I've been working on setting up a campaign for a brand new group of players, converting Curse of Straud to Shadow of the Demon Lord. For the most part, it's been fairly easy (not worrying about doing a direct 1 to 1 conversion, just keeping the general structure), but I've been running into an issue that grid speed in D&D 5E is measured in 5 foot increments, while SotDL measures in yards/metres. Which has been causing me headaches in regards to how to handle the included battlemaps. The quick and dirty way would be to divide every grid square into four and just handwave the difference in measurement, but that runs into the problem of most doors resting on an intersection point instead of a square side. It was in trying to resolve this problem (how do I handle someone who wants to block the door?) that I realised something that, in retrospect, seemed incredibly obvious.

I've seen a lot of discussions over the years about hex grid vs square grid, grid vs gridless, and battlemaps vs theatre of the mind. I've always wanted to try gridless, but having to rely on tape measures/strings/sticks/etc just seemed like too much hassle for the players. Still, I've always liked the idea. So I was looking for gridless versions of the Curse of Straud maps, when it occurred to me. Leave the grid there, and just use it as guidelines for measuring distance instead of a rigid "you must be in this square" system. You want to fill the door? Cool, put your mini in the doorway. Bloody obvious, but I had never thought about it before.

So yeah. Trying gridless combat for my next game. I figure some templates (cone, circle, maybe square?) will help for when we need to determine for sure who gets caught by what, but for the most part, I figure it should be easy enough to eyeball.  Has anybody else gone with that method? What method of visualising combat do you prefer? Maps, minis, tokens, whatever.

I've done the "grid is a visual guide only" thing, as you suggest.  Works well.  I've also simply arbitrarily said that the square was one meter/yard or two meters/yards, and dealt with it.  After all, the 5-foot square in D&D is a little spacious for what is supposed to be happening in it, and typically creates bigger rooms than is entirely realistic.  So just decide if you want to round up to 6 feet for a more expansive, larger-than-life feel, or down to 3 feet for a more cramped feel.

However you do it, little things will arise that you will need to adjudicate.  Try to be consistent, but don't be afraid of a minor rules reset if necessary until you get it worked out.   Experience will go a long way towards helping you decide which details are useful, versus which ones can be glossed over or even fully ignored.

I would have just gone with "these squares are 1 meter. In this world there's 5 feet to the meter, which locals call the Yard".

As Steven notes, D&D maps based on 5' squares tend to be stupidly big/spacious. Make them 1 meter squares and most floorplans look more realistic. Let minis occupy 1 square meter instead of 25 square feet.

My only real concern with rounding 5ft squares into 1m squares is that the maps were (presumably) not made with the PCs being able to move almost twice as far each round. Then again, I very, very rarely see situations where move speed has actually mattered...

Given that Curse of Straud is pretty much Fantasy mixed with Hammer Horror, I think sticking with the more cramped enviroments might be a better way go for the feel of the campaign.

I've got a decent amount of GMing experience, but it's my first time behind the curtain in quite a while. Focusing on making sure the newbies have an engaging first time.

Quote from: Broken Twin;1042600My only real concern with rounding 5ft squares into 1m squares is that the maps were (presumably) not made with the PCs being able to move almost twice as far each round.

5e isn't the kind of game where the designers thought about such things.

Quote from: S'mon;10426025e isn't the kind of game where the designers thought about such things.

5e was made to not need minis and grids at all.

I agree that a 3'x3' square would be better for mapping of most buildings. A basic bedroom would be more like 3x3=9 squares instead of 2x2=4 squares. A 3' wide hallway makes more sense than a 5' wide hallway. Unfortunately, in either scale if the designers want a 2-square-wide hallway than the dimensions are going to be way off.

Quote from: S'mon;1042579As Steven notes, D&D maps based on 5' squares tend to be stupidly big/spacious.

I'm not so sure about that. Most bedrooms are around 10' by 10' or so in size. (Ignoring Master bedrooms with odd shape, etc.) So imagine standing in a generic bedroom, dividing it up into quarters, then doing battle in there. You could pack a half dozen or more folks in a room that size standing or sitting, but not too many swinging swords and not hitting one another by accident. Having a character in battle filling up a 5' by 5' region of floorspace doesn't seem that absurd, it's just the map scale that this requires gets distorted.

I guess what I'm saying is that the 5' square isn't the problem. It's the mapmaker drawing up the map that is the problem.

While I am partial to GURPS 1 yard hexes don't sweat it. The grid is a tool to make movement and calculating range easier. If you know that three people can stand easily in a 10' corridor despite there only be two 5' grids then line up three miniatures. If the reality of the setting conflicts with the rules then the rules need to bend.

I wouldn't bother with trying make a small grid for maps. Given the time most have for their hobby it a waste to do this. Instead just move the miniatures like how you think they should move and cram them in there.

I definitely prefer no grid. It just brings out the boardgame feel for me. And it's easier to imrpov without maps (or with mudmap sketches).

Quote from: Psikerlord;1043330I definitely prefer no grid. It just brings out the boardgame feel for me. And it's easier to imrpov without maps (or with mudmap sketches).

I've taken to largely ignoring the grid in my 5e games, too.

Quote from: S'mon;1043356I've taken to largely ignoring the grid in my 5e games, too.

I use a grid maybe as much as 10% of the time in 5E.  If I need any markers, I'm more likely to simply place a few figures in an open space to show the rough arrangements.

I had taken to running Mekton without a hexgrid or miniatures.  Now, I want to go back to a grid and minis.

Recently I was reading about Star Trek Adventures, and the way that the book describe ranges and combat reminded me strongly of the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes game and the way it used miniatures and maps for combat.  I started thinking about how I used to have all those MSH city maps on my game table, and my friends and I used to run sprawling superhero battles on those maps with whatever miniatures we had available.  There was a distinctly different feel from doing it purely theater of the mind and saying "you get knocked 10 areas and slam into a building" and seeing it actually occur on the map.

And I'm sure after a while I'll get sick of rolling out the battlemat and minis and want to go pure description again.  It cycles for me.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1043358I use a grid maybe as much as 10% of the time in 5E.  If I need any markers, I'm more likely to simply place a few figures in an open space to show the rough arrangements.

I'm a bit different - if pcs are in a mapped location exploring then for tabletop I almost always draw it out on a dry erase flipmat. But I try to avoid tying movement and location to the grid lines unless playing 4e D&D which is all about that.

I like counters and hex grids, but I started in TFT and GURPS which have explicit rules about them that mean that things are more concrete and require fewer GM rulings if figures are in specific hexes facing specific directions.

However I have played TFT & GURPS on square grids and without hexes. It works fine but is not as clear and requires GM rulings on some things.

I like flat cardboard counters with printed images, because they are cheap and easy to make, and can easily flip and stack when there are piles of bodies or people on the ground or whatever. They also show facing more accurately - miniatures often are in twisted postures where the feet, body, weapon/arms, and head may all be pointing in different directions from each other. In the games I play, facing is important so that becomes an issue.

I like the 5e grid; I've even set up a few three dimensional maps. But whether the 5 foot grid is realistic is really low on my list of things to worry about in 5e; I'm more bothered by diagonal moves being five feet, when the distance is more than seven feet. Three foot wide corridors meet ADA (Americans in Dungeons Act) requirements. I don't think any 5e map I've ever seen really depended on the precise number of rounds to move between two particular points, and it would be thrown off by characters with mobility or haste or boots of speed or a race/class feature that increases speed (monks, barbarians, druids, rogues with cunning action to dash). Maybe you'd want to consider whether a particular map was set up so that most characters could not close to melee distance and attack in one round; some maps may have been laid out with that in mind.