Let's convert PF2 to the metric system, together!

[A Butter Idea]

Look, the imperial measurement system sucks. I know it, you know it, your grandma probably doesn't agree but is happy for you anyway. But it's about time that we stop pretending that the convention of 5-foot squares is doing us any real favors. If you've ever tried to convert a real blueprint of a building into a combat map, then you've probably learned the hard way that 5-foot squares are awfully big and unwieldy, often robbing spaces of the proper granularity needed to depict them. Hallways, aisles, and the like often need to be made way wider than reasonable just to accomodate the game mechanics. It can also be a real hassle to have to continuously mentally convert squares into distances and back again, even if the conversion is arithmetically simple.

Well, I say no more! If you're tired of the tyranny of the imperal measurement system in your games like me, then let's get to work on overhauling it to the metric system. I'll link a Google Doc below to keep track of all the proposed changes and issues that get brought up in this thread.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xoMex-h2lbVdMlJGoYeagN952aKZLdJRupFdkt- Ie8w/edit?tab=t.0

Now, I'll get this thread kicked off by starting with a set of rules of my own.

* 1 square is 1 square metre. If you're factoring in vertical movement, 1 cube is 1 cubic metre. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
* Any creature which had a Speed of 25 feet now has a Speed of 7 metres. 25 feet is approximately 7.6 metres. However, the average speed of a marathon runner of recreational to intermediate skill is around 7.5 miles/hour, which translates to about 201 metres/min, or 6.7 metres per stride action. I am going with the whole number in between these two figures.
* Squares that are orthogonally adjacent are, naturally, 1 metre apart.
* Squares that are diagonally adjacent are 1.4 metres apart. Any creature with a Speed of 7 metres can move 5 squares diagonally in one Stride.
* If you add vertical movement to the mix, two cubes that share only a single corner are 1.75 metres apart. Any creature with a Speed of 7 metres that moves down-over-and-across can move 4 cubes in one Stride (not factoring in difficult terrain).
* Because squares denote an area which is 43% of the size of a 5-foot by 5-foot square, Medium allies treat each other's spaces as difficult terrain. As RAW, no Medium creature can end its turn in the space of another Medium or larger creature.
* For Medium creatures, unarmed melee attacks or attacks with most agile/finesse weapons have a reach of 1 metre. Melee attacks with average-sized weapons (like the classic longsword) have a reach of 2 metres. Melee attacks with most weapons with the reach trait have a reach of 3 metres.
* Certain larger player ancestries (such as orcs) occupy a 2x2 space. Creatures that are Large in RAW occupy a 3x3 space. Huge creatures can be either 4x4 or 5x5 on a case-by-case basis. Gargantuan creatures occupy a 6x6 space.

[Teridax]

On one hand, the assumptions made to round the distances and speeds here are sound. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether Speeds of 7 meters would really be the best to handle, and players who are unused to the metric system are likely to chafe with this change for similar reasons to us metric-users. I feel this is one of those instances where it might be worth taking another leaf out of D&D 4e's book and abstract distances as squares, where a square's worth of distance is 5 feet, and whatever Speed you have is the number of squares you can move. It's not a real measurement system, but for the purposes of measuring distances in encounters, it doesn't need to be!

[Taja the Barbarian]

1 square is currently 1.5 meters.

1 square = 1 meter is way too tight quarters for adventuring: Remember, PCs will need space to actually swing most weapons, and tight quarters like this should strongly encourage the use of thrusting piercing weapons (this is why ancient armies used to favor spears and short swords: You don't need a lot of space to thrust with them, so you can pack your troops into tight formations).

1 square = 2 meters is far more practical for metric adventuring, but this is going in the opposite direction you desire...

[Ascalaphus]

You can quietly drop most measurements anyway.

One square is just one square. A speed of 25 is a speed of 5 squares. A range of 60 is just 12 squares.

We stopped measuring weight in pounds or grams, switching to bulk. De facto, we only care about distance in squares anyway.