When you step up your square size from 5 feet to 50 feet you lose 10 foot radius fireballs, 10 foot radius threaten ranges and 30 foot movement ranges. That much should be absolutely obvious. And now you propose we go back and handle effects that do indeed depend on such smaller positioning with rules that can not rely on where people or objects actually are.
Damnit Murtak I have explicitly been over this shit with you before.
You refused to listen then and I have my doubts now.
Regardless. No I sure as hell don't intend to write such rules.
The whole damn point is you cease to adjudicate such needless positioning reliant mechanics. With position being determined only down to the granularity of a large and abstracted zone you don't need to differentiate between whirlwind and burning hands.
And that is a fundamentally good thing.
You are making the entirely false claim that creating a complex structure which creates emergent tactical options is the simplest way of writing those tactical options into a game. That is bald faced stupid.
Precisely how many separate rules do you need to create and apply before the emergent tactical option of being a speed bump is created?
In DnD we know, because the charge rules and the AoO rules do not interact.
Your definition of not interact is remarkably revolutionary. Explain it or I will be unable to hold a meaningful discussion with you.
By the way, you still haven't old us how big you propose your squares to be.
I have explicitly advocated an abstracted zone size. Repeatedly. To you. But apparently you speak a different language where "do not interact" actually means "directly interact" so maybe you missed that.
Seriously, you seem quite smart so counting 100's of empty squares shouldn't be a problem. Help me see what mechanics are causing the problem that you think needs to be fixed with this zone system.
I outlined this generally already but I'll try to explain a specific example to outline the needlessly massive overhead.
Imagine that the goal today is to represent a combat in a moderate to small room. Maybe 40 feet by 40 feet in size.
It is a first level D&D type party vs some wimpy little goblin type things. There are four adventurers with various powers and 4 goblins with limited abilities if any.
It is desirable to represent a number of options.
- Attacking things within the room in melee by moving (or not) and stabbing.
- Attacking things within the room by moving (or not) and using ranged attacks
- Using an area of effect spell that targets some or all of the targets in the the room
- Using an ongoing area of effect spell that effects some or all of the targets in the small room.
- Preventing some or all of those attacks on a ally you wish to protect by interposing yourself (and possibly other allies) as a barrier that is either impassable or gains free strikes, or both.
- Protecting yourself from ranged attacks (but potentially becoming vulnerable to melee) by hiding behind stuff, or allies, or your shield, or lying down.
So under a zone system as I propose it the room is a single zone. It is abstracted and represents the standard shortest range and smallest area that the rules refer to, and that is the only specific definition of its size/area.
Characters who are in the zone are somewhere, and potentially everywhere, within the zone. You are effectively considered to be dynamically moving about fighting and dodging etc... in the entire area. You do NOT get to say "I was behind the door" unless that is for whatever reason outlined as a specific separate zone, if a zone contains the bit behind the door and you are there you also count as in the rest of the zone.
All those tactical options are represented within the context of the single zone range/area and as states.
- Melee attacks are made against targets sharing your zone. You do not care if you move or not, the system already considers you and your target to be moving about fighting each other over a dynamic area represented by the single zone you are in. Dead easy to represent.
- Ranged attacks (especially in this context) are basically the same.
- Area effect attacks are easy. All targets or some set number of targets in the same zone, it works intuitively as the targets and yourself are all of unfixed position anyway. Its easy to administer and easier to write and balance.
- Ongoing area effects can be basically the same but repeated as a regular action to apply their effect each turn of their duration.
- Guarding an ally is a state you can enter preventing targeting of the ally or gaining free strikes on those who do (or both).
- Taking cover is a state you can enter that grants bonuses to some attacks and penalties vs others. Complex grid or non grid based relative positioning is not required.
Now. Consider the ease of administration there. All the tactical options are represented clearly and concisely and in a manner that is easy and quick to use.
Lets consider a small square system, one that looks a lot like d20.
The room is broken up into 8x8 squares. That is 64 separate zones with between 3 and 8 adjacent zones each.
To represent cover some of those zones may contain small obstacles of some form which either entirely fill squares, or partially fill them. They may entirely block movement or inhibit certain kinds of movement, or require checks to move through.
Cover is STILL a state you enter. But instead of doing so by a fixed action/opportunity cost written up as a hard rule the action cost is a complex emergent trait determined by relative positioning.
So taking cover MIGHT cost you your entire action as in order to move to the appropriate location you do not get to otherwise act. It MIGHT not cost you anything as moving to the appropriate location happens to in no way inhibit your best action/attack. It may involve the exceedingly complex costs of movement in this system which I will mention in a moment.
And after all that you will only be in cover vs some unknown portion pf potential actions of some of unknown portion of your potential attackers.
To represent guarding your buddies the system applies a number of complex rules in order to create the emergent trait that getting near enough to attack that guy is hard.
For a start characters become impassable, or at least difficult to pass square filling obstacles.
Secondly characters "threaten" up to eight squares of grid each with free attacks against characters attempting a move and attack action. More with various weapons and powers, at first level in d20 threatening up to 24 squares is not at all hard.
The rules governing when and how often those threat areas trigger free strikes are really rather complex and determined by exact paths, lengths of paths, the order of resolution of actions and a complex interaction of several skills and abilities (even at first level).
The general upshot is that you can enter a state at an action cost just as unpredictable as taking cover, with results as unpredictable as taking cover which HOPEFULLY means attackers will have to target you and risk free strikes to perform a specific action (but might not).
Area attacks effect... an unknown number of targets. A "simple" short 3 square range cone will cover something like 7 or so squares and have strange diagonal alignments. The number of permutations of postioning plus template placement even in the 5*5 room are mind bogglingly large and beyond my interest to specifically calculate. Though I encourage anyone who is claiming empty squares are easy to adjudicate to actually calculate it. The attack is significantly harder to balance as at the design stage we at absolute best have only an estimate of the average number of targets that will be effected.
Ongoing area effects are a real bitch. They will typically check not as a regular single event each turn but as a potential event every time a character moves into a new square. Every square you move into, check for ongoing area effects. Resolve every applicable area effect. Move to next square, repeat.
And all this adds up to a real bitch for one of the simplest actions you require the system to adjudicate. The move and attack.
And its the move part which hurts. So.
In the described scenario we have two teams of characters that each occupy and blockade about 4 squares, we have maybe 4.5 squares and partial squares of obstacles and terrain, and about 51.5 "empty" squares. The number of permutations of their arrangement within the 64 potential squares is pretty damn huge.
And each time a character takes an up 6 square move they have an also rather huge number of potential paths and destinations to resolve. We are basically talking about potentially arriving in any square in the room with a number of potential paths massively exceeding the 64 destinations.
But those empty squares are not entirely empty. The two teams EACH threaten something like 32 to 64 squares for AoOs, which may or may not over lap in an well nigh incalculable multitude of permutations. They also have the potential to move and attack, or move and area attack an even larger incalculably huge number of permutations of potential squares.
And whenever they move in one of the very large permutations of just a regular six square move they must during the execution of the move check each individual square for at least four separate sets of AoO threat ranges of up to 24 squares each, an unknown but massive number of squares that might contain ongoing area effects of unknown numbers of squares in size and shape, complex relative lines of sight, and consider the ludicrous potential ranges of the potential counter actions by opponents.
And to determine their move, or tactical option for the turn and its effects they need to not merely resolve all that for each square of the move that they actual execute but at the very least consider the likely resolution of all of that for each of the numerous potential paths they might take in a turn.
And to balance its design we need to at the very least in some way try to consider all of that for all the potential permutations of all the moves in all the situations the games mechanics might create.
And there are a lot more complex situations than four first level guys and less than half a dozen goblins in a small room with a tiny smattering of furniture.
I'm not saying the numbers make that stuff impossible to calculate at the design, decision and execution levels. You can even introduce averages and guesstimates and snake oil to try and make it easier. But I AM saying the complexity required to consider each of those with any real accuracy is way more than I am prepared to put my hand up for.
But if Murtak feels inclined to simply throw up a guesstimate for the number of potential variations when targeting a burning hands spell over all possible permutations of positioning of four potential one square targets for all variations of a single starting square of origin for a burning hands attacker in a 8x8 square room.
We'll that would be a minuscule start to claiming that designing or using area effects is easy in such a system.
Of course it would really help if he does it in a manner that can be partially reproduced by players attempting to use that in realistic game play time at the table when face with one of those permutations...
