D&D 3E/3.5 In 3.5 All Monsters Are Square?

[hong]

Half as many attackers against a particular target force = half the damage.

D&D was never really meant to handle military-scale maneuvering, though. If you're routinely running combats featuring battalions of pikemen or cavalry, you need a skirmish-level ruleset, which a number of publishers are now starting to come up with.

 

[dcollins]

On the contrary, I've seen many D&D encounters with small squads of guards or cavalry that worked as sensible challenges. The AD&D standard patrols (1st Ed. DMG p. 182) and Greyhawk encounters (Glossography p. p. 4-7), for example, were predominantly mounted groups of about 10 to 20 soldiers. A DM used such an encounter on my group in 3rd Ed. quite successfully. This rule makes these encounters non-simulatable for the first time.

 

[thundershot]

I guess my problem is that we don't have actual SIZES for certain things, especially long creatures.

As for tall creatures... in order to hit the creature, wouldn't you have to step ONTO one of his squares to attack him, rather than just within AOO range? If the mini takes up a 15 x 15 space, but isn't really that big, where do you stand to attack him? The minis will get in the way (okay, so I don't use minis, we use legos, but still).



Chris

 

[Staffan]

As for tall creatures... in order to hit the creature, wouldn't you have to step ONTO one of his squares to attack him, rather than just within AOO range? If the mini takes up a 15 x 15 space, but isn't really that big, where do you stand to attack him? The minis will get in the way (okay, so I don't use minis, we use legos, but still).

Well, a 15x15 creature is a Huge creature, meaning it's between 16 and 32 feet tall. I don't have a problem with a human whose "center" is 10 ft away from a 20 ft tall giant's "center" being able to reach out with his arm plus an additional 3 ft from a sword and hitting that giant.

 

[AuraSeer]

As for tall creatures... in order to hit the creature, wouldn't you have to step ONTO one of his squares to attack him, rather than just within AOO range?

No, of course not. If you can attack any part of his area, you can attack the creature.

A human doesn't take up an entire 5'x5' space, but he "controls" that space by moving around inside it. If you can shoot at any part of the space, you can shoot at the character in it.

 

[drnuncheon]

Cavalry charges are certainly the first to come to mind; the fact that the facing contradicts the actual size of quadruped miniatures is another.

The second part there is so minor as to be unimportant - all you need to do is put a bigger base on the mini.

The fact is, they needed to make this change to be consistent with the rest of the 3e rules - rules like "there is no such thing as facing".

Really, the 'face' of a creature in 3.5 isn't where it is, it's where it could be. It's a range of possibilities, like the "electron cloud" surrounding the nucleus of an atom. Since the D&D round is broken down into 6-second lengths, you don't know exactly where it is at every point during those 6 seconds, but you know the general area, and that is sufficient.

As for cavalry charges, and other instances of "overlapping" squares, here's my theory (and we'll see if it's what's really in the books): Assume that tall creatures "really" take up 1/4 of their square at any one time, and long creatures really take up 1/2 of their square at any one time. (these are estimations for combat - you can pack more in but they won't be fighting effectively!)

Using these guidelines, you can overlap creatures - however, when you do so you decrease their ability to maneuver, and they lose their dexterity bonus to Armor Class.

If you're in a massed cavalry charge, you can't be making your horse dodge left and right, wheel around to avoid blows, etc. If you're fighting in a tightly packed phalax (4 people in a 5' square) and someone pokes a spear at you, you're not going to be sidestepping it - there's nowhere to go!

This probably belongs more in House Rules if there's going to be much further discussion of it, but it's certainly one possibility.

 

[Ranger REG]

I just picked up the latest Dragon at my FLGS and took a look at the dragon counters provided on the poster insert, where it stated that in 3.5 all monsters have a square base rather than some being square and others being long.

This is the first rule that I've encountered for the new edition where I decided instantly to toss it out. Among other things it makes maseed cavalry charges sort of pointless. Not to mention having to rebase a lot of figures.

Just wanted to see what others thought about the new sizes...

Personally, it makes sense when a horse who is 5-by-10 is fighting those surrounding him. He's not going to remain facing one direction. He's going to want to turn around and kick anyone who comes near him with his back or front hooves. The same could be said of intelligent creatures who are long. This is what they call it a "fighting space."

As for the massed charge, I don't see the change affecting it, other than it need an even wider space and only two knights can attack one poor creature instead of three-on-one.

 

[Numion]

In mounted charges the 5x10 space is better I guess, but after that I would think that the horse needs space around it to maneuver. For example, if the knight riding the horse wants to hit someone with non-reach weapon, he'd have to turn the horse sideways to the target. It just isn't possible to strike someone who is in front of the horse with non-reach weapon.

 

[Talix]

When I mentioned this to my gaming group, they all looked at me strangely, like "How could you possibly think that would ever work?", since we had just finished gathering around and beating up a guy on horseback.

It's a good point - how would surrounding someone be handled? To take a more extreme example, if there is a giant purple worm, to have a large group of fighters surround it, now they will end up being WAAAAAY father apart than they would otherwise have been. It's easy to just say "this is the space this creature takes up" and play by that, and I'm sure that's what we'll end up doing. But it makes it a heck of a lot harder to reconcile with the mental image in your head...

 

[drnuncheon]

When I mentioned this to my gaming group, they all looked at me strangely, like "How could you possibly think that would ever work?", since we had just finished gathering around and beating up a guy on horseback.

It's a good point - how would surrounding someone be handled?

The same way it is now. Just because something is a 10x10 square rather than a 5x10 rectangle doesn't mean that it somehow can't be surrounded anymore.

Remember, when you fight someone on foot, you aren't right on top of them either. You've got anywhere from 2-10 feet separating you, depending on which edge of your square you happen to be in at any given time. This abstracts out the quick, repeated engage-and-disengage of most fights.

If you tried to surround someone on a horse and you got in as close as you are able to in 3e (5' apart), you would more than likely get slammed into by the horse as it spun and maneuvered. Remember, it's not just standing there placidly while you beat on its rider.

Unfortunately, I can't remember a movie offhand where people fight from horseback while surrounded, but I'll bet you'd see a rough circle of guys around the horse, not a tight rectangle...

J