Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

The homebrew forum

Moderator: Moderators

PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

Right my current favoured idea for dealing with position and ranges for my next build of my home brew system will most likely work like this.

Any combat area will be divided in an arbitrary set of areas depending upon tactical importance, surface area and navigability. As mentioned elsewhere a room with a chasm and a bridge crossing the chasm may be broken up into the floor on one side, the floor on the other, the chasm itself and the bridge.

These areas are not of a particularly fixed size but are basically intended to be rather big. Their measure is their relevance to character movement (and later to range), a standard move action moves a character from one area (lets call them "Squares" even if they aren't) to an ajoining square. I dare anyone to explain precisely how this aspect is a major change in anything other than keeping the numbers smaller and making the map a little more relevant to topography.

Squares are used to measure ranges. Short range type attacks target characters that share your square. Longer range attacks can target characters in ajoining squares or further away. THIS is a major change, not so much for long ranges, as after all many systems tend to have relatively large range increments anyway. But it does take a swathe of ranges from 0 to 30 feet or so (or something like that, remember its really an abstract measure) and treats them all the same. But like I said elsewhere. What have the d20 reach rules done for me lately?

They are also used to measure areas of effect of spells or the like. An area of effect can be all targets within a square (if its powerful as hell). Or it can be a set number of targets within a square. Some areas may spread over a number of squares. For instance a truely ridiculous explosion might attack everything in several squares, or everything in several squares and some things in outlying squares while a line or scything beam like attack might effect a limited number of targets in several squares (say 3 a square for several squares in a row). This is functionally almost identical to areas of effect for something like d20. The difference being anything with an area smaller than a square effects a fixed maximum of potential targets rather than a stupidly small area. Bigger effects can target everything in a square and still have all the unballanced goodness of packing a 20 foot radius tin can wall to wall with mummy lords before dropping a fire ball in the middle (as if thats a good thing).

Character positioning within squares can be one of two states. Static and dynamic. Placing a character into one state or another is no big deal but is part of your action during or at the end of the PRIOR turn (note this is all part of a simultaneous resolution system). Being in a dynamic position means you are in the square but potentially can be in ANY part of the square. This has advantages (for now I'm thinking you need to be in this state to make short range attacks on other characters in the square) but also disadvantages as it makes you an easier target for area effects and long range attacks. The static state basically exists for taking cover. You stop moving around (meaning you can't chase down bouncey dynamic characters) you become a sitting duck for dynamic characters in the square to attack, but you gain protection in the form of cover against ranged attacks and area effects. Being static may even add a bonus to aiming on some long range attacks (heck why not?).

Now I COULD do relative cover under this and say the static character then only gets cover relative to other characters by exact position (draw a line between attacker and defender and grant cover depending on the intermediary objects, dynamic attackers and defenders treating themselves as anywhere within their squares to the attackers favor). Which would end up with something not unlike the highly relative cover system in d20, in which cover is more of a position relative state you can enter that has little to do with actual squares at all.

But personally I couldn't be assed and think I'll instead go with it being a state you can just enter regardless (or possibly with some none too stringent "add your own flavour text as you perform the action" requirement) as that will generally work much more smoothly and have more reliable results.

Anyway lets try some simple questions and answers on this big fat square thing...

wrote:However you proposed adjucating cover by using sublocations like "behind the dumpster in square 1-A". That is fundamentally opposed to the basic idea of your location being determined by the square you are in.


I did. Because taking cover "behind the dumpster" is what the player says to the GM or visa versa. Its the action they want to take and damnit a good system should probably allow it. d20 with its standard character scale squares allow it. Of course the squares are standard character sized, not dumpster sized, not non standard character sized, so the action is not actually particularly relavant to squares, because at best only one of the objects involved is actually the size of a square and some of them may even take up partial squares.

Doing it my way with the option of position relevant cover also does it, and again because things may be of (in this case almost always are) of partial square size cover has about the same lack of relavance to the "grid" as it does in d20.

Alternately you can go all the way with my preferred way of doing it and just allow them to take the cover and not start sitting down with rulers and pieces of string because your annoying 100 square by 100 square chess board is utterly innapropriate for dealing with objects of infinitely variable size and shape.

wrote:So you think when the ceiling collapses in a cave it should only bury a select number of targets and not effect others at all, even though they are in the same location?


In reverse order...
Yes
No
I don't care
Yeah great like dropping an avalanche on the whole adventure is fun for anyone anyway.

wrote:You can not have area effects not measured in whole combat areas (which may be fine, depending on how big you make them).


Something that effects a limited number of targets in an area is way of representing an area effect that does not fill the entire area. It also means you can represent some fun exotic area effects like nice jagged lightning bolts as several targets in each square in a row of squares get zapped even if they aren't standing in a dumb row. Why represent a beam of raw power as a dull 5' by 100' line as d20 does when this system allows you to describe it as actually sweeping the beam in a scouring line of death accross a swathe of battle field as it effects set numbers of targets in its range of squares?

Also you can use this system on to make small area effects (burning hands, whirlwind attack etc...) basically the same as multiple attacks on multiple targets. Which I suspect is really a good thing.

wrote:You will have very deadly combat as everyone within one area can and will gang up on a single opponent. And you make guarding someone from physical attacks near impossible.


This is an issue I haven't thought to much about but is a good point.

Except. Look at most other systems, like d20. It is not hard to take the entire adventuring party and surround a single target. Nor is it hard to pick a single adventurer and drop all the available enemy attacks on them.

When I say not hard, I mean insanely easy. So basically nothings being lost here. And unless attackers take some sort of extra action to actually pin you down being swarmed doesn't so easily trap a character and prevent them from maneuvering, making their actions or escaping (because after all its a more dynamic sprawling melee rather than a "and I stand their and cop it from the four cardinal directions and the diagonals in between with no gaps to escape through because everyone is square shaped and fills their grid spaces to the brim"

wrote:As to whether the benfits of such a system outweigh the downsides, well, that is a matter of personal preference.


Maybe, but if so thats a rather surperflous statement.

Lets try this. It makes the game quicker. It makes the game more dramatic and cinematic. It makes it less hung up on some really insane chessboard mentalities where sometimes you move like a rook and sometimes you move like a horsie and when its the other players go you sit still and take it like a man.

It also moves away from what are probably archaic left overs of wargaming where lightning bolt exists to punish people who rank their units too deep or allow mages to flank units ranked too long and fireball exists to punish people who rank them too square.

But in the end its not just personal opinion its also a matter of context. This system exists because it supports other aspects of my mechanics, like a light fast simulataneous resolution system. It also exists in a nice vague abstract way because thats part of a whole of system approach I've been into for a long time now.

My games now, and probably forever, measure using utterly abstract mechanic relevant units. 5 foot squares aren't abstract. They make everyone wonder why they occupy a single five foot space for everyone elses turns, why everyone uniformly moves 6 squares as a standard action and why everyone is functionally square shaped and all the walls and columns are functionally five foot thick (or functionally the same as infinitely thin) with all the rooms being oblongs measured in five foot increments or broken down as such.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »


Your basic system (paragraphs 2 through 4):
This works just fine, yes.


Area attacks:
Your system does have issues with area attacks, however much you want to state otherwise. You create area effects through flavor text, not mechanics. Obviously this is only an issue if you actually want to have true area effects with a size of (insert a number here) big squares. If you do want frontal arc area effects (burning hands) or 10 foot radius area effects inside of 40 foot squares your system will not work. If you don't care whether those effects are possible it will work just fine.


Position within a square:
How the heck do you take cover inside a square? You say "just declare you stand behind that object". What is keeping that guy next to you from also declaring just that?
your solution so far is "just have a special rule for taking cover". Then of course you need another rule for bodyguarding. Another for working out whether the cover actions allows you to take cover from an invisible/hidden attacker. Another for determining whether a single orc can block or hinder your line of sight between squares .... you can see where this is heading.


Ganging up:
Yes, your system allows for easier escapes (that is, if you get rid of attacks of opportunity). What fundamentally changes however is how well you can protect yourself from being surrounded and ganged up on.

You say that was never hard in DnD in the first case. I disagree. In fact, not needing to move in to gain full attacks is the prime strength of an archer. Characters regularly invest a lot of effort into being able to move and full attack, because the difference in damage output is usually huge. If your attack system works differently this effect may be larger, smaller, nonexistant or whatever. But if you just use the DnD system with larger attack areas I predict a character death in the first round of every other combat, simply because everyone gets to make full attacks with a free choice of targets, every round.

And while in DnD you can in fact block a door by putting the guy in full plate armor into the doorway or you can just interpose a bodyguard between the enemy and someone you want to protect that does not work in your system.


Upsides/downsides:
I have no clue why you feel the need to belittle my statement as superfluous and then elaborate on it, but let's look at what you have to say.

- making the game quicker
I am not sure about that one. If you are willing to lose some functionality, yes. Otherwise you end up making special rules for special cases and will probably end up slowing the game down.

- getting away from area attacks
I do not know why you would think that not being able to perform a certain kind of action under your system is actually an upside. It does not necessarily have to be a downside, but surely being able to do more with a system is better than not being able to, no?
Luckily your system does not actually handle area attacks inherently worse though. Less detailed yes, but not necessarily worse.

- being better suited to your new system
Beats me. I don't know your new system. From the little I have seen so far I doubt it though.



Fundamentally increasing your square size (or rather, minimum measurement unit) does the following:
- The game gets faster (You can draw up maps faster, taking turns is faster)
- The game gets less detailed (both in what you can do and in how precisely you can do it)

The game getting faster is a usually a good thing, the game getting less detailed is usually a bad thing (both only up a certain point of course).
But I don't see how you can state that you do not lose anything when making squares bigger, even when you want to create a fast-paced system. You will lose out on tactical options and you will place constraints on the rest of your system. On the other hand you will make the game faster. Whether the tradeoff is worth it can only be decided by you. And that is what I mean when I say "that is a matter of personal preference".
Murtak
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

Murtak wrote:You create area effects through flavor text, not mechanics.


For the last time. "up to 3 guys" IS an area of effect. On top of that it has relatively little functional difference to an area of 3 squares in a game where all the characters are 1 square in size. (other than being less fiddly)

wrote:How the heck do you take cover inside a square?


I dunno, how the heck to you take a full defence action or declare a distinct difference between going someone with a dagger or grappling them and going them with a dagger?

Its a beneficial abstraction. I just love those things.

wrote:You say "just declare you stand behind that object". What is keeping that guy next to you from also declaring just that?


Do you mean whats to stop the other guy benefiting from the same cover? Nothing, its just an action anyone can take, a state you can enter anywhere. If you mean whats to stop him attacking you by going where you are, then again nothing, as long as he doesn't hope to benefit from cover in the process.

wrote:your solution so far is "just have a special rule for taking cover". Then of course you need another rule for bodyguarding. Another for working out whether the cover actions allows you to take cover from an invisible/hidden attacker. Another for determining whether a single orc can block or hinder your line of sight between squares .... you can see where this is heading.


Well oddly... d20 has a special rule for taking cover (and a different one for concealment of all things!). It has special rules that cover intercepting attacks (held actions) which really don't work so good. It has rules to cover the effects of invisible/hidden attackers (though it escapes me how this would be a big deal when if you are permitted to take cover at any time and in any place). D20 also has special rules determining if a single orc or the like can block or hinder a variety of effects. It also has a lot more special cases and obscure rules.

Since you argue that complexity is good then rules covering these various special cases must also be good. Certainly they are not without a great deal of precedent.

wrote:Yes, your system allows for easier escapes (that is, if you get rid of attacks of opportunity).


No attacks of opportunity, in a way. Everyone gets ONE action per round which happens simultaneously, earlier resolved actions do not prevent later actions, therefore moving away as your action does still allow those who were in range of you to make one last attack. But then that is their action for the round. They might be better off following or trying to grab you, but then if you have the higher initiative and resolve your escape after their actions they miss out on that choice.

wrote:What fundamentally changes however is how well you can protect yourself from being surrounded and ganged up on.


Which under d20 works only by a contrived use of the not so crash hot initiative held action business or stacking up meat shields like pawns in front of a king. Anything short of that is basically not especially amazing and even that doesn't make any guarantees of protection.

wrote:Characters regularly invest a lot of effort into being able to move and full attack, because the difference in damage output is usually huge.


Thats got relatively little to do with ganging up on one target. Either you get your full attacks in some contrived way or you don't, only rarely does selection of target make a difference there, so if most of you have to move to find a target to attack anyway there is rarely anything stopping you from all moving to the same target.

wrote:If your attack system works differently this effect may be larger, smaller, nonexistant or whatever.


Right now I haven't decided if there might be an action that permits a move AND an attack at the end of that move, but beyond that I have certainly decided there are no "full attacks" there is only one action per round not one and a half with the option of trading in the half for a boost to the action.

wrote:And while in DnD you can in fact block a door by putting the guy in full plate armor into the doorway or you can just interpose a bodyguard between the enemy and someone you want to protect that does not work in your system.


Interposing is a problem I may have to look into for my system, but oddly more for the way I handle initiative and simultaneous resolution than for positioning reasons. As far as big squares go if there is an "I guard the wizard" action or state then there is no reason it cannot extend to "I guard the door" "I guard the bridge" etc...

wrote:I have no clue why you feel the need to belittle my statement as superfluous and then elaborate on it,


I must be deeply conflicted.

wrote:I am not sure about that one. If you are willing to lose some functionality, yes. Otherwise you end up making special rules for special cases and will probably end up slowing the game down.


All up I suspect I will end up with less, or up to similar special cases to d20. But. The numbers will be smaller and easier to handle.

Thing is you can gain speed and simplicity not just by reforming and abandoning rules but also by just making the maths easier. For instance the d20 experience system could be made a little easier to use if people realized that most experience awards or costs below about 300 are fairly petty and took all the numbers in the system and divided it by that value to create a system that is functionally identical but opperates on a set of smaller numbers. (1000 experience points to reach level 2? How about somewhere between 3 and 6, much nicer wooo!)

wrote:I do not know why you would think that not being able to perform a certain kind of action under your system is actually an upside.


Ah, because you can still do it and because it no longer relies on contrived positioning that either makes it suspiciously easy or suspiciously hard to maximize the effectiveness of your rook spell, your bishop spell or your horsie spell. (then repeat that sentence with a possible "unfairly" in place of the suspiciously and say it was all about game balance and character ability comparisons).

wrote:Beats me. I don't know your new system. From the little I have seen so far I doubt it though.


Any actual basis for that? You know, work in progress, substaniated criticism appreciated.

wrote:Fundamentally increasing your square size (or rather, minimum measurement unit) does the following:
- The game gets faster (You can draw up maps faster, taking turns is faster)
- The game gets less detailed (both in what you can do and in how precisely you can do it)


Well. Game gets faster. Pretty much. Of course like a lot of gaming groups out there mine already doesn't use a grid (indeed in fifteen years and a heck of a lot of groups I've yet to play with one that does) so its not really a revolution there. But why not formalize that and make a system which supports it.

The game gets less detailed and less precise?

Hold on up there. Detail, or at least tactical detail, or as you put it there "what people can do" is entirely separate to how precisely you can do it. RPG or even strategy combat games can be boiled down to a set of choices, states and results. For instance in d20 a character who can move into one of the 4 and two thirds squares that provide them with cover or opt to do something else and stay in the open. He can do this to the detail of five foot increments but its the same take cover/don't take cover tactical choice that a less precise system offers.

Less precision can even lead to more detail of choices and easier balance in a system, as in the way I describe you could handle lightning bolts under this set up.

wrote:You will lose out on tactical options


As just pointed out. No.

wrote:and you will place constraints on the rest of your system.


Yes. But then choosing 5 foot squares places constraints on my system as well. Every time you define a rule in the system you place constraints on future rules. Thats unavoidable and obvious.

wrote:Whether the tradeoff is worth it can only be decided by you. And that is what I mean when I say "that is a matter of personal preference".


And what I mean to say is this isn't trading off what you seem to think it is trading off. Indeed do it the right way and you can get less precision (good) AND more tactical detail (also good) leaving you with... no trade off at all, just benefit. Weee!
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »

PhoneLobster wrote:
Murtak wrote:You create area effects through flavor text, not mechanics.

For the last time. "up to 3 guys" IS an area of effect.

Bullshit. What is so hard to understand here? Area attacks attack an area. Anyone in the area gets hit. Feel free to make up a term for Magic Missile style multiple target attacks, but those sure aren't area attacks.



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:You say "just declare you stand behind that object". What is keeping that guy next to you from also declaring just that?

Do you mean whats to stop the other guy benefiting from the same cover? Nothing, its just an action anyone can take, a state you can enter anywhere. If you mean whats to stop him attacking you by going where you are, then again nothing, as long as he doesn't hope to benefit from cover in the process.

In other words, you can take cover against someone on a perfectly level field, shared with only that single opponent?



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:your solution so far is "just have a special rule for taking cover". Then of course you need another rule for bodyguarding. Another for working out whether the cover actions allows you to take cover from an invisible/hidden attacker. Another for determining whether a single orc can block or hinder your line of sight between squares .... you can see where this is heading.

Well oddly... d20 has a special rule for ... (snip) It also has a lot more special cases and obscure rules.

So DnD sucks in this regard, too. Your point? Oh right, you wanted to create a faster, simpler system. Yet your first reaction to any problem is to yell "that's no problem!" and to create a special rule. Not only does that mean there is in fact a problem with the system, but is also makes the game slower each time you do it.



PhoneLobster wrote:Since you argue that complexity is good then rules covering these various special cases must also be good. Certainly they are not without a great deal of precedent.

Bullshit. I never said so and unless you are deluded you must realize that. All I have said is that extra options are good.



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:Yes, your system allows for easier escapes (that is, if you get rid of attacks of opportunity).

No attacks of opportunity, in a way. Everyone gets ONE action per round which happens simultaneously, earlier resolved actions do not prevent later actions,

Whoa, wait a second. You mean you can get grappled and then, after the grapple is successful you start moving?



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:What fundamentally changes however is how well you can protect yourself from being surrounded and ganged up on.

Which under d20 works only by a contrived use of the not so crash hot initiative held action business or stacking up meat shields like pawns in front of a king. Anything short of that is basically not especially amazing and even that doesn't make any guarantees of protection.

Or, in other words, DnD does indeed allow for this, while your system does not. Why don't you just for once acknowledge this instead of always going "yeah, well, that does not really matter"?



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:Characters regularly invest a lot of effort into being able to move and full attack, because the difference in damage output is usually huge.

Thats got relatively little to do with ganging up on one target. Either you get your full attacks in some contrived way or you don't, only rarely does selection of target make a difference there, so if most of you have to move to find a target to attack anyway there is rarely anything stopping you from all moving to the same target.

Your games must be a lot different from mine then.

Regardless of how likely it is I can however tell you that anytime either side (the player or their NPC opponents) gets to take multiple full attacks on the same target someone dies. And even if you get rid of full attacks the basic principle remains: Allowing unconstrained target selection makes the game deadlier.



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:And while in DnD you can in fact block a door by putting the guy in full plate armor into the doorway or you can just interpose a bodyguard between the enemy and someone you want to protect that does not work in your system.

Interposing is a problem I may have to look into for my system, but oddly more for the way I handle initiative and simultaneous resolution than for positioning reasons. As far as big squares go if there is an "I guard the wizard" action or state then there is no reason it cannot extend to "I guard the door" "I guard the bridge" etc...

As I previously stated - already we are in making-special-rules territory. Don't you think that if you want all of those special actions to work it would be preferable to have them work within the basic rules?



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:I am not sure about that one. If you are willing to lose some functionality, yes. Otherwise you end up making special rules for special cases and will probably end up slowing the game down.

All up I suspect I will end up with less, or up to similar special cases to d20. But. The numbers will be smaller and easier to handle.

Huh? What numbers will be smaller?



PhoneLobster wrote:Thing is you can gain speed and simplicity not just by reforming and abandoning rules but also by just making the maths easier. For instance the d20 experience system could be made a little easier to use if people realized that most experience awards or costs below about 300 are fairly petty and took all the numbers in the system and divided it by that value to create a system that is functionally identical but opperates on a set of smaller numbers. (1000 experience points to reach level 2? How about somewhere between 3 and 6, much nicer wooo!)

What, you think the experience point system in DnD is significantly slowing the game down? Are you handing out experience for every monster slain in the midst of combat or what?



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:I do not know why you would think that not being able to perform a certain kind of action under your system is actually an upside.

Ah, because you can still do it (snip)

So you think just because you can make special cases for actions your system does not inherently support that it will all work out? You can make up special cases for anything that does not work perfectly in any game. That does not make the systems of those games any better. In fact I would argue that you can judge the quality of a system by how few special cases it needs (among other criteria).



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:Beats me. I don't know your new system. From the little I have seen so far I doubt it though.

Any actual basis for that? You know, work in progress, substaniated criticism appreciated.

Oh, I tried, but any points I made you brushed aside with "but I don't care about this" or "I can make up a special rule for this".



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:Fundamentally increasing your square size (or rather, minimum measurement unit) does the following:
- The game gets faster (You can draw up maps faster, taking turns is faster)
- The game gets less detailed (both in what you can do and in how precisely you can do it)

Well. Game gets faster. Pretty much. Of course like a lot of gaming groups out there mine already doesn't use a grid (indeed in fifteen years and a heck of a lot of groups I've yet to play with one that does) so its not really a revolution there. But why not formalize that and make a system which supports it.

Where are you getting the crazy idea that I don't support making faster and easier game systems? Heck, in the very next sentence I state that the game getting faster is good.



PhoneLobster wrote:The game gets less detailed and less precise?

Hold on up there. Detail, or at least tactical detail, or as you put it there "what people can do" is entirely separate to how precisely you can do it.

Which is why I listed those separately.



PhoneLobster wrote:RPG or even strategy combat games can be boiled down to a set of choices, states and results. For instance in d20 a character who can move into one of the 4 and two thirds squares that provide them with cover or opt to do something else and stay in the open. He can do this to the detail of five foot increments but its the same take cover/don't take cover tactical choice that a less precise system offers.

Actually it is fundamentally impossible to give someone cover from something inside his own square. If that square size gets larger than the space you occupy one use of cover is lost. As you go up in square size more options get lost. Flanking for example does not have much meaning beyond a certain square size.





PhoneLobster wrote:Less precision can even lead to more detail of choices and easier balance in a system, as in the way I describe you could handle lightning bolts under this set up.

Your proposed "better lightning bolts" work just fine if you introduce them into DnD. However DnD does not only have the option of handling true-area-effect-fireballs (which would be one-square area effects under your system and thus work fine) but also flame strikes (which are smaller than the smallest resolution of your system) and burning hands (which is flat out impossible in your system).



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:You will lose out on tactical options

As just pointed out. No.

As just pointed out, yes.



PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:and you will place constraints on the rest of your system.

Yes. But then choosing 5 foot squares places constraints on my system as well. Every time you define a rule in the system you place constraints on future rules. Thats unavoidable and obvious.

Ok. Insert a "more" in front of contraints. What I meant to say is, the smaller your square size is the more precisely you can judge relative position (duh) and the easier it becomes to create rules that rely on relative positions.
Murtak
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

Murtak wrote:Bullshit. What is so hard to understand here? Area attacks attack an area.


Double bullshit. Attacks are all about affecting characters not abstract geometry. The functional measurement of a powers potential targets is ALWAYS in characters. I've tried to explain this in terms that anyone could understand and done so with explicit examples, but unless you can pull your tape measure out you just don't get it.

wrote:In other words, you can take cover against someone on a perfectly level field, shared with only that single opponent?


As explained at excrutiating length you so kindly forget because it was one whole post ago that is not an inherint requirement of having a similar big squares system but in my case I want it to work like that. If you don't like it too bad.

wrote:So DnD sucks in this regard, too. Your point? Oh right, you wanted to create a faster, simpler system. Yet your first reaction to any problem is to yell "that's no problem!" and to create a special rule. Not only does that mean there is in fact a problem with the system, but is also makes the game slower each time you do it.


My point is simple, theres a relatively simplistic relatively fast moving small scale square system and gosh, surprise surprise exactly how DOES the system handle all these things you claim mine can only handle with "special" rules (personally I'd just call them rules). Why, it uses special rules of course, and you know why, because you cannot solve these situations with little squares alone.

Feel free to explain to me how little square cover can work, especially interacting with infinitely variable sized and shaped objects and characters such that it actual requires no other rules beyond little squares?

Precisely and accurately explain to me how in a small square system the small squares, all alone, grant the ability to guard the wizard? Or block the door (let alone interact with unblocking it)?

I won't ask you to explain how it solves your area issues because its clear you can't grasp that at all.

Me describing a way to do something in that system, its called elaborating, and if a rule is required to handle a certain kind of action then damnit it is required. Without a "special" cover mechanic there is no cover in ANY system, without a "special" area attack mechanic there are no area attacks, without an interception mechanic there is no interception, SMALL SQUARES DO NOT SOLVE ANY OF THAT.

This next bit is where your problem lies...

wrote:Bullshit. I never said so and unless you are deluded you must realize that. All I have said is that extra options are good.


Extra options require extra rules. They don't have to be altogether too complex, they can be fairly uniform and fit within a similar and hopefully intuitive frame work but for another option there needs to be another rule. Without a grapple rule there is not grapple simple as that.


wrote:Whoa, wait a second. You mean you can get grappled and then, after the grapple is successful you start moving?


Part of my simultaneous initiative system in action there. Already covered in the thread that spawned this no less.

Short answer. Yes.

Long answer. You are not grappeling then moving, you grapple at the same time they move. So in order to grab them you go with them, think of it as a running tackle.

wrote:Or, in other words, DnD does indeed allow for this, while your system does not. Why don't you just for once acknowledge this instead of always going "yeah, well, that does not really matter"?


Let me elaborate on why the d20 way of handling intercepting attackers against the wizard is bad.

Method 1) I hold an action and attack those who approach.

Holding actions kind of sucks. You essentially end up paying multiple actions for potential partial actions, its not nice. Of course thats mostly about initiative and has about dick all to do with square size, and is something I need to look at for a solution, though I have some ideas.

Method 2) place pawns in front of the king.

d20 doesn't allow you to move through a square with an oppenent in. So place the wizards buddies in front of him and the enemy can't get through, right?

As long as you fill squares along all the potential paths to the wizard. And lets make sure thats two characters thick if over run on a charge works as it was probably intended to. Of course you can thin the line out a bit by exploiting attacks of opportunity but you had better be nice and successful with those.

Seems to me that once some form of initiative solution is reached a system with less precise placement will be less problematic and complex than the above for this kind of action, of course it will require, you know RULES but protecting the wizard will no longer require about 50 infantry men with longspears.

wrote:Allowing unconstrained target selection makes the game deadlier.


Most small square role playing games, like d20 have close enough to unrestrained target selection as it is. Your "different games" don't address the point I raised unless your character regularly start within full attack range of targets they would rather not select. And thats pretty damned contrived.

wrote:if you want all of those special actions to work it would be preferable to have them work within the basic rules?


Perhaps I wasn't clear enough for you. "all" those special actions would be one action. The "I guard something and interpose myself between it and attackers" action. I've got a halfway clear idea how it would work and its clear enough that it should have a nice generic application.

wrote:Huh? What numbers will be smaller?


The very most basic ones. Instead of 30 feet and 6 squares its no fixed distance and 1 area. A huge improvement? Not at first, but in reference to the topic that originally brought it up (tracking simultaneous chargers) it makes life a heck of a lot easier, and is a much better solution than the intitially suggested idea of making squares even smaller and breaking actions into even more tiny pieces.

I've messed with this a bit in the past and everywhere I look it seems to produce more elegant solutions, I've tried to explain it but you just don't seem to get it.

wrote:What, you think the experience point system in DnD is significantly slowing the game down?


Uh, yes. And for many more reasons than just the odd decision to make the smallest commonly earned portion of experience somewhere in the hundreds. By all rights the IDEAL scale for experience would look more like totalled encounter CRs, if not something smaller.

wrote:Actually it is fundamentally impossible to give someone cover from something inside his own square. If that square size gets larger than the space you occupy one use of cover is lost. As you go up in square size more options get lost. Flanking for example does not have much meaning beyond a certain square size.


First of all why? Is there some law of imaginary physics I was unaware of?

Second even if it were so what? The areas I'm talking about are a measurement of movement and range. The same area is the range at which a kind of attack which ignores, or even benefits from you taking cover occurs at. Its described in detail in the first post of this thread.

We can sit here and argue as to whether the system should support gun fights from cover over the top of the same dumpster or not and whether you can take cover from a guy running up and stabbing you with a sword, but really you could go either way on both and I intend to do what will be convenient for the system. Which will probably be yes for the first part and no for the second (or maybe just no for both, I haven't decided).

wrote:Which is why I listed those separately.


or in your original words...

wrote:- The game gets less detailed (both in what you can do and in how precisely you can do it)


You see right there you said it, less chess boardy precision leads to less detail in options. Not true.

wrote:Your proposed "better lightning bolts" work just fine if you introduce them into DnD.


Unsurprising considering they are basically already there under different names. A pity the marginally inferior and much more corny Super Rook spell still exists.

wrote:However DnD does not only have the option of handling true-area-effect-fireballs (which would be one-square area effects under your system and thus work fine) but also flame strikes (which are smaller than the smallest resolution of your system) and burning hands (which is flat out impossible in your system).


I'm doing the forhead slap, right now. Slap.

wrote:You said, "You will lose out on tactical options"
so I said, "As just pointed out. No."
so You said "As just pointed out, yes." (presumable referrencing the above)


Right. Compare a simple Burning hands that effects 3 standard character sized squares with a "flat out impossible" burning hands from my system which can effect up to 3 targets within one square.

My impossible version is probably a little more likely to consistently effect the maximum targets (making it easier to value the long term usefulness and impact of the power). This is basically niether here nor there on tactical option wise stuff, but is nice.

My impossible version is also more likely to grant choice in which targets you select to effect with the spell. And gosh, that ADDS to choice. Less precise positions, but more tactical choices... Right there, believe it or not.

wrote:Ok. Insert a "more" in front of contraints. What I meant to say is, the smaller your square size is the more precisely you can judge relative position (duh) and the easier it becomes to create rules that rely on relative positions.


Wait, those wouldn't be "special" rules would they? Those special ones that always slow down the game, layered on top of a system with many more squares to keep track of?

Explain away, why is it that the more precise the positioning the easier it is to create rules that rely on relative position?

Does the game keeping track of the rather bizare fact that during my entire turn my target is trapped in the amber of initiative precisely 17 feet to my NNW actually make those special rules that allow the same options like "taking cover" more or less complex?

Am I gaining an extra option I wasn't aware of as I increase the precision down to the inch and degree or am I still just choosing between taking cover or not?

Is it then harder or easier for me to then recalculate it all after my target moves 4 feet to the SW to try and gain a better shot?

And is breaking everyones turns into micro actions of several foot movements as proposed elsewhere the better solution for tracking simulataneous movement and combat resolution?

Lets hear you explain your miracle small squares, I've explained how my miracle big squares do this stuff, where are your "non special" rules for the little guys which are so much "easier"?
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »


Ok, I will try once more and this time I will be extra elaborate.


Area attacks:
Hmm, I think I will try those code tags. This is your description of an area effect

Code: Select all

[br]x[br]      x[br]  x[br]

This is mine (and the one that is used in every game I can think of)

Code: Select all

[br] xx[br]xxxx[br] xx[br]


And I simply can't understand how you can call your version an area effect. There is no discernable area effected, no more than with a spell that affects a single character only. You don't want area effects in your game, sure, go ahead and get rid of them. But please don't insist that Magic Missile is an area effect. It is not, not by any sane definition of the term and not by any established gaming term.

Also itis a moot point, since your system still handles most area effects just fine. My example above simply looks like this in a system with bigger squares:

Code: Select all

[br]xxxx[br]xxxx[br]xxxx[br]

Or, rather, using dynamic areas, it might look like this:

Code: Select all

[br] xxxxx[br]xxxxx[br] xx[br]

And both of these are fine really. What you lose is firstly the ability to handle area effects smaller than your square size (which is not a real issue using your example of 40 feet squares) and secondly you lose the ability to handle area effects extending from you (such as DnD cones and burning hands). It would be nice if one could handle such abilities, but neither of the two is exactly a critical element of gaming.



Cover:
Again, let me whip out the code tags. Let's take a look at some random combat areas. One might look like this, using 5 feet squares (- being walls that extend to the ceiling and C being characters):

Code: Select all

[br][br]  C[br][br]--  C[br][br] ---[br] C[br][br]

Now, is this a perfect model of the real world (or rather, of an imagined world)? Of course not. But it is accurate enough to show the relative positions of human-sized objects. As soon as you step up the square size you lose this ability. Note that under your system the above "map" would lack any detail whatsoever. You know there are two walls and three characters in there, but using your system none of the characters have cover relative to one another unless they take an action to take cover.

Now, it makes a certain amount of sense to me as far being shot at from other squares is concerned. You take an action to get behind one of those walls and you are safe. Sure, you need some rules as to how big object need to be to grant cover, but hopefully most people have enough common sense to not let it become an issue in most game. Unfortunately that take cover action breaks down as soon as you are shot at from multiple sides. How are you ducking down on both sides of a wall at once? And it also has serious believability issues when you take cover from someone who is by the rules in the same location as you are.

All of the above is not an issue when you can judge the relative position of objects (or rather, of objects you defined as being big enough to matter). Object between two characters = cover, that's simple enough and makes sense.



Special rules vs normal rules
This is surprisingly hard to put in words ... you don't have any programming experience? If so, what I call special rules is exception-based code (read: if - then, and substitutes thereof) while normal rules are your regular functions, assignments and iterations.

If you are not a programmer .... hmm, I think I will try to use an example from DnD. In DnD the regular rules for attacking an opponent (must be in reach, roll attack bonus + d20 vs AC, roll damage) belongs to what I call "normal rules". The rules for sundering, disarming, tripping and grappling are what I call special rules - they do not fit into the normal rules and require extra rules, just to be able to perform that single action.

It is obvious to me that a system benefits from having as few special cases as possible. The rules become easier to understand, faster to apply and you are far less likely to have internal inconsistency.

For a more extreme look at the jump DnD made from 2nd to 3rd edition. Very many special case mechanics were combined into simple and unified mechanics and as a result the 3rd edition system is much easier to understand than the 2nd ruleset.



Unrestrained targeting
In any combat system that does not go out of it's way to reward the first hit (say, Shadowrun) your best option is always to take out opponents one after another instead of simultaneously. Unless characters already get taken out by single attacks that means that any time you remove restrictions on ganging up on targets the game gets deadlier.



Simultaneous charges
I fail to see how big squares addresses this issue at all. The original problem was "When two characters take actions which invalidate the other's action, how can you resolve this other than "whoever goes first gets to take his action"". Moving from small squares to big squares does not help resolving this issue at all.
Murtak
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

Hmm, these funky naughts and crosses may help explain this area thing to you once and for all.

Code: Select all

[br]T= affected Target[br]N= unnaffected Target[br]X= area of effect[br][br]Your version of a small area.[br][br]N TX             [br] XXXT[br] XTXX  N   [br] NXX[br][br]or you could shift the area around for a number of different sets of N and T.[br][br]My Version[br][br]XXXXXX[br]XNXXTX[br]XXTXXX[br]XXXNXX[br]XTXXXN[br][br]Or you can select a larger number of sets or N or T (but don't have to do it with a bunch of niggling chess squares)[br]


The point is that functionally the result of these two areas is ALMOST UTTERLY IDENTICAL.

There are only two differences. The second is easier to administer and allows a greater choice of which targets to effect. Hence my obvious claim that it speeds up the game and adds to tactical options.

Now try this for a cover scenario, of course naughts and crosses are way, way too clumsy for this but here is a truely heroic attempt.

Code: Select all

[br]Small squares and cover. c is cover stuff. X is a character x is a character smaller than a square and B is a character bigger than a square. + are the corners of squares, note how cover and characters either occupy less or more than a single square and the way cover is not square shaped and sometimes only partially overlaps into squares.[br][br]+ + + + + + +[br]  X              x[br]+ + +c+ + + +[br]ccccccc      cc[br]+ + + + + + +[br]          ccc B B[br]+ + +c+ + + +[br]        cc    B B[br]+ + + + + + +[br][br]A Big Square.[br]The same set up, the border around it is the square.[br]+-------------------+[br]|  X              x |[br]|       c           |[br]|ccccccc      cc    |[br]|                   |[br]|          ccc B B  |[br]|         c         |[br]|        cc    B B  |[br]+-------------------+[br](damn these non uniform fonts, oh well, its just barely clear enough)[br]


Right look at the above. How does one determine relative cover in BOTH situations? You draw lines you consider sizes of characters relative to each other and to cover objects and at no point pay any actual attention to squares. In either case. Thats relative cover for you.

Of course I don't want relative cover in the same square, or for cover to be relative at all, but RIGHT THERE is how you can if you must do it with big squares. And oddly its also how you ALREADY do it with little squares.

I explained elsewhere how you can extend that with characters without a fixed position within the big square.

I'd like to pick out this...
wrote:Unfortunately that take cover action breaks down as soon as you are shot at from multiple sides.


I regard this as an annoying edge case that is sufficiently rare and undesirable as to best left unsupported. For me cover will be omnidirectional and thats that. Of course the above example shows that the exact same relative cover calculation methods used by small square games can still be used if you must. But damn, making cover "relative" in this manner actually rather sucks.

wrote:Special rules vs normal rules
This is surprisingly hard to put in words ... you don't have any programming experience? If so, what I call special rules is exception-based code (read: if - then, and substitutes thereof) while normal rules are your regular functions, assignments and iterations.


Been there, done that, for a living, have the degree on my wall. And as such your explanation is basically gibberish, its some kind of mad mixed metaphor, its like your saying "don't count your eggs before a stitch in time".

Let me put it this way, just looking at it, no calculations made. If I were writing code to resolve either your kind of small square based system with your scale of squares, your means of area attacks and your means of determining cover it would require a vastly larger amount of code and measurably greater complexity to resolve it compared to the code required to resolve what I am describing.

You are handling more information in more complex ways and that makes the rules that a computer would have to determine much harder for it to crunch.

wrote:For a more extreme look at the jump DnD made from 2nd to 3rd edition. Very many special case mechanics were combined into simple and unified mechanics and as a result the 3rd edition system is much easier to understand than the 2nd ruleset.


And that has precisely what to do with scale of squares? If anything the way D&D deals with cover and areas is still crippled by left overs from that era and beyond. As I said, the Super Rook rank buster spell is still hanging around causing trouble.

wrote:Unless characters already get taken out by single attacks that means that any time you remove restrictions on ganging up on targets the game gets deadlier.


And I pointed out in detail the ways d20, a chess board system as you favour for apparently this reason, sucks at this.

The rules I described that it uses for this are all easily "special" rules now I can be a little generous and say not being able to enter or cross an enemy's square is a "non special" rule that is inherint to the small square system, and I can be extra double generous and pretend attacks of opportunity aren't a clumsy tacked on bunch of trash and are also inherint to the small square system.

But that still doesn't explain why in a world where distributing damage is safe and ganging up damage isn't why everyone doesn't just cop the 1 attack of opportunity each to gang up all their damage together on the king piece behind anything other than a totally solid wall of pawns.

d20's small squares do NOT solve ganging up and it is in fact a system which supports and encourages everyone rushing the wizard.

wrote:Simultaneous charges
I fail to see how big squares addresses this issue at all. The original problem was "When two characters take actions which invalidate the other's action, how can you resolve this other than "whoever goes first gets to take his action"". Moving from small squares to big squares does not help resolving this issue at all.


Because its an issue of tracking where the characters are at any given time. If the answer to where they are at various points during a simultaneous charge is basically always "the same square they started in" then tracking their positions during, before and after the charge is insanely easy. It beats the lame (in the sense of game crippling) tiny action fragments thats been ressurected on that thread.

Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »


PhoneLobster wrote:Because its an issue of tracking where the characters are at any given time. If the answer to where they are at various points during a simultaneous charge is basically always "the same square they started in" then tracking their positions during, before and after the charge is insanely easy. It beats the lame (in the sense of game crippling) tiny action fragments thats been ressurected on that thread.

Actually that is not the issue at all. The problem with simultaneous charging is that, unless you find a way to resolve them literally at the same time, the first charge invalidates the second. You have the exact same issue with moving vs grappling, with two wizards casting blindness on one another, simultaneous sundering and many many more.

Even if you only look at charging your system fails to handle the problem. You do not enable simultaneous charging, you eliminate charging altogether.



Your cover example:
Ok, let's see. You deliberately pick a worst case scenario for the small square system. Fair enough I suppose. Anyways, I am not entirely sure how it is supposed to look like, but I can guess from your big square example and I do not have any problems assigning cover at all.

Then we get to your big square example .... and suddenly you arbitrarily assign locations within the square. Yet I distinctly remember how this discussion started:
PhoneLobster wrote:
wrote:Ok, from what you wrote you actually want not big squares but infinitely small squares to determine character location (read: exact locations). Then on top of that you want to layer dynamic locations

Utterly wrong.


Please tell me when you have decided on how the very basics of your systems are supposed to work. Until you do this discussion is pointless.
Murtak
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by erik »

So if two people are in melee combat, grappling, or what have you. An "area" affect can pick which one it hits? I think there is real consideration to whether one should worry about throwing a grenade at his buddy who is being piled upon by the bad guys. In "Big Fat Squares" it seems like you can tell your grenade to avoid hitting the guy at the center of your blast if you please. Even worse, you can be the guy being piled upon and pull the pin on a grenade and only have it hit the guys on top of you, if the area is that abstract. This is one of the main things that appears to be frustrating Murtak. You can't call it an area affect unless it affects a whole area. If an effect targets individuals, but not adjacent individuals on any side, and then other individuals farther away, but not any adjacent individuals to them either, then it really can in no way be imagined as an area affect.

My understanding was that everyone was "in the big square" and thus any further diagram is going to be different in everyone's imagination. But then you're drawing detailed diagrams, which put people and objects in specific positions which forbid certain things from happening (like everyone saying "I take cover behind the oil can").

Perhaps my initial conception of your system (that everything is in the BFS, and beyond that is flavor/imagination) was in error, since your diagrams don't fit with that conception at all. Are you instead as a system, making a rough diagram within a BFS and then just adjudicating everything as though you can move anywhere within one area and target anything within one area?
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

Murtak wrote:Actually that is not the issue at all. The problem with simultaneous charging is that, unless you find a way to resolve them literally at the same time, the first charge invalidates the second. You have the exact same issue with moving vs grappling, with two wizards casting blindness on one another, simultaneous sundering and many many more.


Well the whole point is that you ARE resolving them at the same time, and nothing ever invalidates the second action. As mentioned early on this is attached to simultaneous resolution where slow characters declare AND resolve first with no earlier action invalidating a later one in the same turn. Ever. You can be killed by a slower character but it won't invalidate your action because your action happens simultaneous to theirs.

However it does permit an earlier action to make a later action become valid. For instance a move action to leave one area and enter another does not make mellee attacks within the first area invalid for the rest of the turn but it DOES make them valid in the new area for the rest of the turn. By having bigger areas the complexity of tracking this situation and others like it decreases dramatically. With five foot squares characters that act later in initiative are going to have to remember all the slower characters every last 5 foot steps. And that is unnacceptable. Hence bigger squares.

Murtak wrote:Even if you only look at charging your system fails to handle the problem. You do not enable simultaneous charging, you eliminate charging altogether.


Well thats just plain wrong. There is a big difference between not measuring the length of something down to five foot squares and utterly eliminating it from the system.

Murtak wrote:Please tell me when you have decided on how the very basics of your systems are supposed to work. Until you do this discussion is pointless.


and

clikml wrote:My understanding was that everyone was "in the big square" and thus any further diagram is going to be different in everyone's imagination. But then you're drawing detailed diagrams, which put people and objects in specific positions which forbid certain things from happening (like everyone saying "I take cover behind the oil can").


Its not like I didn't make this explicitly clear every single last time I covered this.

The way I intend to implement this system IS indeed to have no specific placement within the square. None at all. And as a side issue to not have relative cover, at all.

HOWEVER. People keep on saying "but by golly only small square systems can handle relative cover".

Regardless of the fact that I don't want relative cover or anything of the sort I damn well won't sit here and let people labour under the sheer delusion that existing relative cover systems have diddly to do with grids or their scale.

The "this isn't the way I'm doing it" examples exist to illustrate one simple fact. Unless everything in your world is precisely aligned to and made up of units 5 foot square cover is going to be relative to size of characters and objects and postitioning that is more accurate than your square scale can describe.

Indeed EVEN in a world where everything IS made up of perfectly aligned five foot chunks unless your attacks can only happen in straight lines of squares the lines you draw to determine relative cover will not be parrallel to your grid and will again exceed its capability of representing the world.

This point may not have relevance to my specific implementation, because I don't want everyone arguing over whether a fiary can take cover behind a pebble or not, but it is a fundamental aspect of the argument because relative cover as Murtak demands a system be capable of implementing is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to the scale of your grid or what have you.

Or to put it another way I'm refuting Murtaks claim that my system is inferior to small squares due to the inability to handle relative cover by pointing out that small squares can't handle relative cover either.

But you might then say, hey, you lose all the benfit of having large squares if you then use this relative positioning thing for taking cover. Well, go look at the first post on this thread and my mention of how to still have characters without fixed position interacting with the same relative cover situation.

clikml wrote:So if two people are in melee combat, grappling, or what have you. An "area" affect can pick which one it hits? I think there is real consideration to whether one should worry about throwing a grenade at his buddy who is being piled upon by the bad guys. In "Big Fat Squares" it seems like you can tell your grenade to avoid hitting the guy at the center of your blast if you please.


This is a descriptive and not a mechanical problem. You are too used to a situation where melee combat is walking up to a target, standing still in a square immediately in front of them and taking turns at bonking each other on the head.

If you are engaging in mellee combat in this system everybody involved is milling about dodging, circling and weaving withing the same general area. If an area attack is smaller than this entire area that means that the attacker chooses their timing such that they place their "grenade" at the point which targets the people they want to effect. You aren't ignoring the guy at the center of the blast, you are placing the blast when he isn't in the center of it at all.

As for targetting one of a pair of grapplers, that might seem a bit odd depending on the situation. Why not handle it in the exact same dreaded "special" way d20 handles targetting grapplers with area effects.

Wait you say, does d20 do that. Damn yeah, to grapple you enter your targets square. You essentially both become one potential target (usually in the form of sharing one square) for an area effect.

So why not do it that way. For indescriminate effects grapplers are treated as one target. Egad, what a complex special rule.

clikml wrote:Perhaps my initial conception of your system (that everything is in the BFS, and beyond that is flavor/imagination) was in error, since your diagrams don't fit with that conception at all. Are you instead as a system, making a rough diagram within a BFS and then just adjudicating everything as though you can move anywhere within one area and target anything within one area?


As mentioned the relative position diagram (second pair) existed to point out the simple fact that relative cover is calculated independent of your grid scale (or even shape).

The first pair of diagrams does have the Ns and Ts in my systems version placed specifically, but only because they had to appear somewhere on the diagram, the Ns Ts and Xs in that could have been interchanged freely.

But. Even given that I want no specific placement within areas or "squares" your movement and targetting are not utterly unrestricted within one area. It just means that precise relative position is not what restricts it.

Instead the restrictions will be determined by character states. For instance if someone IS in a guard the wizard state you can't just run over and whack the wizard, because he will interpose himself (that will need some refinement, mostly on the initiative side of matters, but thats what I'm looking at for the general basis of the guard action).
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by DP »

Area effects as I understand them need to have the problem of of maybe affecting friendlies. Spells that effect 4 units miss out on this and the strategy implications that arise from this. I don't think square or hex based combat is hard to do.

I think this system loses more in strategy than it gains in speed.
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

DP wrote: Area effects as I understand them need to have the problem of of maybe affecting friendlies.


First of all why?

Second of all is that the way it really is under a 5' chess board system?

I'll grant you that some times, rarely, under d20 players will wiegh up the pro's and cons of dropping a fire ball or a cone of cold or something pretty big on a group that includes their biggest hit point buddies.

But when was the last time you saw a small or narrow area of effect like a flame strike, burning hands or even lightning bolt placed on a field in such a way as to effect an ally?

I'm not just saying that people are ruling out the possibility of harming buddies automatically from their decision making process. I'm saying these smaller areas are so small that it hardly ever even becomes an option.

wrote:Spells that effect 4 units miss out on this and the strategy implications that arise from this.


Spells that allow less choice in targets lose out on other strategy options as well.

Most likely the greater loss is in choice is with the small fixed area because like I said above...

When was the last time a lightning bolt "Rook" spell actually benefited from whether or not it passed through the barbarian in the front line?

Is it really important if one in ten or twenty times you use these low area spells there is a situation where you cannot maximise the number of enemies effected without effecting an ally (and its got to be more like 1 in 50 for more than one ally at these small areas)?

I'm sorry but I call that a truly insignificant tactical dillema.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »


PhoneLobster wrote:But when was the last time you saw a small or narrow area of effect like a flame strike, burning hands or even lightning bolt placed on a field in such a way as to effect an ally?

Change that to read "placed in such a way as to affect an ally or placed in an otherwise less-than-ideal location to avoid affecting allies" and my answer is "the last 4 sessions, and it would be more if the session before that had not been combat-free".

Harming friends is somewhat rarer, but happens every couple of sessions. Once, when they knew they would go up against hordes of enemies the characters even did this on purpose. Cast that elemental damage sponge, then just acid cone and fireball the lot of them as they gang up on the players. But even without prior protection it happens when the mage decides that a nice area effect is likely to end the encounter and leave the character in question standing.
Murtak
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by erik »

Hunh, I thought I was being pretty level-headed and attempting to be helpful, so I'm a little take aback at the defensiveness in the language here.

PhoneLobster at [unixtime wrote:1129607014[/unixtime]]Its not like I didn't make this explicitly clear every single last time I covered this.

The way I intend to implement this system IS indeed to have no specific placement within the square. None at all. And as a side issue to not have relative cover, at all.


Well, I did indeed say that that was what my first impression of your system was. Bully for me! My problem was that you used a diagram to describe your system's resolution for relative cover... a system which is antithetical to diagrams and touted as not having relative cover. The combination vexed my puny intellect.


PhoneLobster wrote:
This is a descriptive and not a mechanical problem. You are too used to a situation where melee combat is walking up to a target, standing still in a square immediately in front of them and taking turns at bonking each other on the head.


Actually, I am used to real life, where people have to stand next to each other in order to bonk the other over the head. Only in some high faluting martial arts movies and some anime are people actually wheeling and moving so much that they could literally be anywhere in a large space during every phase of combat. Most folk tend to be adjacent- trading blows, blocks and parries.

PhoneLobster wrote:
You aren't ignoring the guy at the center of the blast, you are placing the blast when he isn't in the center of it at all.


I might be fine if this was accomplished with using some sort of mastery of shaping, blessing from a god of luck, or other feat that let you sculpt explosions; however, expecting every commoner in the world to have such precision with grenades, flame throwers and chain guns is a little over the top (for the record, I am preferring to use technological examples, since we can't just say they are magically zig-zagging to hit only specific targets, and thus stealth-converting an area affect into an individual targeting spell).

It's okay to lob your grenade at the perfect time to hit only the bad guys if you're a god of luck and timing, but that's about the only time it's okay. You'd have to know exactly where people are going to be at the moment it detonates, and then place it just so. That's bad ass to the 4th power at least. Precision shooting to hit a bad guy who is using a human shield and not hurting said shield is hard with a gun, let alone a rocket launcher.


PhoneLobster wrote:
So why not do it that way. For indescriminate effects grapplers are treated as one target. Egad, what a complex special rule.


Indeed, why not! I was just bringing up a potential problem (as *every* system has them). I didn't mean to imply there are no solutions. However I don't feel that the friendly fire problem ends at grappling...

About the friendly fire dilemma- and it is indeed a dilemma of some significance (to me, and seemingly others). The BFS system has no way to simulate a hostage situation where bad guys are in the middle of a group of innocents using them as collateral damage shields against area affect weapons, or even as potential cover against individual targeting weapons. Bad guys using innocents as human shields (not necessarily via grapple even) is not unprecedented in stories, RPGs, or real life. It would be handy for a system to allow for this tactical possibility. I'm not saying your system can't adapt to allow this, but currently you seem to not care about it and that is disheartening.

Phone Lobster wrote:
The first pair of diagrams does have the Ns and Ts in my systems version placed specifically, but only because they had to appear somewhere on the diagram, the Ns Ts and Xs in that could have been interchanged freely.


Okay. It was actually the second pair which was trouble for me. Since it was showing how to do relative cover by showing line of sight on a diagram... for a system where everything is in flux, and getting line of sight is impossible.

I understand that you wanted to prove a separate point, but the second diagram seemed to muddy your message more than clarifiy it.
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

clikml wrote:I thought I was being pretty level-headed and attempting to be helpful, so I'm a little take aback at the defensiveness in the language here.


Well, I was also replying to Murtak at the same time there, lets be fair.

After all he goes on to ignore what my point about small area of effects was all about to talk about fireballs and cones of cold (in a funny hat) instead of what it was utterly clearly stated to be about to say...

Murtak wrote:my answer is "the last 4 sessions, and it would be more if the session before that had not been combat-free".


So in basically EVERY session you cannot actually move 6 squares such that lightning bolt (a ONE square wide effect), burning hands (an effect only three squares long and three wide at the thick end), or a flame strike (an effect with only a 10 foot radius you can put ANYWHERE in over a hundred feet) can be placed optimally without hitting allies?

What the hell? Are you spending your entire character's career in 5 foot wide corridors and 10 foot square rooms?

Even fireball and cone of cold effects, which I grant are more likely to effect allies, even they aren't altogether THAT hard to place such that they strike as many enemies as possible and no allies.

clikml wrote:Actually, I am used to real life, where people have to stand next to each other in order to bonk the other over the head.


I don't want to sound too defensive, I guess its my nature, but then get the hell out of here, real life has no place in ANY rpg system, least of all one of mine, part of the benefit of having measurement units for range and movement that don't include meters or feet is they discourage annoying non productive "but I reacon in real life that..." arguments.

But if there is an influence for me its movies and written fiction. These do NOT paint combat as a chess board like environment where everyone stands still while the queens bishop moves three spaces. And I can't imagine why anyone would want to mimic that.

Of course you didn't refer to dynamic combat as the way almost all fiction of any type ever fairly uniformly depicts combat as a whirling chaos. Rather you used martial arts films and anime as an example.

And again. Not to sound defensive but thats the exact kind of example people regularly use to essential disparage pretty much anything with what amounts to a "Well thats not real Art." argument.

clikml wrote:however, expecting every commoner in the world to have such precision with grenades, flame throwers and chain guns is a little over the top


These are the heroes and the villians of a quality they are expected to interact with. And even so. I refuse to populate the universe with a bunch of badly coordinated bumbling idiots, commoners get a small share of the mojo as well, if one of them somehow gets his hands on an area of effect spell or weapon then he can sure has hell have all the skill he needs to use my standard mechanics to go with it.

You want fictional precedents? When was the last movie you saw or book you read where the good guys chose to throw a grenade or a fireball on top of their own best buddy because they felt it was convenient. Almost bloody never thats when (which is pretty remarkable considering the broad range of fiction) they always ALWAYS wait until the last second as their last ally leaps aside to conveniently blow up only bad guys.

(it might be cool to see bad guys blow their buddies up. But then again in a "balanced" system it might not, so just leave him with the option to spend one of his standard targets on an ally if he must and the sadistic bastard super villian can if he chooses satisfy his need to be mechanically weaker than good without needing separate mechanics)

I don't see why we should support friendly fire of this sort when it doesn't really appear in any kind of story we would want to read or watch on the TV, let alone one we spend our own time telling ourselves.

If you suffer a truly debilitating need to support friendly fire then by all means I can suggest at least two ways for big squares to handle it as a tactical "option" for these small area attacks. But damnit. Its a bad idea and a complication that is unwarranted.

clikml wrote:The BFS system has no way to simulate a hostage situation where bad guys are in the middle of a group of innocents using them as collateral damage shields against area affect weapons


So lets get this clear they do this without grappling their targets, they aren't gripping innocents about the neck with a gun to their head here, they're just hangin' in a crowd thick enough to cause trouble?

So. This comes up alot in your games then?

You think that when people sit down and design a small square system designers are going "by golly now we can map the exact five foot positions of a crowd or 50 innocents milling about so the bad guy can stand in the middle and gloat"? (indeed call me crazy to suggest it but should people pull this kind of thing off in a small square system I lay you a bet they take "fuzzy" short cuts representing the positioning and other attributes of the crowd)

If there isn't room to swing a burning hand there isn't room to swing a sword. Tell your players they have a choice of not innitiating combat at all or seeing innocents suffering damage as flavour text on every swing of their great axe or slash of their death ray spell. If you really really insist then tell them they can all whip out their daggers and joy buzzer handshake spells if they want to avoid gratuitous casualties.

That should safely deal with that the one time it ever comes up.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by erik »

Heh, I will add that I am a fan of much anime and high-falutin kung fu movies which have fast wheeling combat like that too. I can definitely see this sort of system having its uses, especially in those type of genres, and in fact in those types of genres, someone selectively targeting with a grenade, chain gun or what have you is a lot more common place.

So your system will excel more for those high level/power games, and less for ones where you have more mundane combat where people really do have to be almost constantly adjacent to fight each other, and rank and file mooks can't plausibly perform such selective aim with area affect weapons. If a feat or skill or something is required to use area affects as selective targeting affects, even that would appease me. Just so there's something that separates the supers from the commoners.

For the hostage thingie, I'm thinking more where the bad guys stand behind a person with a gun wielded, or they have a room full of hostages sitting on the floor scattered about, and the gunmen are mixed amongst them. I've seen those situations portrayed plenty in movies and tv and the like. I might not be grappled but I'm still not gonna be moving if there is someone standing nearby with a gun aimed in my person.

I haven't gotten to DM a lot lately, but one of my first adventures in 3e DnD involved a BBEG who had a charm person'd hostage who was kept at hand as a human protector/shield that provided protection against area affect stuff, since the players didn't want to hurt the nearby hostage. Maybe I'm evil, but I thought it was a fair twist.

For dealing with cover, I'd suggest just having an action of "using available cover" which gives +4 AC vs. all enemies, or somesuch, maybe more or less in particular terrains. It would preserve the idea of a character moving about, taking cover as needed, and in no particular static position.

As you seem to be building from the ground up, I reckon you really won't have to hassle with that many "area affects" since you can just rewrite them as targeted spells which are area affects only via flavor text (as you stated I believe). I really do like the idea of a zig-zagging lightning bolt that is not some boring 5' line, and waving around a swath of flames via burning hands. By changing those into targeting spells from the get-go, it avoids the whole hassle of pointy-heads like me worrying about how improbable and hard it would really be to selectively hit with an area affect spell. So I do concur that you really won't have much issues with area affects. It is just my natural tendency to gravitate towards the potential snafus and explore their implications.

One other potential snag that I was considering is that people will have vastly different images of what is happening during combat, but the more I think upon it, it really doesn't matter and is a non-issue... I've had frustrating times with DMs and players alike when our views of what was happening were very different from each other. Diagrams and grids made me very happy once we started using them, because then everyone had a much more similar mental picture of what was going on. This was mostly due to us having static positions in mind though, and out static imaginations weren't synched up at all. If you have no static positions to worry about really, then this should be a non-issue. Entirely dynamic positions are actually a much more elegant solution than trying to force everything into grids. If DnD had gone full tilt with the idea of combat being more dynamic (instead of just saying you are dynamic within your 5' square), I'm sure their mechanics and spells and such could have been made much more accomodating to that kind of system.

But then they wouldn't have all those minis for wargaming, and I wouldn't have minis to buy and repaint- and that would make me sad.
User avatar
Murtak
Duke
Posts: 1577
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by Murtak »



PhoneLobster wrote:So in basically EVERY session you cannot actually move 6 squares such that lightning bolt (a ONE square wide effect), burning hands (an effect only three squares long and three wide at the thick end), or a flame strike (an effect with only a 10 foot radius you can put ANYWHERE in over a hundred feet) can be placed optimally without hitting allies?

In one word - yes.

To be fair, the campaign is pretty combat heavy right now, so there is usually a couple fo fights per session. And in at least one of them (usually more then that) we get a placement like this (A = member of team A, B = member of team B) A-B-A-B and a mage thinking "well, both of those seem close to dying, too bad I can't nuke them both at once". I even remember the party tumble fighter setting something like this up on purpose to force the opposing mage to either only attack one target or to nuke his allies.

I still donÄt understand why you are so dead set on handling everything using your quasi-area-effects anyways. The only real benefit I ever saw to your big squares was how they allow you handle the common area effects (read: fireball-like, as opposed to cone of cold) much better, or at least more elegantly, than small squares. But for some reason you are dead set on allowing character to aim nuclear explosions at ground zero at their opponents only.



I would still like to know whether your system is supposed to determine positioning down to your big squares or whether you determine locations more accurately (5 foot squares, absolute positions or whatever) and then introduce a second location layer to sort multiple small locations into your big squares.
Murtak
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by RandomCasualty »

I do think the big square system has some potential.

The main thing that I'm worried about is that the "squares" aren't really squares at all and will tend to have weird dimensions.

For instance, consider the chasm with the bridge. The bridge itself won't be a square, but rather be a big long thing stretching over the chasm. The two sides may not be squares either, depending on the setup. This makes the way area effects work rather inconsistent. For instance, a fireball might be able to fy an entire 100' bridge in one instance, but be unable to cross square boundaries in another instance. Since the boundaries are primarily descriptive and tactical, actual space seems to take a backseat. So you're going to have to worry about shrinking and growing fireballs. At times area effects are going to feel atomic, and in other situations they'll be small scale.

Personally I'd rather see area effects handled by having them affect everyone in a given square as opposed to the current selective fire paradigm. When you dump a fireball into a square, you really should blast everyone fighting in it. Selective fire should be a feature of higher level area attacks, like horrid wilting. The default I think should be just that it hits everyone, so you don't have expert grenade tossers by default. D&D's paradigm of easy area effects into a melee always bothered me and this system could remedy that I think.

Another nice thing about the system is that it handles long distance battles quite well. When you're only counting 10 squares or so instead of 100, it's much easier to calculate distances/range penalties and so on. This makes outdoor battles a lot more doable and less of a pain in the ass.

As for two targets moving past each other, you can have different types of squares. Narrow squares like bridges can be restrictive so that you can actively prevent people from passing through them. Larger areas are best handled through some kind of intercept mechanic. Bodyguards in real life don't just stand in one spot. They move to intercept someone going after the guy they're protecting. Basically it'd work similar to a readied action where the bodyguard moves in front of the one he's protecting and blocks the attacker. The attacker would then have to kill the BG before he could get to the one being blocked. The BG would however have to keep declaring he's protecting each round and thus be unable to do anything else except fight the guy he's protecting his master from. That solves the problem of people running circles around you while you're frozen in time.

This system does lose a lot of detail however, mainly in the fact that movement speeds have to either be the same or vastly different. Not surprising given that you're either travelling a 50x50 square or you're not.

Another concern will be spells that create barriers, like wall of stone. You can go the simple route and say that barriers can only be created inbetween squares. This one is certainly easy to adjudicate but also failry limited. Or you could allow barriers to divide one region into two squares. This will be very complex as it requires that you decide who goes on either side.

Then suppose a hole is chopped in this wall, To accurately simulate going through the hole and attacking versus people trying to block the hole, you'll probably need more special case rules, since you rpobably want to make defending a small opening advantageous for the defenders.
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

clikml wrote:For dealing with cover, I'd suggest just having an action of "using available cover"


Pretty close to what I'm moving to with this. Bascially its take cover and gain defense bonus vs ranged, defense penalty vs close, and either a targeting limitation or defense bonus vs areas (not sure which yet).

clikml wrote:But then they wouldn't have all those minis for wargaming, and I wouldn't have minis to buy and repaint- and that would make me sad.


You can still have minis. Its not a totally mini obsessed system but you can still place them on some kind of map as a minor game aid no problem.

RC wrote:The main thing that I'm worried about is that the "squares" aren't really squares at all and will tend to have weird dimensions.

For instance, consider the chasm with the bridge. The bridge itself won't be a square, but rather be a big long thing stretching over the chasm. The two sides may not be squares either, depending on the setup. This makes the way area effects work rather inconsistent.


Well the point of the bridge/chasm thing is that areas are divided into what I feel it is important to represent. You want to get to rescue tha captive on the far side, you have to fight your way accross the bridge.

Yes this makes shapes inconsistent, but then so what? We only care if the bridge is fireballed, the bridge being fireballed and some surrounding fragment of other areas is a needless complication, especially considering without fixed placement in those surrounding other areas no one needs to be in the bits where the blast over laps.

RC wrote:As for two targets moving past each other, you can have different types of squares. Narrow squares like bridges can be restrictive so that you can actively prevent people from passing through them. Larger areas are best handled through some kind of intercept mechanic.


I'm not yet sure what to do with extra narrow areas and characters blockading them. But the intercept mechanic is pretty much already on the drawing board.

RC wrote:The BG would however have to keep declaring he's protecting each round and thus be unable to do anything else except fight the guy he's protecting his master from.


This is the aspect I don't like about the intercept and want to look into. (and its an initiative/resolution problem rather than movement/measurement). I'm thinking at the moment that once the action is expended to place oneself within the guard state you stay that way as long as your future actions are moderately restricted (as opposed to entirely dedicated) So for instance you could melee those who try to attack your guard target or yourself, or ranged attack others but not move to melee those who do not approach you or your target without losing guard status.

RC wrote:Another concern will be spells that create barriers, like wall of stone.


I already have a fair idea how I will deal with this, and feel its going to be less of a difficult point than narrow squares and holes in walls.

Caster (or whatever) places wall of stone (or whatever) dividing one area into two. He decides which area all characters in the square fall into. Characters slower than himself (those who have already acted that round) are stuck with his decision. Faster characters (those who have not yet acted) may choose to leap to one side of the wall or the other as part of their action.

Placing a wall between squares would be pretty much the same and easier.

RC wrote:To accurately simulate going through the hole and attacking versus people trying to block the hole, you'll probably need more special case rules, since you rpobably want to make defending a small opening advantageous for the defenders.


This narrow access thing is probably the biggest issue I've encountered with this. Should the defender divide the area into two areas? What kind of undesirable cross area melee does that imply? If he doesn't divide the area does that create a break down of more particular position within an area as characters in the area are divided into those on one side of the defender and those on the other?

Regardless of whether the defender divides a square what if he sets up on a doorway that is already the only access to and on the edge of the square?

This is a hard point. My best bet at the moment is a variant of the already half complete guard action that DOES either divide the area or occur on its edge which knocks attackers back to their origin area if they fail to over come the defense.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by DP »

Phone Lobster wrote:I'll grant you that some times, rarely, under d20 players will wiegh up the pro's and cons of dropping a fire ball or a cone of cold or something pretty big on a group that includes their biggest hit point buddies.

But when was the last time you saw a small or narrow area of effect like a flame strike, burning hands or even lightning bolt placed on a field in such a way as to effect an ally?

Not often because thats usually a bad decision, and that's the point. Doing the same action regardless of circumstances is not tactical. Area effects allow for situations where different spells are better than other spells in a way that your abstraction doesn't. In a narrow hallway lightning is superior to fireball. If the tank is in melee with somthing you probably can't area effect that creature and other others with the same spell.

Phone Lobster wrote:
Spells that allow less choice in targets lose out on other strategy options as well.

That's not exactly true, say there are five potential targets: being able to to target one gives you five options, being able to attack any two gives nine options, but being able to target any five has only one option attack all five. My idea of strategy is that depending on circumstances different options will be differently useful. Having attacks that target specific spatial patterns is one useful way of distinguishing effects from each other.
Phone Lobster wrote:
Is it really important if one in ten or twenty times you use these low area spells there is a situation where you cannot maximise the number of enemies effected without effecting an ally (and its got to be more like 1 in 50 for more than one ally at these small areas)?


Yes, hitting a friendly is usually a big problem that you want to avoid. I agree that it would seldom hit more than one friendly target, but this depends on the situation. In the case of a 5 person party with an invoker, a druid, a fighter, a rogue, and a cleric who summons your going to have a much more tactically shallow game than you would other wise have because there are many pieces on the field, if these pieces don't work together the result under 5' square could be problematic, under big square the pieces don't need to work together nearly as much. The invoker can allways bomb as many ememies the fighter can always fight the rogue can always flank the cleric can allways heal who needs it etc. Everyone will be able to do exactly the same thing in every combat and it won't significantly change the results.

If DnD is chess your big squares seem like taking the chess pieces off the board and counting how many points they're worth to determine who wins. It's faster and somwhat acurate but less of a game.
User avatar
fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
Posts: 2590
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by fbmf »

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Everyone keep it civil, please.
[/TGFBS]

PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

DP wrote:If DnD is chess your big squares seem like taking the chess pieces off the board and counting how many points they're worth to determine who wins. It's faster and somwhat acurate but less of a game.


If D&D is descended from chess then what I'm going for is decended from Diplomacy.

Both in regards to the way the map is divided up and the way turns are resolved.

Now. Diplomacy probably has a simpler rule set than chess. But it is one of the most tactically rich and entertaining games in existance, and playing a game of Diplomacy with a group of people is a heck of a lot more fun, dynamic, and nail bitingly exciting than playing chess.

DP wrote:In the case of a 5 person party with an invoker, a druid, a fighter, a rogue, and a cleric who summons your going to have a much more tactically shallow game than you would other wise have because there are many pieces on the field, if these pieces don't work together the result under 5' square could be problematic, under big square the pieces don't need to work together nearly as much.


Thats ridiculous. There is simply no basis for the claim. There are still plenty of decisions about which targets to effect, which squares to enter/target, how many enemies to try and co-exist with during the action you pull out your shorter range area effects, having the characters place guard actions on each other or parts of the battle field, and thats just the begining.

I mean right there you are sitting down and saying "because the fireball evoker guy can always do what he was built as a dedicated character to do" (which is by no means assured anyway) "the game becomes less tactically rich".

Well if all he has is the one fireball action that is superior in all situations I imagine he does, but thats hardly an issue of your square scale now is it?

wrote:being able to target any five has only one option attack all five


Thats an awful different tactical option to "up to five".

Not to say that "must effect five targets" is not an interesting option, and one which could be used to enforce all kinds of unpleasant drawbacks (won't work without 5 targets, may effect friendlies as you are so hot to do). Nor is it an option this system couldn't support. But still. Its not what was being proposed and has very different dynamics.

And anyway the point of a maximum cap on targets is that it is a limitation, if there are always less targets than your maximum then that isn't a tactical problem, its a poorly designed maximum.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User3
Prince
Posts: 3974
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by User3 »

I realize that up to five is different from exactly five however, if there are exactly five enemy units it would be the very odd situation where one would elect not to strike at all five units if one could with no trade off, that's what I meant in my example stated more clearly.. So I think that specific point stands.

I've never played diplomacy but have heard good things about it. I realize I was quite critical of your system based on it trading a whole level of tactical options for speed, in the types of games I play I don't think I'd like that trade off, I can see types of games where the trade off would be welcome. I'm sorry if my tone was anything other than polite.
shirak
Knight
Posts: 468
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by shirak »

How about this:

There are four types of area effects.

1) Smart area effects selectively target people, either due to timing or due to actual guidance (Flamestrike and Magic missile fall in this category).

2) Big area effects affect a whole square indiscriminately, targeting anyone within that square (Fireball, various clouds)

3) Mass area effects target several squares (um, Extended Incendiary Cloud? Maybe that Exploding spell combo whose name I can't remember right now)

4) Strategic spells affect the whole field of combat (something along the lines of "and the valley was covered in flames". The province of high-level blast spells)


I think a lott of the confusion arises from Murtak and PhoneLobster using different meanings of "area effect".

Cover, I think, should not be an action but a state. If you choose to have cover you get some bonuses and some penalties that generally even out. Whatever.


BTW, I am SO stealing this for Exalted when you're done. I'd be happy to contribute to a project of getting rid of the stupid Exalted tactical system if you are interested.

PS, sorry for the threadomancy, I have no idea where else to post this and/or if the topic has evolved/moved elsewhere. This is the link PhoneLobster posed in a recent thread. :bricks:
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Phone Lobster's Big Fat Squares

Post by PhoneLobster »

The only evolution my big squares has done is that I'm using it in my current pure home brew rules set.

Its operating pretty much as described here so, well thats not really evolution is it.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with exalted to be able to say how to substitute this stuff into the system.

But hey, this is one of my favourite ideas for use in my homebrew stuff so I'm happy to talk about it...

I am using something ressembling the varied area effects you mention already, but thats pretty much a direct extrapolation of the material here.

Cover is a state, but you enter it by taking an action and it restricts your actions while you are in it (can't run over and punch some guy while you are hiding in cover, etc...), but again I think that was mentioned somewhere here already.

As to stealing it for use when its done, well considering you'd be adapting it anyway it seems to me its sufficiently done already, but if theres anything you think needs to be elaborated on in detail...
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
Post Reply