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I was looking through the monsters and I came across the Dire Shark. It's description paints it as very menacing, and states that it is 60 feet long. And yet, it only takes up a 20 foot square... Even if it was going through this area diagonally, half of it is unaccounted for.
Has anyone else found such inconsistencies between the descriptive text and the stat blocks? It seems like the two should coincide a bit more, because this is the kind of thing that starts to break suspension of disbelief at my table.
20foot square with a 20 foot reach implies that is may be curled up in that 20 foot square waiting to strike.
Now I have a mental image of the sharks from final fantasy who were all curled up in a U shape.
Now I have a mental image of the sharks from final fantasy who were all curled up in a U shape.
No matter what anybody says, an Axbeak is not a Chocobo...
Creative Director
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I was looking through the monsters and I came across the Dire Shark. It's description paints it as very menacing, and states that it is 60 feet long. And yet, it only takes up a 20 foot square... Even if it was going through this area diagonally, half of it is unaccounted for.
Has anyone else found such inconsistencies between the descriptive text and the stat blocks? It seems like the two should coincide a bit more, because this is the kind of thing that starts to break suspension of disbelief at my table.
The Space and Reach rules are kind of counterintuitive when it comes to size of a creature; you'll see this popping up with a fair amount of the large creatures, in fact.
If that bothers you, you could certainly say that something like a dire shark would have a space of, say, 55 feet and a reach of 5 feet.
But as it's set up, the implication is that a big monster's space is merely the area where it can be reliably attacked. The monster's reach surrounding its space is the area where the creature is moving around and thrashing about and can't be reliably hit.
But yeah... if the dire shark distresses you, you should probably not look too closely at the purple worm... :-P
But yeah... if the dire shark distresses you, you should probably not look too closely at the purple worm... :-P
Or any serpent-like creature...
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Creative Director
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The original edition of 3rd edition actually had unusual space and facing for creatures. Horses were 5x10. And it wasn't unusual to see long monsters like sharks and snakes get facing like 10 x 30 or the like.
The problem that caused was that it more or less forced facing into the game; if a monster's space isn't round or square, it's pretty obvious that the monster is faced one direction. And once you introduce facing into the game, things get a lot more complicated pretty quickly in combat, to say nothing of how one handles long monsters going around corners or five-foot-adjusting.
It's not very realistic to have long monsters have square spaces, but it's a lot easier to run.
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Creative Director
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It seems like the dire shark could have been described as being a bit smaller... Unless you guys figured no one would ever make a fuss about it ;P
It's been the way it is in 3.5 for several years without causing too much of a ruckus, so yeah. A little bit of the latter.
And honestly, the game works fine like it does... especially when you simply consider that 20 foot reach DOES add a lot of space to the area the shark dominates on the grid.
right?
Right. :)
The moral of this story: "Don't get grabbed by a giant shark!"
The moral of this story: "Don't get grabbed by a giant shark!"
Ha, the crazy PRG principles! ;)