... 5E definitely brought me back to my roots of theater of the mind or gridless if you preffer to call it that way.
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Post by Credo DM on Mar 31, 2019 21:03:59 GMT
I play with a core mostly based on 2nd/2.5 Ed that implements the ruleset from Combat & Tactics. It explains how to run combat on gridded mats or boards if you want, and even shows graphs & images of minis on a battlemat. But by no means MUST a grid be used in order to implement C&T.
I run a mix of gridless & "pseudo-gridded" play. When using terrain I have with grids on them, the grids are strictly used as visual aid to the players to represent area/scale & distance. They are not used to figure movement and position. Essentially, they are like an embedded measuring stick.
As many on here have mentioned, it requires suspension of certain rules, usually the ones that are nit-picky anyway. For instance, C&T states that moving diagonally costs 1.5 movement points per square. In gridless play, this is meaningless, so I don't use it.
As for AoO, C&T has a list of minimum requirements for a combatant to incur AoO. To meld these into gridless play, I first apply the "if the creature can't hit you, then you can't reach, either" idea as others have mentioned. In certain scenarios where that might not apply or be arguable in any way, then I use the measurements provided by the embedded measuring stick (grid).
For terranean combat in the wilderness above ground, I go totally gridless. C&T can be applied just fine. I use a measuring stick only in instances where eyeballing or reasoning can't determine a resolution. Even then, that's only if a player expresses strong opposition to the decision I made as a result of my DM Fiat.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jul 2, 2019 16:51:29 GMT
my players even in gridless games have started using the base of the minis to calculate their 5 feet increments. to the point where the stick was useless. the problem in our society is that everything can easily be measured by just looking around you. even if you dont put a grid, the miniatures still have 1 inch bases. harder to check on tin creatures, or small ones, but medium and up. all made with inches in head. so even if you dont have your gridded tiles or grid, you can still see the grid because of the mini. because the base is 1 inch. thus if i go forward 6 minis, i just did 30 feet.
that's why i say grid is always there, may you like it or not. measurements will always be there because everything in our world is measurements.
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Post by sgtslag on Jul 2, 2019 18:14:40 GMT
Good point, DnDPaladin ! Figure bases, for all of my figures, are 1-inch squares, for medium-sized creatures, for use in 2e BattleSystem rules. I use the base size, frequently, to estimate distances. It is an easy tool to use, and always on the table, for my games. It is not, however, the only means of estimating distances on a gaming table... Years ago, a friend of mine, a professional seamstress/tailor, played a sailing ship historical combat game, at a convention. There was no pre-measuring allowed, you declared your fire, then you measured to see if the enemy ship was within range... She could eyeball the range to within 1/4-inch, 40 inches out! She had calibrated her eye measurements through years of seamstress/tailor work, making custom, period accurate, uniforms for re-enactors of the past 2-3 centuries. She destroyed everyone who played in that game, without any cheating of any kind. The other players threw up their hands, in surrender, after a while, because her calibrated eye was unstoppable. I laughed so hard... She was beaming, and that, alone, was worth the trip to see. I suspect many a carpenter, and cabinet maker, can estimate distances very accurately, as well, without a grid, or a figure base. If it is what they do for a living, it becomes an inherent skill. Cheers!
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