You can just use 1" = 5ft. with a tape measure on a white board. That's what we've done for years, even back in our 3.5 days (we used a chalkboard in the same way when we were playing 3.0).

Then use spools of thread or paper cutouts for monsters and PCs. Try to find things you can write on easily.

Quote from: Fifth Element;371918Crazy thought - maybe there's more to 4E than the battlemat?

Then maybe it shouldn't be so difficult to ignore it.

If you want to get rid of the battlemap and minis altogether, probably the easiest way would be to substitute the movement effects for something else, like having the opponent dazed for one round per square moved.  Maybe take the attack roll vs Con or Str or something and upgrade it to stunned or even prone if they fail by a certain margin.

To simplify other powers, any area effects will catch a random number of enemies between one (the targeted creature) and the maximum that would be in the burst or blast.  So, a Blast 3 can hit eight creatures besides the one targeted, perhaps a d10-2 for additional creatures that would also be hit.  Rolling a 1 or 2 indicates zero additional creatures, and roll it for each such attack to simulate the changing nature of combat.

Movement effects and area attacks are really the two biggest mechanics that tie the game to a battlemat.  If you can come up with a replacement for those that is agreeable to your group, the rest should be easy.  I am not sure there is a halfway solution that would significantly lessen the need for minis and such, though.  You could eyeball it using the previously suggested 1" = 1sq and just estimate distances.

We do without battlemaps fairly often. Generally, in fights where positioning isn't important, there's no need to use them. For example, a wizard in one of our games was trying to shoot down this airship with magic missiles while it tried to laser him as he ran for cover in this destroyed city. The important thing to know was whether the wizard was visible or not to the airship, not which square he was in, so the DM ran it as a mixed skill challenge / combat without being drawn on the board.

Another time, our PCs were racing down this gallery to the bottom of the space as it collapsed. There were multiple paths, and a very labyrinthine layout that would have taken too long to draw, and which would have needed to be redrawn repeatedly, and all the PCs were on different levels anyhow. The reason they were racing was that a giant monster was chasing us down the gallery and tearing it apart as it went.

The important questions regarding position were simply: Are we on solid ground or not? Can we move at full speed further down the gallery? Are we in reach of the monster or is he within reach of us? We made a skill check each round that determined the answers to those questions: Successes meant we got the answer we wanted, failure meant the DM got to pick his preference. We didn't use the board at all. Powers that slid the monster simply got translated into 5ft increments and otherwise acted normally (i.e. someone knocked it into the central shaft of the gallery at one point using a sliding power).

There are other examples, but they are all similar. The main thing is to figure out why positioning is important in the first place, and simply answer those questions.

Quote from: Lawbag;371863We've had 3 people in our group express an interest in running this baby, but the sheer amount of mapping and miniature work required seems to be putting people off.
 
Is there some way (digitally or dry-wipe board) of being able to represent the fast paced movement that combat should be, with the ease of movement that figures and maps bring?
 
Cost isnt an issue, portability is.

No, there is no way around it. To play 4e RAW, you need physical representation, whether that be miniatures, tokens, or Xs and Os on a whiteboard or sheet of graph paper.

I don't really understand your question, though. You say dry-wipe board is okay, so . . . I am puzzled. A dry-wipe board and some coins (pieces of paper for larger creatures) are all you would need.

My advice would we to play 2e instead ... it was built for narrative combat.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;371925There are other examples, but they are all similar. The main thing is to figure out why positioning is important in the first place, and simply answer those questions.

Exactly.

Apparently Fiery Dragon produces boxes of counters for 4e play which seem to include rather a lot of counters. (Though I haven't seen them, that's just from a google search).

Our current 3.5 GM DIY'd a program to run combats and dungeons which was awesome visually, though he gave up using a laptop to DM eventually. I have to admit I still preferred the 2e approach as well though - mini's don't model dynamic combat (e.g. horse chases) very well, even with the addition of movement-based powers that reduce staticness.

Quote from: Fifth Element;371918Crazy thought - maybe there's more to 4E than the battlemat?

Maybe, just like there's more to Ars Magica than the magic system, more to Call of Cthulhu than percentile skills, and more to the World of Darkness than the supernatural. But stripping 4E of the battlemat makes about as much sense to me as stripping those other games of their major draws. You can do it, but you'd be tossing the most well-designed and well-supported aspect of the game. Why do that when you could just play a different game which is actually geared towards the sort of thing you want to focus on?

Quote from: Cranewings;371907It seems kinda silly to go through this much work and invest that kind of money in a strategy game that is so loaded in favor of one side.

Hey, there is no strategy in 4e!

Quote from: Lawbag;371863Is there some way (digitally or dry-wipe board) of being able to represent the fast paced movement that combat should be, with the ease of movement that figures and maps bring?
 
Cost isnt an issue, portability is.

You have received some good suggestions in the way of mats and software (I'll agree with the previous poster that suggestions RPTools' MapTool, assuming that's an option for you).  However, I get the portability thing...I've been that guy that carts around a big tub full of dungeon tiles, bits, minis a few times and I don't care for it either.

Two things I found hugely beneficial may be of interest to you:

A) Distributed bits.  Take the suggestions for cheap and easy representations suggested previously (spools, coins, whatever) and have a set available with each of your pals.  For me, the only things I really wanted consistency for were the PCs (who used their own minis) and terrain (it's too confusing if a tree is a nickel one week and a dime the next).  But for everything else, we could use what was at hand (I recommend shelled candy for fodder, letting the players eat their slain foes).

B) Cardboard foldup chess/checker board*.  Eight times of ten, this was large enough for our needs.  You can section off parts as you see fit.  If you need to buy one, you get the benefit of a box full of useful bits (stackable chips are all the rage for tracking status, so I hear) and a modest sized box to carry other bits.  If that sounds like too much bulk to you, the board can always be tucked into a rigid folder during transport.

* Now that I think about it, 4e has an awful lot of area effects and bursts and blasts, huh?  This might not have enough squares for you.  I suppose if you like the idea of bringing a board instead of a mat, you could always fix a mat with more squares to it.

Quote from: Thanlis;371868Or use the counters as minis; you can use dry-erase on 'em. Alternatively, buy a bunch of 1" wooden circles from a craft store.

But I'd skip the whole thing. Think of it in terms of abstract zones; you're either next to someone, close to them (within 5 squares), at a distance (10 squares), or far away (more than 10). You can charge if you're close or at a distance, but not if you're far away. A move action takes you from one zone to another, so you could move from "at a distance" to "close."

You'll have to skip some of the more fiddly powers, but that's not a huge loss.

Thanks for that! Goes straight to my clip-board and from there to my post-it's which I stick on the inside of my DM screen. (Abyssal Maw's  simplified skill DC calculator was another recent addition.)

One thing - I think your proposal to do mat-less zones can't be done once the number of combatants is more than 4 per side. More precisely, zones can be maintained (in favour of counting squares) by the DM keeping track of the zones on a piece of paper, say, a 3x3 zone grid.

This is what I once suggested re: Warhammer RPG 3rd's abstract system for combat movement, and which 4E developer Rodney Thompson suggested:

Quote from: WotC_RodneyI've talked a lot about what I like so far (and there's a LOT to like about this game), but there are a few things that I don't care for. The movement and distance system is one of them. I get it that they wanted to go abstract, but it's painfully obvious that this game would be much better with a grid (even a large-scale one, more like the concept of zones), rather than futzing with the distance tokens. Not only is it annoying to keep track of realtive distance if players go off in different directions, it also has inexplicable complication (why does it cost 2 maneuvers to go from long to medium range when it's only 1 to move from medium to close?) and extraneous distance tracking (I can be at close range with a guy, but not engaged with him, so in truth there's actually an invisible measurement of distance between close and engaged that the game isn't really honest about). I'm in no way suggesting that the game needs tactical movement or a 1-inch grid, but I think just being able to draw the equivalent of a big tic-tac-toe board and dropping the encounter locations into large-scale zones might have been a lot easier. As it is, distance and location is probably the most difficult to track thing in the game, and it feels like they reached too hard for abstraction while not fully embracing it.

So if go we tic-tac-to, Thanlis' proposal uses these distance categories:

Same zone: combatants are adjacent to each other. DM needs to winge flanking, but not much - opportunity attacks are a much greater hassle. Powers which let people shift 1-2 squares (I'd say) are now simplified to keeping combatants in the same zone.

Adjacent zones and zones on opposite edges of the tic-tac-toe board: ..ehm... what he said (pointing at Thanlis' post). It's not so much about squares as about movement actions (very roughly speaking). It takes 1 movement action to move from one zone to another.

For simplification - a square is 5 foot across. Simplify movement and range categories to 5 foot increments. Close Burst 1-4 affects everyone in the same zone. And "Area burst 4 within 10" basically means: "affects all creatures in either your zone or a zone adjacent to yours".

PS. I think it is important that the tic-tac-toe thing is kept behind the DM screen. What I do on similar instances (running 3.5 combats mini-less) is to draw everything on my flip mat behind the screen... not square-by-square but just very abstract and at a much smaller scale, so I know who's where. I basically use only a very small area of the flip mat, so it can fit neatly behind the screen. Otherwise I'd just be a major hassle. Also: graph paper and pencil does the job just as well.

Quote from: Windjammer;371956So if go we tic-tac-to, Thanlis' proposal uses these distance categories:

Same zone: combatants are adjacent to each other. DM needs to winge flanking, but not much - opportunity attacks are a much greater hassle. Powers which let people shift 1-2 squares (I'd say) are now simplified to keeping combatants in the same zone.

Adjacent zones and zones on opposite edges of the tic-tac-toe board: ..ehm... what he said (pointing at Thanlis' post). It's not so much about squares as about movement actions (very roughly speaking). It takes 1 movement action to move from one zone to another.

PS. I think it is important that the tic-tac-toe thing is kept behind the DM screen. What I do on similar instances (running 3.5 combats mini-less) is to draw everything on my flip mat behind the screen... not square-by-square but just very abstract and at a much smaller scale, so I know who's where. I basically use only a very small area of the flip mat, so it can fit neatly behind the screen. Otherwise I'd just be a major hassle. Also: graph paper and pencil does the job just as well.

I think that works pretty well, yeah. I like the tic tac toe board.

Quote from: Benoist;371915Seems counterintuitive to me, too.

Hey Benoist, I'm starting a game of Chess. You can have two rooks, a knight, and a bishop. I'll start with 5 pawns. If you manage to kill all five of them, I'll bring out a queen by itself.

You will have to be really smart to beat me.

Thumbs up, cranewings!
But do not forget: Any figure he looses in the process of taking the pawns will be replenished before the queen comes unto the board.

That's why I like that old school touch. Any piece lost before the queen comes out gets replaced by a pawn. (:

Quote from: Settembrini;371966Thumbs up, cranewings!
But do not forget: Any figure he looses in the process of taking the pawns will be replenished before the queen comes unto the board.

See also: mid-long term resources management yanked out of the game in favor of instant resources management (if any) in a vast majority of cases. I.e. "strategy blows, we want instant rewards tactics instead. It'll be Fun(TM), and ze game will remain ze same!".