Comments on: Hex Grid or Square?

By: Zach

Zach — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:15:44 +0000

I use a mixture of both hex and square. I use hex for outside, bigger environments like the world map, but for dungeons I use the squares, as it is easier to do rooms and such with them.

By: Breed

Breed — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:59:04 +0000

So this site is awesome. I am going to be using the grid for some Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, thanks for posting this link or I may never have found this.

By: 4E Gridless Combat « Jonathan Drain’s D20 Source: Dungeons & Dragons Blog

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:23:25 +0000

[...] edition blog At Will has an article up titled Fluid 4E: Gridless Combat. I considered D&D without a grid last year, but didn’t give it much thought. Quinn Murphy has given it some serious thought in [...]

By: redem

redem — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:28:56 +0000

I exclusively use hexes for large-scale outdoor maps where we’re tracking travel in days not in encounters. Especially if the travel is flight, skirting forests or mountains, or following a river, the hex grid tends to permit more reasonable movement.

When we need to “zoom in” for an encounter we use a square grid.

By: Hereward

Hereward — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:16:35 +0000

I use squares as it fits in better with dungeon construction.Squares are far from ideal but its a pretty minor issue unless you are playing with inexperienced players who are going to constantly argue with the DM(our group is fortunate in having over 110 years of RPG experience between 5 of us, I have been playing since 1977 when I was 12, the least experienced in the group has been playing since 1994).I use hex grids for outdoor mapping (the standard convention, squares for dungeon maps, hexes for widerness mapping) but still use the square grid battleboard for the fights.(We always use figures for battles).
I really like “Darkfires” idea of the offset squares for use on a battleboard and may construct one in the very near future.So thank you for that Darkfire.
(I was lucky to be involved with D & D at such a young age and completely by luck.I live in rural Scotland so hardly very modern or cosmipolitan.A friends mother had been shopping in London and had bought him D & D for his birthday (from Games Workshop who held the UK licencse and had only one shop, 1 Dalling Road ,Hammersmith)in the mistaken belief that it was a trilogy of “Swords and sorcery” novels, talk about serendipity).

By: Darkfire

Darkfire — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:28:45 +0000

@Zaratustra: Like so: _|_|_|_| |_|_|_|_ _|_|_|_| |_|_|_|_ Each square is adjacent to 6 other squares and you can only move in an exactly straight line along one axis. This is mechanically equivalent to hexes.

By: Zaratustra

Zaratustra — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:33:19 +0000

No, it didn’t. Imagine every second row being slid half a tile to the side.

By: Zaratustra

Zaratustra — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:40:54 +0000

Who wants to move east or west anyway

I like the ’tilted square’ thing, like this:

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Did that work?

By: Airk

Airk — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:34:37 +0000

I don’t understand the point of hexes. Sure, there are no ‘diagonals’ but there are some directions in which you are incapable of travelling in a straight line, so it amounts to the same thing. Look at any hex map. You can move “straight” by going, essentially, north, south, northeast, northwest, southeast or southwest, but in order to move east or west you are hitting the equivalent of a diagonal where you need to move twice because you keep deviating from your path. And at least using squares, you have right angles and therefore, straight lines in rooms not designed by races of giant sentient bees or something.

By: Darkfire

Darkfire — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:42:07 +0000

@PatrickWR
Actually, it’s perfectly logical. Apply Pythagoras’ theorem:
1 square diagonally is sqrt(5*5 + 5*5) = 7.07…ft
2 squares diagonally is sqrt(10*10 + 10*10) = 14.14…ft

Rounding both to the nearest 5ft interval gives you 5ft and 15ft respectively, hence the quick and dirty 5ft for odd diagonals, 10ft for evens. It’s fine for short distances.