Chief Technical Officer
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I was thinking about keeping our minis on the table but not keep using the grid (or hex) battle map like we do now.
Any advice or problems?
Oddly, I was thinking about that just a couple of nights ago.
I'd do everything with tape measures, and maybe even create some circle templates for spell effects.
The only big downside I see is that it makes actually drawing out maps a bit harder—I'd be tempted to keep the gridded mat just for drawing purposes, and just tell everyone to ignore the grid.
There are some minor things that will come up, like flanking—do flankers need to be positioned 180 degrees apart, or would (for example) 120 degrees be enough? (And do you need a protractor now?)
I don't think you'll find any game-stoppers, though.
I was thinking about keeping our minis on the table but not keep using the grid (or hex) battle map like we do now.
Any advice or problems?
Feats like cleave and great cleave become less useful because it's more difficult to get base to base with multiple creatures. Reach weapons also get a little skeevy, but the biggest one that comes to mind is attacks of opportunity. They tend to become meaningless because there's always room to avoid the attacker in open maps. In short the feel of tactical movement changes... alot depending on your feat selection. (Consider combat reflexes and mobility.)
For AoE attacks you'll also have to houserule how mini's that are touching or half convered by a template are affected. (eg touching counts for full spell effect, half effect, or full effect with improved save mod etc)
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5' = 1" on the game board.
I suggest getting some good tokens to put on the table to make the center of spell effects for AOE measurements.
There are plenty of miniature skirmish level war games that you can look for good inspiration. Warmachine comes to mind off the top of my head, or Mordheim.
You could bring back a limited amount of facing to judge when someone is flanked. Wouldn't go beyond having a front and back though.
Hey Vic, it would be totally awesome to see be some kind of published Pathfinder "Off the Grid" supplement. That would make an excellent companion book!
My group has done free form dnd basing the movement rules on some tabletop strategy games. 1inch = 5feet and use a tape measure. It allows for things like curved movement, and such, and makes things very interesting. We also used wargamming terrain to create some really interesting battles that stimulated the imagination. The keep was an actual physical keep on the table instead of something drawn on a dry erase board.
It does however slow things down considerably. It takes longer to measure out movement with a tape measure then it does with squares. it also means each player and hte dm must move the individual piece and thus must get up if it's out of reach on the other side of the table. You cant just say move me 5 squares down and one square right, if your character is out of reach, or if the monster is on the other end of the table from the dm.
I've bantered about the idea myself, and can see its benefits, but I haven't committed to it. If you and your players have played Warhammer, I bet it's not too much of a stretch to say you'll do well adapting your Pathfinder games. One suggestion I do have is to make "measuring sticks", thin lengths of wood cut to specific common lengths to speed up movement. 4" and 6" sticks immediately come to mind for instance. You could use a 1.5" or a 2" stick for reach weapons too.
You could bring back a limited amount of facing to judge when someone is flanked. Wouldn't go beyond having a front and back though.
Check out the Unearthed Arcana facing rules here.
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. One suggestion I do have is to make "measuring sticks", thin lengths of wood cut to specific common lengths to speed up movement. 4" and 6" sticks immediately come to mind for instance. You could use a 1.5" or a 2" stick for reach weapons too.
Use 1"x6" (or 1"xX") lengths of non-corrugated cardboard. I use them as bookmarks, and it's easy to use one to quickly judge the distance between two PCs. Plus, you can write notes on them as well.
If I was going to go gridless and keep the minis, it'd be because I wanted to get full use out of some really cool non-gridded scenery. Unfortunately for me, I don't have any scenery pieces or cool wargaming set ups, so I stick to the 1" graph paper.
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You might want to try out a software mapping tool. MapTool has a "gridless" mode in which it uses neither square nor hex grids. Everything still works in this mode (sight/vision, lights, auras) except that automatic exposure of the fog-of-war doesn't work. It's a complicated rationale based on how some of the movement code is too integrated with the map rendering layer. :( It'll be fixed in 1.4 and if a patch is donated, I'll apply it to 1.3 as well.
When using software the tool can calculate distances for you. And some things (like threat ranges and reach weapons) could receive help from "auras" in MapTool. Particularly helpful for GMs in 1.3.b66 is that there are GM-only auras. (Explanatory text didn't make it into the UI, but there's a forum thread that explains it until the next build comes out in a couple weeks.)