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Can nothing be said for "If you like it that way, enjoy yourself"?
Why does it have to come down to "You must not have a very good time at your game because you use miniatures and a battlemat, I'll bet your players have an awful time"? The selling point of the Pathfinder game system is that it can accomodate and appeal to varying groups of players with varying playstyles and varying experiences. Reading this thread has been rather disheartening for me, with so much condescension coming from the anti-mini side. Seems counterproductive for such a community-driven game.Yeah, you get that a lot here at the Paizo forums. If you use miniatures, you play the game wrong. If you use battlemats, you don't understand how to immerse yourself in the combat. If you care about the math and modelling involved in system analysis, you take the fun out of the game for everyone in a 100 mile radius. If you enjoy tactical combat at least as much as you enjoy roleplaying, then you don't know how to roleplay and your character is nothing but a soulless collection of numbers.
I remain polite and move on. Some people will be like that, especially on the internet. What matters is who you play with.
So, who said -any- of those things?
I like Warhammer. I don't think playing tactical combat games means you can't role play. I went to grad school for systems architecture at one of the top schools in the nation. I don't think caring about systems analysis ruins fun.
I do think you're being a tad too sensitive and your hyperboles are going too far.
I've seen all kinds of people make those arguments. They come and go in waves, they haven't been as frequent of late though they still pop up on certain sections of the board from time to time.
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So, who said -any- of those things?
I like Warhammer. I don't think playing tactical combat games means you can't role play. I went to grad school for systems architecture at one of the top schools in the nation. I don't think caring about systems analysis ruins fun.
I do think you're being a tad too sensitive and your hyperboles are going too far.
I'm sorry, I don't recall that those comments were made about you. They were obvious hyperbole, and I'm sorry you found them unamusing, but that's really not my problem. I don't think I'm the one being oversensitive here.
And a good thing too:
I have difficulty understanding the extent of your lack of imagination. Is it a learning disability?
Jess Door...I doubt you've got anything close to an immersive experience...I'm betting your combats are slow...your players often end up paying only partial attention...They get bored with waiting a half hour or longer between actions...
I wonder, for those GMs that do not use miniatures and/or game grids, do you keep everything in your mind or do you use a piece of paper (or other doodling tool, iPad, whiteboard, etc) to keep track of general placement and terrain?
I wonder, for those GMs that do not use miniatures and/or game grids, do you keep everything in your mind or do you use a piece of paper (or other doodling tool, iPad, whiteboard, etc) to keep track of general placement and terrain?
When we do it, which isn't often, we have one player mapping on graph paper to get the idea of the room. The rest is out minds and the combats turn out a little more narrative. Like if you want to flank the the DM tells you can do it right away risking an attack opportunity, take a turn using a double move action, or take 3 turns using a move action and 2 5' steps.
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Something I plan on doing in that mythical time far in the future called retirement, is rewrite the rules to remove all references to the battlemat. I'm pondering instead using zones (in melee, close quarters, near, and far) to represent where people are positioned, and have them be malleable enough that you can adjust them as needed.
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My group has always switched back and forth depending on when it is needed or when combat is likely. This has led to the use of phrases such as "We now enter the zone of abstraction" or "Time to go to the mat."
Never found that it broke immersion, but then we use coins for minis so we have to imagine everything that's going on anyway.
Drillboss
Something I plan on doing in that mythical time far in the future called retirement, is rewrite the rules to remove all references to the battlemat. I'm pondering instead using zones (in melee, close quarters, near, and far) to represent where people are positioned, and have them be malleable enough that you can adjust them as needed.
My group does something like this. It works well, though I'd be hard pressed to define the "rules" of it. My players can grasp a narrative combat well enough (and seem to be "fair-minded" enough) to intuit these things ("I know he's got a spear, so this might be a bad idea, but..."), so it works well enough for us, at least. A more codified approach might be worth examining.
... and we rarely use minis. Sketch maps at best, though those are frequent.
Hmm, I wish I could figure out how to convince my group to play without the grid. Seriously, >HORSES< I understand that they are a lot bigger than humans, but when they take up a 10 by 10 spot they make no sense, it makes even less sense when you're on a corner of the horse. I seriously had to ask my DM which corner I was on... Another thing is, though we've yet to encounter a giant snake, I can't help but wonder how that battle would go in terms of immersion.
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The major issue I have time to set-up, as already been noted by someone. You set the scene for an exciting encounter and then... 10-15 minutes of setting up the dungeon tiles or defining the limits of the room and looking for the miniatures (which are sometimes in the car) = losing interest people.Miniatures or not, poor planning by the GM can make an otherwise exciting game into an exercise in waiting while bored.
True. I may have to take your comment with a gain of salt after all you are one of the people who helped unleash the 5'-step upon an unsuspecting RPG community. :)
Having said that, thanks for actually making sure that D&D-like games never die.
Hats off,
S.
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Hmm, I wish I could figure out how to convince my group to play without the grid. Seriously, >HORSES< I understand that they are a lot bigger than humans, but when they take up a 10 by 10 spot they make no sense, it makes even less sense when you're on a corner of the horse. I seriously had to ask my DM which corner I was on... Another thing is, though we've yet to encounter a giant snake, I can't help but wonder how that battle would go in terms of immersion.
What, horses aren't square where you come from? Weird.
Hmm, I wish I could figure out how to convince my group to play without the grid. Seriously, >HORSES< I understand that they are a lot bigger than humans, but when they take up a 10 by 10 spot they make no sense, it makes even less sense when you're on a corner of the horse. I seriously had to ask my DM which corner I was on... Another thing is, though we've yet to encounter a giant snake, I can't help but wonder how that battle would go in terms of immersion.
I still don't get why this bothers people. I moved past it within about 15 minutes of learning about the change from 3.0 to 3.5. Horses are able to turn around. They're able to kick and bite in various directions, because the game mechanics don't have rules for facing. Horses, therefore, have to occupy a "round" facing, or else they'd effectively have a facing and that'd just be borked a bit.
I played 3.0, when there were "long" and "tall" creatures with different spacings. It made no sense. The party surrounded a Behir once and it just didn't make any sense how it would be able to bite at the attacker "behind" it, because it was an odd shape and couldn't theoretically turn. Once you make creatures "square" and assume that serpentine creatures coil and lash, while quadrupeds rotate and kick/scratch out, it makes sense and frees up the wonkiness of facing when there isn't facing.
If you're mounted on a horse, then you are actually, mechanically, in all four of the horse's squares at once, because the horse is moving around. Creatures don't stand still during combat. I'm certainly not 5' on a side, after all.
I wonder, for those GMs that do not use miniatures and/or game grids, do you keep everything in your mind or do you use a piece of paper (or other doodling tool, iPad, whiteboard, etc) to keep track of general placement and terrain?When we do it, which isn't often, we have one player mapping on graph paper to get the idea of the room. The rest is out minds and the combats turn out a little more narrative. Like if you want to flank the the DM tells you can do it right away risking an attack opportunity, take a turn using a double move action, or take 3 turns using a move action and 2 5' steps.
Actually, I'm not talking about specifics like moving for flanking or AoO or such (I would probably abandon most of those if I went without battle grids). Merely, do GMs who don't use some type of game map and/or counters, use some kind of paper or something to keep track of very general spread of the scene and characters. I'm thinking most groups are around 4-5 PCs (at least I think that is the default for PFRPG) and you can have somewhere up to 8-10 NPCs in some cases (I'm thinking of a situation in RotRL where my party found a group of ogre tanners and next to them were stone giant smiths). I'm just trying to picture keeping track of 12-15 different character as well as terrain features (was there a pillar there last round?) all in one's head.
I guess I'm stupid, I don't think I could do all of that in my head, at least not to a level of precision that would meet my personal standards enough that I'd be comfortable with it.
It's not a grid or minis that make combat less "dynamic" or "exciting." It's full round actions and those damnable iteritive attacks.
Incidentally, I've yet to have minis or a battle grid break my "immersion." Nor have I seen combat be any less interactive or "dynamic" because suddenly players actually knew what was happening instead of standing confused for ten minutes on how exactly they can position their fireball.
Also, complaining about there being math in your tabletop roleplaying game with modifiers and dice rolling and number counting is a bit strange. Of course Feng Shui doesn't use a map. Feng Shui isn't D&D (I've found it to be not that good, either). Feng Shui isn't about fighting orcs or slaying dragons or picking locks or haggling with shopkeepers, it's about firing two pistols - one in each hand - while diving backwards out a window, landing on a shop owner's stall, stumbling away, mounting a motorcycle, then riding off...and then letting the next player go because that was all your turn.
It's not a grid or minis that make combat less "dynamic" or "exciting." It's full round actions and those damnable iteritive attacks.
The elimination of which were some of 4E's better changes, imo.
Which reminds me: Hey Paizo, I'm still waiting for that Pathfinder/4E/Savage Worlds mash-up! :D
Well, when you ride your 10' wide horse on a 5' wide bridge, the 10x10 space is just weird, though I'd hate to be told that my horse which isn't actually wider than 5 ft can't cross the bridge because it has to apparently be able to to turn... or when you get flanked on your horse by goblins holding 3' long weapons... I mean there are ways around it, but to me personally I feel that the grid sometimes limits movement in a non realistic way. (Not all the time, but sometimes...)
However I still like having a map there, to help keep track of where I am and the others are in relation to me.
The major issue I have time to set-up, as already been noted by someone. You set the scene for an exciting encounter and then... 10-15 minutes of setting up the dungeon tiles or defining the limits of the room and looking for the miniatures (which are sometimes in the car) = losing interest people.Miniatures or not, poor planning by the GM can make an otherwise exciting game into an exercise in waiting while bored.
Question: how would you suggest making battle grid set up faster?
On one hand, I do my best to prepare ahead of time--if I know, for example, the party is likely to hit the cave fight and the mountain pass fight, then I will be sure to have the respective flip mats available, or draw the map on my blank flip mat beforehand. I always make sure I have any minis I think I need out before the game starts.
On the other hand, my players often move fast, and I can't always predict which direction they'll take. I don't run from modules; I have a slightly sandboxy world, and while I write craptons of notes for the adventure, I can never be exactly certain what corridor my players will decide to turn down when, so to speak, and sometimes they change their mind. Sometimes they'll go in a direction i don't have the minis or the right map out for, and I have to stop and set things up from scratch.
For a real example, they were heading into an area about to be hit by civil war, and had spoken about gathering allies, perhaps even raising a small army. They talked about researching into the local families and situations. I knew next session they would be heading into one of the PC's hometown, so I thought, "Okay, they're going to be going to this place, they're definitely meeting with this one guy, and they're going to want to do research and recruit allies, so I should have ready this this and this." I had the town all written up, sewer and city street maps at the ready for a few encounters amid the recruiting. I had books they would find in the library, helpful barmaids, seedy mercenaries ripe for hire, and any minis I needed for the kind of folks they would meet should things get ugly.
And 45 minutes into the session, the players said, "Nah, never mind, I think the sneaky approach is best, let's forget about gathering allies, skip the city entirely, and head to the big bad's by ourselves."
While I had planned in my *head* where they would be going and what they would be doing next, so I could ad-lib with the narrative just fine, I had nothing practical planned out for that session. And I felt railroading them back to town just because of the stuff I planned felt... well, I don't know if they would have felt it artificial, but I certainly would have, and my fun would have diminished considerably--and I find if I'm frustrated, it doesn't help my players a whole lot. Anyway, any and all maps were going to have to be drawn up for scratch or my players were going to have to indulge me in taking the time to sort through my gazillion map cards and minis, etc. Fortunately they ARE willing to indulge me, but I can't see how I could have planned ahead any more (at least not without taking time off work and doing an insane level of planning just to guess every direction the players might take).
I realize I've just gone into TL;DR territory and may have gone off on a tangent and I know your original post was not directed at me (though I believe I may have been the "other person" Stefan mentioned about the time it takes to set up maps sometimes). But I am seriously asking the question, because I truly would love some help here: how do you make set up go faster? I've got a ton of flip maps, map cards, and even a few dungeon tiles, and there's no easy way to label them or sort through them that I can always have the right one at my fingertips. It should be worth noting that we play at someone else's home, so I have to be able to fit all my supplies in a single backpack, not play from my hobby table.
How do you prepare battle maps ahead when your players are brilliant, creative, think so far outside the box the box isn't even in the same room, and you like the narrative to remain somewhat fluid?
I play online. I typically have all the battle areas pre-set up (with a few extras for when the players inevitably do something weird to get into a non-standard fight), but nobody looks at the virtual table until I tell them to. Before that it's all done over IRC. And then after the fight, we go back to IRC.
Well, when you ride your 10' wide horse on a 5' wide bridge, the 10x10 space is just weird, though I'd hate to be told that my horse which isn't actually wider than 5 ft can't cross the bridge because it has to apparently be able to to turn...
You do realize that large creatures can squeeze into a 5 ft wide space, whether a 5 ft wide hallway or a 5 ft wide bridge, right?
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I guess I'm stupid, I don't think I could do all of that in my head, at least not to a level of precision that would meet my personal standards enough that I'd be comfortable with it.
Nope I bet you aren't stupid - your smart enough to be a member of the Paizo community after all.
What you say about precision is the crux of the matter. Mini's add precision, some people like this, and some find it just adds needless detail.
Without maps the only real issue I have as DM is the darn 5'-step. It's just too fiddly and is only there as a mechanical construct based on using the grid. Flanking and AoO work fine the players just have to say "can I flank?" or "will I get too close to the monster?" Puts the onus back onto the DM for sure, but a scribbled piece of paper with roughly where people are and only perhaps when something significant happens is usually fine. Most fights are more or less static as the melee characters want there iterative attacks and unless threatened there is no reason for the ranged PC's to dance around the combat. I guess the players need to trust their DM a little more?
Just one last comment about the 5'-step. I DO NOT allowed missile armed characters to 5'-step and shoot. This strikes me as the silliest thing since the most silliest things ever. What is the monster/NPC thinking "look the PC is stepping back and loading that bow, I'll think I'll stand here like a statue. Perhaps they won't notice me." Ridiculous. Move and shoot = fine.
S.
I guess I'm stupid, I don't think I could do all of that in my head, at least not to a level of precision that would meet my personal standards enough that I'd be comfortable with it.Nope I bet you aren't stupid - your smart enough to be a member of the Paizo community after all.
What you say about precision is the crux of the matter. Mini's add precision, some people like this, and some find it just adds needless detail.
Without maps the only real issue I have as DM is the darn 5'-step. It's just too fiddly and is only there as a mechanical construct based on using the grid. Flanking and AoO work fine the players just have to say "can I flank?" or "will I get too close to the monster?" Puts the onus back onto the DM for sure, but a scribbled piece of paper with roughly where people are and only perhaps when something significant happens is usually fine. Most fights are more or less static as the melee characters want there iterative attacks and unless threatened there is no reason for the ranged PC's to dance around the combat. I guess the players need to trust their DM a little more?
Just one last comment about the 5'-step. I DO NOT allowed missile armed characters to 5'-step and shoot. This strikes me as the silliest thing since the most silliest things ever. What is the monster/NPC thinking "look the PC is stepping back and loading that bow, I'll think I'll stand here like a statue. Perhaps they won't notice me." Ridiculous. Move and shoot = fine.
S.
Like I said earlier, if I wasn't using a game grid, I'd toss out/change some of the rules. The 5-ft step would probably get dumped, so would AoO . I would probably toss out reach issues and differences in character speeds based on race and armor. I'd make distances be adjacent (can melee full attack), point-blank range (can reach melee with a single move), close (for spells and can charge), medium (for spells and can run to target), long (for spells and requires several rounds of running).
Actually, I'm not talking about specifics like moving for flanking or AoO or such (I would probably abandon most of those if I went without battle grids). Merely, do GMs who don't use some type of game map and/or counters, use some kind of paper or something to keep track of very general spread of the scene and characters. I'm thinking most groups are around 4-5 PCs (at least I think that is the default for PFRPG) and you can have somewhere up to 8-10 NPCs in some cases (I'm thinking of a situation in RotRL where my party found a group of ogre tanners and next to them were stone giant smiths). I'm just trying to picture keeping track of 12-15 different character as well as terrain features (was there a pillar there last round?) all in one's head.I guess I'm stupid, I don't think I could do all of that in my head, at least not to a level of precision that would meet my personal standards enough that I'd be comfortable with it.
It's rare that I play without minis these days… when you have a player who has almost much every model for in the first 4 or 5 series, it'd be pretty mean not to use them. But back in the days before his collection, yes, I'd use a map drawn out on graph paper, either a map I entirely made up on my own, or one copied from a module I was running. I'd draw in all relevant features (beds, altars, stairs, doors and so on). Monsters would be typically pencil dots or x's and PCs would be letters of the PC's 1st name normally. We'd erase and draw them in the new position where they moved to. Back then, people could actually fit 4 abreast in a 10' wide corridor. Go figure :)
I guess the players need to trust their DM a little more?
People trust DMs after being around here?
Something my group has always done that seems different from everyone else here.
We keep the battle mat out all the time.
Then the players are walking down the road, I keep the PC's minatures in march order on the battle mat. If there is an encounter, I draw out the encounter around the PC models.
Having the mat and models out has been pretty much standard for our group.
Question: how would you suggest making battle grid set up faster?
1) You can't plan ahead for everything. You just can't. It's the nature of tabletop games that the PCs could literally go anywhere, and barring infinite time to prepare, sometimes they're going to go to a not-fully-detailed place on your world or dungeon map. So when the PCs take a turn you weren't expecting or remotely anticipating, it's okay to say, "Guys, I need about a ten minute break here to get this set up. Go in the other room, make a coffee run, whatever, just be back at 7 p.m." And then use that time to plan and sketch.
2) But if you have time outside the game to plan maps and stuff, have some backup maps drawn. On something storable, like Gaming Paper. Which you can buy on Paizo.com
You know, it may be a cool thing to put together a community project where people share their GP-sized maps and encounters so people can have more drop-in material for game emergencies.
Without maps the only real issue I have as DM is the darn 5'-step. It's just too fiddly and is only there as a mechanical construct based on using the grid. Flanking and AoO work fine the players just have to say "can I flank?" or "will I get too close to the monster?" Puts the onus back onto the DM for sure, but a scribbled piece of paper with roughly where people are and only perhaps when something significant happens is usually fine. Most fights are more or less static as the melee characters want there iterative attacks and unless threatened there is no reason for the ranged PC's to dance around the combat. I guess the players need to trust their DM a little more?
Actually, the point of the 5FS is to allow PCs to have mobility in the battle without having to ask the GM for each move if it's a safe move. And every time you can skip a player asking once, twice, or three times or more in a round if they can move somewhere safely, that's time unwasted and time the GM can spend thinking about what to do next.
Some of the rules in the game are there to make the share experience easier and more efficient. I played Basic, Expert, 1e, and 2e, and I remember when the game used to punish you if you moved, and punish you if you ran away. 3e, with the 5FS and the Withdraw action, made combat more than fighters standing toe-to-toe with monsters like Rock Em Sock Em Robots, never moving until one or the other dropped.
Having some safe movement encourages the PCs to move about and try things on the battlefield. Defining it as a 5FS means less for the GM to track and fewer arbitrary rulings that the GM has to remember from round to round or player to player.
Just one last comment about the 5'-step. I DO NOT allowed missile armed characters to 5'-step and shoot. This strikes me as the silliest thing since the most silliest things ever. What is the monster/NPC thinking "look the PC is stepping back and loading that bow, I'll think I'll stand here like a statue. Perhaps they won't notice me." Ridiculous. Move and shoot = fine.
It's a price you pay for trying to model real-time combat in a way that allows everyone to have a turn each round, instead of just the loudest or fastest-talking players to take a turn. The Ready and Delay actions are in the game to allow for a simulation of "interrupts" in a turn-based game--a game that has to be turn-based to be at all playable.
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Just one last comment about the 5'-step. I DO NOT allowed missile armed characters to 5'-step and shoot. This strikes me as the silliest thing since the most silliest things ever. What is the monster/NPC thinking "look the PC is stepping back and loading that bow, I'll think I'll stand here like a statue. Perhaps they won't notice me." Ridiculous. Move and shoot = fine. S.
I am genuinely curious. Do you allow players to take a 5-foot step and cast a spell safely? Take a 5-foot step and get something out of their pack? Take a 5-foot step and attack some creature they were not just adjacent to? Drink a potion? Stabilize a dying friend?
You know in an amusing twist of mildly amusing coincidence (it doesnt really classify as irony, this thread has convinced me to beef up my mini collection a little.
Some of the rules in the game are there to make the share experience easier and more efficient. I played Basic, Expert, 1e, and 2e, and I remember when the game used to punish you if you moved, and punish you if you ran away.
I played all of those, too, and I don't remember there being punishment attached to movement or running away. It wasn't until 3.0+, with the introduction of AoO, that the punishment began.
Am I getting so old I just don't remember things clearly?
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
I don't think there was in 1st ed. Seems like there was an optional rule in 2nd about a free attack when exiting melee. Been a long time, tho.
I played all of those, too, and I don't remember there being punishment attached to movement or running away. It wasn't until 3.0+, with the introduction of AoO, that the punishment began.
Am I getting so old I just don't remember things clearly?
My 1e PH and DMG are in my office at Paizo, so I can't check until then....
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Just one last comment about the 5'-step. I DO NOT allowed missile armed characters to 5'-step and shoot. This strikes me as the silliest thing since the most silliest things ever. What is the monster/NPC thinking "look the PC is stepping back and loading that bow, I'll think I'll stand here like a statue. Perhaps they won't notice me." Ridiculous. Move and shoot = fine. S.I am genuinely curious. Do you allow players to take a 5-foot step and cast a spell safely? Take a 5-foot step and get something out of their pack? Take a 5-foot step and attack some creature they were not just adjacent to? Drink a potion? Stabilize a dying friend?
Keep in mind the idea of spell casting in melee is abhorant to me, but the rules are the rules - as we now say. Immersion for me means not straying to far from what persons would really do in a given situation. Ever been in a fight for real? Last thing I would be wanting to do is attempting to knock back a can of coke, or digging through your bag looking for that snickers bar. Sure many things we can't possibly relate to, magic fire for example, but bashing we can.
So in answer I don't allow use of the 5'-step as a "get out of jail" free card. You want to try any of those things in my games you will be open to attack by the person with the sharpened piece of steel swinging wildly at you. Alternatively, use the Withdraw action, but being 5' away from an opponent does not put you in a magical sphere of protection in my games. I'm happy for it to move people about to 'position' themselves, but in a matless game such micro-management of position is assumed and mostly agreed in an unspoken fashion. Then again as I have stated that the tactical aspects introduced by the battle-mat do not interest me in an RPG. This is relfected, rightly or wrongly, in my DMing style.
S.
I just allow an attack of opportunity on 5-foot steps.
It's still worth taking that step, because an AoO for movement doesn't disrupt a spell. Step Up is still good for the same reason.
One thing it has done in my games unfortunately is to lower the number of "cool" actions my players would try. Very little jumping over chasms and swinging from chandeliers any more from my guys, but then they tend to prefer simple hack n slash nowadays to the older problem solving games we used to try. I think as we're getting older we're getting a little lazier :)Cheers
I identify greatly with the quoted statement. Really, laziness is the biggest problem with immersion I've found in my games. The battle mat is not to blame. I actually really like the mat, since it lets the actual numbers on your sheet matter (for example, Combat Reflexes doesn't much matter when you don't have a mat to define AoO's), and it makes a lot of stuff easier. For those wanting a more "realistic" experience, I recommend using a grid-free mat, and perhaps some terrain; you can use a tape measure for movement and such. I've had good experiences with this in the past (though we use a large chessex grid map nowadays).
As to the 5 foot step thing sited above, I used to have a problem with it, but then I got over it. Really, it's pretty sensible to hop back slightly to give yourself the space you need to take an action. You see it in action movies/books/shows all the time. "Venser stumbles back from his attacker, moving outside the creatures reach just far enough away to safely form the mudra of protection with his hands, barring any further attacks." Seems reasonable to me. Potions and such are a little weird, but I've seen their modern day equivalents (syringes) incorporated into many an action movie quite well, so I don't see why you couldn't do the same with dnd. "Robilar shoves himself away from the demon, avoiding its chains has he reaches into his belt pouch of holding, willing it to bring him a much needed potion of healing. With his thumb he breaks the seal on the thin vial, and sloshes the bitter liquid over his beard as he tries to get as much of it in his mouth as he can while keeping distance between him and his foe." 5 foot steps are also not a get out of jail free card, since they become a far less useful option when characters are in fights with multiple opponents. In the examples above, the situation would have been much different if the character had backed into the threat radius of another monster.
Keep in mind the whole combat round is happening all at once, with some people reacting faster then others. It's not that everyone moves for six seconds then politely waits for everyone else to do their turn.
The guy with the bow ducks out of the swordguy's reach and unloads on him while swordguy is still trying to catch up. Easy peasy.
Question: how would you suggest making battle grid set up faster?
1) I find that using generic tokens helps. Some people don't like this, but frankly I don't have the money to spend on 30 Orc minis that I might use 3 times over the course of a year. I do have a lot of minis, and I generally use them for named characters (pc or npc), rather than trying to precisely model each character. Also, this reduces the amount of junk you have to carry around; I personally have a little box filled with colored plastic "crystals", sorted by color, that has made my life much easier.
2) Mapping doesn't have to be precise, you can do stuff on the fly when necessary. Tell your players "Hey, I need 10-20 minutes to prep this, I wasn't expecting you to run off in this direction. Go take a food break." Then busily create a rough outline of what you want to do, and how you think things should go. Pull out some generic character numbers, bestiary monsters, etc. Pick a few minis you want to represent big bads for your encounter. Quickly pick out appropriate tiles or draw on the map, but don't worry about exact precision. Add flavor crystals (little details on the map, a couple traps [there's lists of them in the book, no work there], and anything else you feel like putting in to amuse yourself or your players). You're done. After you've done it a few times, you'll get even faster at it.
3) Make some wire templates for often used effects (20ft radius, 30ft cone, etc.), it speeds play up dramatically.
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Keep in mind the whole combat round is happening all at once, with some people reacting faster then others. It's not that everyone moves for six seconds then politely waits for everyone else to do their turn.
The guy with the bow ducks out of the swordguy's reach and unloads on him while swordguy is still trying to catch up. Easy peasy.
At that range at very least a huge penalty to hit should be in place. Bows were not the weapon of choice in melée.
My 1e PH and DMG are in my office at Paizo, so I can't check until then....
That's great, Sean. My 1E PH and DMG are just in the other room, but I'm too lazy to get up and find them. :)
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
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At that range at very least a huge penalty to hit should be in place. Bows were not the weapon of choice in melée.Keep in mind the whole combat round is happening all at once, with some people reacting faster then others. It's not that everyone moves for six seconds then politely waits for everyone else to do their turn.
The guy with the bow ducks out of the swordguy's reach and unloads on him while swordguy is still trying to catch up. Easy peasy.
If I'm stood about 9 feet away from you, I reckon I've got a good chance of hitting.
(9 feet because, character A is in the middle of his 5ft square, character b is in the middle of his, and their is a 5ft square between them)I've only been in fist-fights and I can tell you that even drunk people with zero combat training can dance out of your reach and pick up a weapon (empty bottle, as it happens) without you hitting them, and then fire (well, hurl) that weapon at you before you can stop them.
SO I reckon your 'realism' is unrealistic, but that's just me and my experience.
At that range at very least a huge penalty to hit should be in place. Bows were not the weapon of choice in melée.Keep in mind the whole combat round is happening all at once, with some people reacting faster then others. It's not that everyone moves for six seconds then politely waits for everyone else to do their turn.
The guy with the bow ducks out of the swordguy's reach and unloads on him while swordguy is still trying to catch up. Easy peasy.
If I'm stood about 9 feet away from you, I reckon I've got a good chance of hitting.
(9 feet because, character A is in the middle of his 5ft square, character b is in the middle of his, and their is a 5ft square between them)I've only been in fist-fights and I can tell you that even drunk people with zero combat training can dance out of your reach and pick up a weapon (empty bottle, as it happens) without you hitting them, and then fire (well, hurl) that weapon at you before you can stop them.
SO I reckon your 'realism' is unrealistic, but that's just me and my experience.
Yeah, but do you have Improved Unarmed Strike?
If you don't then you don't threaten adjacent squares, and thus, no AoO.
At that range at very least a huge penalty to hit should be in place. Bows were not the weapon of choice in melée.Keep in mind the whole combat round is happening all at once, with some people reacting faster then others. It's not that everyone moves for six seconds then politely waits for everyone else to do their turn.
The guy with the bow ducks out of the swordguy's reach and unloads on him while swordguy is still trying to catch up. Easy peasy.
5' is a little close for a ranged weapon. 8-10' is like shooting from across the room. If you can't shoot a bow 10' away from your target, I'm not sure what your problem is - Alice in Wonderland syndrome maybe?
Cartigan is right. Just for a frame of reference, people are about five and a half feet tall on average (males being closer to 6') so if you imagine two people lying down on the floor between you and your target, you realize how much room 10' is.
Cartigan is right. Just for a frame of reference, people are about five and a half feet tall on average (males being closer to 6') so if you imagine two people lying down on the floor between you and your target, you realize how much room 10' is.Depends. Is the Archer drawing an arrow, drawing back on the bow, and aiming in the chaos of battle while he's got a target who is not just standing there waiting to be shot, but is aggressively closing to attack?
Then, in the real world, 10 feet is probably way too close.
Not really, I think 10' of distance maintained within the 15' is fine.
The problem isn't with the distance, the problem in the case you just presented is the 'rounds' (I don't want to derail this into "Do Rounds Detract from Immersion"). Anyway, if you think about it, your arm is less then a yard(3') so 5' is too far for unarmed strikes and daggers.
I think they do. I'm as pro combat as anyone but I not big into playing with toys on a gameboard kind of defeats the whole purpose of gaming in the first place.
Huh? Playing on a gameboard defeats the purpose of gaming? I haz a confused...
But after years of gaming I see miniatures as the mark of amatuers and inexperienced gm's and players.
Ouch. Vice-versa right back at ya buddy.
I love using miniatures when I get the chance. I've spent countless hours painting pewter minis, as well as custom painting the pre-painted DnD ones as well. I've collected tons of gaming boards, battlemats, Dungeon Tiles, etc, so that when the player's get into a significant encounter, I can set up the scene so we have an "as close as possible" representable visual aid. "Aid" being the keyword here though.
Are miniatures necessary? Absolutely not. In fact, I run a VERY story-heavy game(Ravenloft), and we only get into an actual combat encounter maybe once every 4 or 5 sessions, and even those are mostly handled without minis for the sake of keeping the pace of the game up. But for special occasions, I like to break out the gameboards and give the player's a proper scale representation of what exactly they are up against; I go though a lot of work getting just the right mini to represent whatever foe they face.
I've been playing RPG's around 18 years now. If Kadath considers me an "amateur" because I use minis, then what exactly makes a "pro"?