Over and Under. Or the Woe Called 3D Combat

[Isil-zha]

The question in short: How are you handling 3-dimensional combat situations? Is there any material out there with some guidelines?

For a game full of flying and burrowing creatures and options for underwater combat, I find PF handles 3D-combat poorly. I don't mean that the rules for it are bad, they rather seem to be non-existent. Most of the material in the CRB concerns 2D battlemat situations only.

So far, whenever this came up in games I participated in (on either side of the screen) it has been a source of debate and frustration. It already starts with somebody climbing the walls and ceilings of a dungeon.

How far up can a character attack? Can a PC use her move action to jump and try to hit her opponent that way with the remaining standard action? If so, are there any penalties to attack rolls?

Do you extend the 5ft square abstraction to 5ft cubes in terms of a creatures space even though this seems a bit weird? Is it just as easy to attack upward and downward as it is left and right, considering there are no facing rules? Does that mean the reach of a creature is still the same in each direction even though they usually have their claws at the bottom portion of their bodies?

There are certainly more questions, but I want to cover the basics before I get into more specialised situations.

[Ckorik]

We use a pizza 'thingy' (the plastic pronged thing in the middle of like a papa johns pizza) and put the person on that for flying/levitate.

after that it's a bit complicated - typically just remember that your 'combat zone' is all 5 foot squares - even up or down - and that means everything is at a right triangle to everything else at all times (for combat resolution).

Knowing that you can use a(squared) + b(squared) = c(squared) and a calculator to do the math to give you distances.

For instances - 5 foot away and 5 feet in the air = 7.5 feet from the character - if you follow the rest of the grid anything less than 10 feet away is within your 'attack space' - so that's within melee.

5 foot away and 10 foot up is 11.18 feet away so it's 'outside' of a normal melee range but within reach weapon distance.

for flying creatures if they are trying to attack each other they (outside of trying to be very complex) are assumed to be 'level' enough to just call it a normal grid map (but in the air).

You can use the 'right triangle' method to get the range for bows and spells as well when there is a wall or other elevation feature to the map - also remember to use the 'on higher ground' feature:

Quote:

On higher ground +1 attack

If you want a nice house rule give bows an additional 20 feet of range increment when elevated at least 10 feet above the enemy.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

If you want quick and dirty,

Distance = long side + half of short side

It's usually very close to Pythagoras, and can be calculated in your head.

As for the rest, here's what I do....

Yes, you threatened a 3d space arou d you. If there's no facing, then there's no facing.
Yes, you can jump and attack (once). The rules are under acrobatics, generally it's vertical height x4. If you can hit a 20, then you can hit the creature in the 10-15 ft block.

[CalebTGordan]

I use a d100 to keep track of elevation. I pick one level of the map to be 0 elevation and everything else is assigned elevation in increments of 5. As creatures fly they can rise or lower their elevation as normal for the rules, but the d100 keeps track of which elevation they are at. You must be within five feet of elevation to melee something.

[Whale_Cancer]

I find it funny that, if you use the 5 foot cube rule (as it seems you must), a number of adventurers extend up into the square above them. This isn't much of a problem... however, large creatures are much more problematic. I imagine 10x10 is reasonable for large (long) creature but not for large (tall) creatures, with the problem getting more severe as you get into the larger sizes. How a large (long) creature attacks into the air with a bite or claw is anyone's guess.

[Rathendar]

Whale_Cancer wrote:

I find it funny that, if you use the 5 foot cube rule (as it seems you must), a number of adventurers extend up into the square above them. This isn't much of a problem... however, large creatures are much more problematic. I imagine 10x10 is reasonable for large (long) creature but not for large (tall) creatures, with the problem getting more severe as you get into the larger sizes. How a large (long) creature attacks into the air with a bite or claw is anyone's guess.

Wouldn't this be in part represented by the smaller Reach said (long) creatures possess in comparison with the (tall) ones?

They just can't rear/slash/snap as high.

[Whale_Cancer]

Rathendar wrote:

Whale_Cancer wrote:

I find it funny that, if you use the 5 foot cube rule (as it seems you must), a number of adventurers extend up into the square above them. This isn't much of a problem... however, large creatures are much more problematic. I imagine 10x10 is reasonable for large (long) creature but not for large (tall) creatures, with the problem getting more severe as you get into the larger sizes. How a large (long) creature attacks into the air with a bite or claw is anyone's guess.

Wouldn't this be in part represented by the smaller Reach said (long) creatures possess in comparison with the (tall) ones?

They just can't rear/slash/snap as high.

Partially.

Picture a triceratops trying to gore a pterodactyl 10 feet off the ground. Kind of silly.

The game, however, is an abstraction. I wouldn't introduce house rules to fix weird situations like this.

[Isil-zha]

I wasn't so much looking for calculations of distances (the math is really my smallest problem) but rather how to efficiently resolve 3D combat without too much of a hassle and discussions slowing things down unnecessarily.

@rkraus2: for the jumping part, how do you handle the attack role, this "maneuver" should be a lot harder than regular combat on the ground, I find it really frustrating that there seem to be no rules covering this kind of combat.

@whale_cancer: exactly, 5ft cubes are somewhat weird considering the actual height given for most medium creatures. Going up to 10ft however already breaks down for large creatures (distinguishing between long and tall is a solution but, makes things less streamlined) and for huge creatures it gets even worse (dragons not really being long or tall but something in between... seems like hell.)

[Adamantine Dragon]

We extend the 2D grid into 3 dimensions. We have many combats that deal with flight, ledges, bridges, etc.

It sometimes takes some time to visualize the situation so you can make a ruling. I haven't come up with a way yet to position things accurately in 3D without cluttering up the battlemat. So visualization is usually the best approach.

[Jacob Saltband]

Actual rules for these types of combat would real nice, especially if your playing in PFS. That way when you have this type of combat you dont get different rulings from every table.

[Jacob Saltband]

Its somewhat suprising to me that thread like this one, people asking some clarification on how rules might working in somewhat unorthodox situations, only gets a few responses. While threads about spell component uses get several hundred posts.

[kmal2t]

the mathematics of going into three dimensions with vectors and all sorts of other stuff would way overcomplicate a PnP RPG more than is necessary. Just wing it and eyeball it when necessary and ya have a die that shows the elevation of people in 10s of feet

[eakratz]

We sometimes use the clear cases that come with dice to set the minis on to represent flying. A die next to it can represent the height of the flier. When calculating distance you can use methods mentioned above for diagonals.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Isil-zha wrote:

I wasn't so much looking for calculations of distances (the math is really my smallest problem) but rather how to efficiently resolve 3D combat without too much of a hassle and discussions slowing things down unnecessarily.

@rkraus2: for the jumping part, how do you handle the attack role, this "maneuver" should be a lot harder than regular combat on the ground, I find it really frustrating that there seem to be no rules covering this kind of combat.

@whale_cancer: exactly, 5ft cubes are somewhat weird considering the actual height given for most medium creatures. Going up to 10ft however already breaks down for large creatures (distinguishing between long and tall is a solution but, makes things less streamlined) and for huge creatures it gets even worse (dragons not really being long or tall but something in between... seems like hell.)

The attack roll is just a regular attack roll, sometimes with a bonus for charging or higher ground, as appropriate. The tricky part is the acrobatics check, it's a DC 20 to go up five feet, which would allow a character to be in the 5-10 ft layer of squares, and therefore attack the 10-15 layer.

I honestly use the acrobatics skill as written, and it works ok. Players catch on quickly that javelins and long spears are cheap and effective. I've never noticed a shortcoming in the rules, but you do need to look at combat, movement, and the acrobatics skill to find all of the relevant pieces. And it IS harder than normal this way, and you do NOT get to make a full attack.

Those colored magnet things from Alea tools are useful, you can color code elevation, or just stack them like poker chips.