PDA

View Full Version : How to D&D without a battle map?



Lappy9001
2012-07-31, 12:54 AM
Lately I've been considering running a campaign, possibly with a non 3.5 system, without the use of a battle grid or miniatures. However, I'm having problems conceptualizing the process. I've played in three games where there were no grids...two were train wrecks (although that was likely a result of inexperience) and the third focused almost entirely on roleplay where battles almost never even happened.

I was raised on 3.5, and introduced to the game by a tactically-inclined Warhammer 40k veteran, so gaming without a battle map or grid seems almost unnatural. How do you run a campaign without battle maps (but plenty of battles), and how do you make it work at the table?

NecroRebel
2012-07-31, 01:08 AM
It helps to run a system where placement doesn't really matter terribly much. For instance, if combat is done almost exclusively with guns, the only things that you really have to know are "is there cover between me and my enemies," "roughly where is there cover in the battlefield," and "where are exits from the battlefield." If you're not behind cover, you're dead quickly. If there is cover where the enemies could use it to get where they have cover and you don't, you need to deal with that, and if you can get to where you have cover and the enemies don't, you need to know about that. If things go south and you have to retreat, knowing if there are exits, and where they are relative to any cover, is very important.

You might have some rough maps to show the basic relative positioning of things, but you don't have to have a hard-and-fast grid for it, and you could simply describe where everything relevant is, though that's more error-prone. It might be wise to try some games where the battle maps aren't as tightly-plotted as they are in D&D to ease yourself away from the reliance on such things.

Loki Eremes
2012-07-31, 01:13 AM
I dont think running a battle-heavy campaing setting without a battle map will be a good idea. Its seems just to difficult to register and memorize both PCs and NPCs movements. The greatest strengh of D&D is the its weakness too: combats tend to be frigging long sometimes and get boring.

Maybe you wanna change a bit the battle system?
Or maybe change the approach?

Lets say you're going to DM a warfare campaing. For example, if two armies are going to clash and your players are in there, just dont make a giant grid with a hundred of enemies... instead just throw 5 o 6 of them and imagine this is one of many "scenes" of the battle, and then during the encounter throw some more. Leave the rest of the people confront each other in other imaginary scenes.

Sry, but im telling you this because I simply can't visualize how taking the grid from the ecuation will be some sort of improvement in a chess-like game like D&D.
It's like playing chess without the board. :smallbiggrin:

Lappy9001
2012-07-31, 01:24 AM
Also, if anyone could direct me to some systems that don't use battle maps at all, that would be the bee's knees.

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-07-31, 05:25 AM
There are a lot of systems that don't use battlemaps. Shadowrun, Paranoia, Traveller, and tons of others. I was raised on systems without battlemaps, so it's always been more natural for me to visualize the landscape than to figure out exact distances. It helps as a GM to keep a minimap with rough locations of everyone until you get used to keeping track. With most battlemap-less systems, it's good to remember that they're battlemap-less because location doesn't really matter all that much. Also it gives you a lot more room to ballpark. Either way, Good luck!

Commiczar
2012-07-31, 06:03 AM
I've never run a single game with a battle grid, and the players seem to like it very much. It shifts focus from the numbers to the actual actions, so to speak.

Focus a lot on description. You don't need precise numbers, but you definitely need to ensure that everybody knows what they can easily attack and easily cannot. Let the players ask, if they're unsure (e.g. they can ask if a given enemy is far enough away to be hard to hit via ranged attack). Let the players form their own positioning of characters.

Things like Fireball and other area-attacks, you've got options: previously I kept a sort of map in my head of enemy positions and would explain what groups of targets a player could hit with an attack, letting them choose which to hit.

The main benefit I've seen is that the players work more off the descriptions. E.g. a chandelier in the room seems to have a higher likelihood of getting used in a gridless game.

Yora
2012-07-31, 06:29 AM
D&D 3rd and 4th Edition are actually the only games I know that use grids.

Totally Guy
2012-07-31, 06:37 AM
There are a lot of systems that don't use battlemaps. Shadowrun, Paranoia, Traveller, and tons of others.

This might be obvious to Lappy but maybe not: Even if you pick up one of these games then you probably won't be D&Ding with it. You might be Shadowrunning with it, or Travellering with it but not D&Ding with it.

If fighting on a grid is the game to you then you can't play without the grid and still be playing the same game.

hamlet
2012-07-31, 07:24 AM
Play AD&D. It doesn't use battle maps, and doesn't suffer for lack of them.

Actually, I'll qualify that by adding that, from time to time, when things get really complicated, it would behoove you to throw together something quick to just make it a little simpler, but 99 times out of 100, you have absolutely no need for a battle map at all.

Plus, you know, it's a faster, easier, simpler system than 3.x. And you can get it (or something very like it) for free with OSRIC.

LadyFoxfire
2012-07-31, 07:34 AM
If you come across a situation that really needs a battle board, you can make one with improvised items. Jenga blocks or pencils to mark the walls, small items like coins or buttons to mark combatants, etc. Sketching the battlefield on a piece of paper also works pretty well

Tyndmyr
2012-07-31, 07:40 AM
Also, if anyone could direct me to some systems that don't use battle maps at all, that would be the bee's knees.

7th Sea runs pretty effectively without a battle map, save for naval combat(and that, all you need are approximations, so pushing minis around the table works fine).

some guy
2012-07-31, 08:02 AM
Like the others have said, it can be done, usually with a bit back-and-forth-ing of the DM and players. Like:

Player 1: Can I hit any of the goblins with my burning hands?
DM: Well, most of the archers are out of reach. You can walk up and hit the one who's most close by. You can hit all five of the goblins surrounding the barbarian, but you'll hit the barbarian too. Or you can hit 3 of those without hitting the barbarian.

Or:

Player: Can I shoot a goblin?
DM: Yes.

There's more description involved, not only for the DM but also for the players.

Kerrin
2012-07-31, 08:42 AM
If you come across a situation that really needs a battle board, you can make one with improvised items. Jenga blocks or pencils to mark the walls, small items like coins or buttons to mark combatants, etc. Sketching the battlefield on a piece of paper also works pretty well
This is how we used to play AD&D.

Players would just each put a die on the table to represent their characters and the DM would put dice on the table to represent the opponents. The room/terrain was just described using words or occasionally a few extra dice were put on the table to represent some significant piece of the scene (e.g. "This d12 represents the fountain", etc). All distances and sizes were approximations.

Fight!

Emmerask
2012-07-31, 08:50 AM
Fighting without a battlemap is actually a lot more easy then one thinks,
you need a dm you can trust though.

The rest is just approximation which during play works a ton faster then any battlemap fights and can be a lot more epic too, you pretty much canīt display 2 armies fighting on a battlemap* but you can in your mind :smallbiggrin:

In a 4 year campaign with approximately one fight every session I used a battlemap and minis only about 10% of the time, mostly for dungeon fights with traps etc because there it really is hard to tell the players pathing.

Overall I would suggest to first do smaller scale engagements without battlemaps (a troll and his 2 orcs or somesuch) and then when everybody is comfortable with the way its done go up to the larger stuff.



*well you can display part of the fight but that comes with its own limitiations (what if someone wants to go outside the mapbounds etc)

Rallicus
2012-07-31, 09:26 AM
Yeah, 3.5 is pretty difficult to run without a battle map. When you're taking into account AoOs, distance, flanking, etc., it'll just become more and more tedious each battle.

If you don't find a suitable system to change to, you can always make your own battle map. My friends and I have used blank paper with grids drawn on and WH40k figurines, but the latter could easily be replaced with household items, or even chess pieces or something.

If you're playing online: invest some time into learning Roll20 or Maptool. The former is easier to pick up but it's in beta and has a lot of issues, and the latter takes more time to learn but is overall a much better product.

Emmerask
2012-07-31, 10:07 AM
The thing I wonder is how do you guys actually play d&d at high levels with a battlemap, in dungeons its okay but in an open area?
People throw stuff at each other from 50+ fields away, fly around at 200 feet hight with a speed that can flick around the entire map in one round...

I just donīt see that battlemaps at high level d&d are of any use whatsoever, so learning how to play without a map is pretty much essential for d&d in my opinion.

EccentricCircle
2012-07-31, 10:07 AM
I almost always use a map for D&D, unless the combat is a quick, unexpected or very fast moving piece. any time when I expect the players to take a long time in an area, or pay any real attention to how things are arranged I try to give them a map.

If the combat consists of two people standing next to each other and sword fighting then a map isn't needed. Flanking, tactical movement etc don't really come into play, if one combatant moves, the other can generally keep up.

If no one was expecting a fight to break out, and you only need to play a few rounds while the players flee the battle, then setting up a whole board is likely to be unneccersary. If player A's first action is to cast cause fear on the goblins then you know whats happening and the PC's aren't likely to chase them down.

If a character or two are running through corridors being chased by guards, or trying to get past guards and escape then you probably don't need a board. all you need to know is how many guards are behind or ahead at any given time. things won't become bogged down in a complex combat unless the players actually stop, if they keep moving then all you need to know is whether any of the guards chasing them catch up. and who is ahead to try to block their escape.

All of these scenarios assume that you are not playing a "Combat heavy" game. If having big fights is the point of the game then any situation where your players are attacked by bad guys will likely lead to them stopping and trying to kill all the bad guys. In a game where combat isn't the focus a party who have been attacked aren't likely to stop, as getting away from the people who want to kill them is more likely to be their priority.

You should also make sure that your players are happy to play the game with no board for reference. Even if you are happy visualising whats going on not everyone around the table may feel the same way. Some people find if very hard to keep lots of spatial information in their heads at any one time and will not be able to play the game as easily without some sort of diagram.

Jay R
2012-07-31, 11:14 AM
The thing I wonder is how do you guys actually play d&d at high levels with a battlemap, in dungeons its okay but in an open area?

The key phrase there is "high-level". All games I've played have started at first level, and I rarely keep the game going up to the highest levels.


People throw stuff at each other from 50+ fields away, fly around at 200 feet hight with a speed that can flick around the entire map in one round....

Not if there are trees or other cover, they don't. A battle on a map usually involves low-level forces or enemies you cannot see until you get closer.


I just donīt see that battlemaps at high level d&d are of any use whatsoever, so learning how to play without a map is pretty much essential for d&d in my opinion.

The old Disney method of making movies used storyboards, not scripts, and Michael Eisner never could follow it that way. Then one day he heard Walt's nephew Roy talk about when he was nine years old, sick in bed, and his Uncle Walt came up to his room and told him the story of Pinocchio, as they were about to film it. Eisner realized that there was always a script - the script was in Walt's head.

Similarly, if the game has movement and any actions involving range, there has to be a battle-map. But it's not always on the table; sometimes it's in the DM's head.

Absol197
2012-07-31, 11:55 AM
When I was in high school, my friends and I would play D&D 3.5 during our lunch period. But we only had a small table for the eight of us, our lunches, our books, a rolling space for our dice, etc. Absolutely no room for a battle mat at all, and none of us could afford one, anyways. So, our DMs simply described the scene - the terrain, the enemies, the positioning - as best they could.

When our turn came, we described what we wanted to try and do, and the DM would say whether we could do it, or whether there were mitigating factors that would prevent us. He (or I, as I was often a DM, too) would usually offer a suggestion as to an alternative course of action, if the one we wanted to do was blocked or hindered in some way, as others above me have described.

In the end, it worked out exceptionally well. It required that the DM become better at describing scenes, so the two/three of us got a lot better at that, and it required it of the players to an extent, as well, and made us all better roleplayers as a result. Once you get used to it, it's not that bad. I still often revert to that system in battles where it wouldn't make sense. For example, in my RL Avatar game I'm running, the characters were fighting a large-scale battle to defend a port city against a naval attack. They were split between three places - a couple were on a ship, a couple were in the air on a sky bison, and the last couple were participating in the ground battle. While we had a battle mat, all I did was draw a general outline of where everything was in one corner (1 square = 100 ft.), and use the descriptive style. The players thought it was one of the most fun battles I had run in the whole campaign.

As others have mentioned, in the battles where things like positioning become truly important, you can use small objects (I prefer dice, but that's because I have a lot of them :smallsmile: ) to give a general idea. In our lunch group, we only had to do that I think twice, out of hundreds of battles. I'd recommend giving it a try. It's a lot of fun!

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-07-31, 12:34 PM
This might be obvious to Lappy but maybe not: Even if you pick up one of these games then you probably won't be D&Ding with it. You might be Shadowrunning with it, or Travellering with it but not D&Ding with it.

If fighting on a grid is the game to you then you can't play without the grid and still be playing the same game.

He asked about systems that don't use battlemaps in the post right above mine. :3

Roderick_BR
2012-08-01, 06:22 AM
If you don't use Attacks of Opportunity, it is pretty easy. Just describe to the players the general position, who's near who and what cover is available. You'll still have to keep track, by writting it down, so the dwarf doesn't fly all over the battlefield, but that's it.
My group played AD&D, and we never used battle maps.

18th Avenger
2012-08-01, 10:59 AM
I understand why some people need maps. In our Deathwatch campaign, our GM pulled out all the stops and built a whole fething planet on Rolld20 for us. It helped amazingly and we were able to take all the objectives.

Before that, he pulled out all sorts of Styrofoam odds and ends and placed my figures at various points to determine where everything was. That's not counting all the times we used the whiteboard and discarded junk wrappers and tetrapacks.

But for the quick and dirty approach, Roderick_BR's got sound advice. If anything, the lack of maps often excites the roleplaying aspect of the hobby a lot better, but that often depends on the group.

Seerow
2012-08-01, 11:20 AM
There are a lot of systems that don't use battlemaps. Shadowrun, Paranoia, Traveller, and tons of others.

Huh, I've used battle maps for Shadowrun probably more frequently (percentage of play wise at least) than I have for D&D. When dealing with weapons with short ranges, area of effect spells, and locations where cover is an issue (more frequent than D&D ime. Very rarely have I seen a Shadowrun combat take place outside in the open), a grid is very helpful for Shadowrun.



Anyway, a few simple rules I like for gridless D&D

Rather than worrying about exact position on a map, worry about who's next to who. So you don't care where Fighter and Goblin are on a bigger map, you care that Fighter is next to Wizard (for protection), and Goblin is next to both of them. (Helps if you give characters options for protecting allies in the same group as them) The three of them would be considered one group.

-Objects/locations can be a part of the group. If for example the Fighter/Wizard are standing behind a Wall of Stone to gain cover, ranged attacks will take cover penalties, and an enemy might have to spend 2 actions instead of 1 to enter the group

-A single move action will get you from one group to another group.

-Attacks are just melee/range, no range increments listed. Range can hit any group, but provokes AoOs if you attack while an enemy is in your group.

-AoEs do not target a specific area (ie a 20ft radius), instead they target "everyone in combat (maybe except the caster)" or "One group".

-Instead of having AoOs for moving through a threatened square, have AoOs for movement come from leaving a group. The withdrawal action and 5 foot steps are removed.

Yes a Longbow has a longer range than a throwing knife, and if the groups are really spread out then it's not so easy to just run between them. But for most cases this isn't going to matter, so you let it get handled by the abstractions. The DM can choose to invoke range increments or movement rates if the battle is abnormally spread out.

zorenathres
2012-08-01, 12:28 PM
I have never used battlemaps or miniatures in my games (& I have never met a player who minded), just a personal preference. I grew up playing AD&D, Paranoia, Shadowrun, & Rifts which never had grids so they just feel unneeded IRL games. We have done the dice thing a few times, but that's pretty seldom.

huttj509
2012-08-01, 03:46 PM
I have never used battlemaps or miniatures in my games (& I have never met a player who minded), just a personal preference. I grew up playing AD&D, Paranoia, Shadowrun, & Rifts which never had grids so they just feel unneeded IRL games. We have done the dice thing a few times, but that's pretty seldom.

Playing ADnD in middle/high school, there were occasionally issues with misunderstanding relative positioning in some fights. That then led to the GM keeping a rough map behind the DM screen, for clarity. Then the DM map got passed around periodically to make sure everyone was on the same page. After that, bringing the battlemap to the other side of the screen just made sense having evolved from my group's playstyle and experiences with ADnD.

Just wanted to provide a counterpoint to some of the "which never had grids." For a number of groups it was a logical extension of what they were doing anyway, even back in the days of ADnD.

Played Shadowrun in college without battlemaps or anything, and that worked well. I think it depends a lot on how 'grainy' the group prefers their combat tactics, and how well the communication with the DM goes back and forth regarding plans and situations.

Togath
2012-08-01, 08:27 PM
I often play without a battlemat, using something more like warhammer, using movement measured with a tape measure(the flexible, cloth-like kind) and using misc objects or wargaming terrain features in place of features on a mattlebat

BootStrapTommy
2012-08-01, 10:54 PM
Lol. I haven't use battle maps or miniatures in years. Just memory. Paper and diagrams work pretty well, good enough for use. I diagram a lot, but haven't used maps in a long time.

On a few rare occasions I just forsook it all, and let the PCs take care of it. They cooperated. Kept asking "So where am I at? And how many enemies and where?" It worked.

Slipperychicken
2012-08-02, 11:53 PM
Playing without a map at all sucks.

You basically have to sit there begging the DM for a flank, or an AoO, hoping that he lets you full attack next round, or not commit AoE friendly-fire, or that those goblins are bunched-up so you can AoE them. You constantly forget how many enemies there are, and whether you killed them all, or where they are in relation to you, your allies, or anything else. You will never know who has cover, and rarely know if someone is in range of anything without begging the DM first.


Combat feels like the PCs are standing in a tiny bathroom, all huddled around the BBEG until someone teleports or runs out. Tactics are impossible. Do not let a player play a battlefield-control Wizard without a map. I played as one, and one-shotted encounters the few times we actually had a map to work off of (I'm good with spatial reasoning), and did okay when we didn't.

elizasteave
2012-08-03, 01:02 AM
Its impossible to me to run a battle campaign without planning it before, and yes in the case if its full of battles. Taking covers, for yourself as well as for the team and then the area where a person can move out of the battle campaign as suggested by NecroRebel are certainly one of the best techniques, without which it is actually impossible to move on.

Knaight
2012-08-05, 07:44 PM
This really depends on what system you are using. If you are using a system with extremely precise movements, ranges, etc. then going without a map of some sort will be difficult. If you are using a system which does not have extremely precise movements, ranges, etc. then it will probably be relatively easy. However, I'd recommend splitting the difference and getting used to a loose map before dispensing with the map entirely. Specifically, I'd recommend stealing the Zone system from FATE. You'll still have a map, but it will consist of a few large, somewhat abstracted areas which makes tracking much easier. In effect, you're probably tracking 6-7 spaces for a fairly open and dynamic battle, instead of several hundred.

In practice, I usually end up using a sort of loose zone system when not using a map. The zones are not specifically demarcated before hand, but emerge organically through play - a dockside battle might end up having five de-facto areas, consisting of the docks, the piers, a warehouse, the nearby rooftops, and the dockside market. Each of these will have their own behavior, and various other spacial relationships come into and out of existence (for instance, a character might leap from one pier to another, creating a spacial relationship of different piers for two characters until the second crosses. Or perhaps the pier zone might split into "on the pier" and "in the water" when one character throws another into the sea, only for the "in the water" zone to fade away entirely. It varies).

TheOOB
2012-08-05, 09:19 PM
Why would you play D&D without a map, that's like playing it without a d8. The game is made to be played on a map. If you don't want to play a game on a map, don't play D&D. It's like playing World of Darkness with no supernatural creatures, or Paranoia without the Friend Computer.

Emmerask
2012-08-06, 07:41 AM
I strongly disagree about that,
most importantly at high levels a map is more of a hindrance then an actual asset for d&d, so how can it be designed for map use only if the map stops working at some point?

Then there are actually only very few rules that require a map which can very easily be done in the dms head and with approximation.

Then we have scale, with the 1,5meters per field d&d maps just donīt work for outdoor encounters especially if you have classes like the Deepwood sniper, any mage with range metamagic etc with extreme range.

Flying, a dragon does not sit there idly, he flies around and at certain levels the heroes will do so too, displaying this on a 2d map is not very helpful.

Additionally we have the sheer powerscale, so your group of heroes decides to attack the (evil^^^^) 4000 level 1 orc villageī, lets say 1000 of those are warriors, have fun arranging and buying 1000 orc minis on your 50 *50 battlemap :smallcool:

The only thing where maps are really helpful in d&d are small scale engagements in very limited space and therefore they are a limitation on the game experience if used as the sole method of resolving battles.

Slipperychicken
2012-08-06, 01:04 PM
I strongly disagree about that,
most importantly at high levels a map is more of a hindrance then an actual asset for d&d, so how can it be designed for map use only if the map stops working at some point?


A lot of things stop working at high levels. Like grappling, and Tarrasques, and game balance.

zanetheinsane
2012-08-06, 03:07 PM
If playing on a battlemap is an issue of size or cost, one of the best solutions I saw posted on the forums was using a small cork board, draw your map on a piece of graph paper (you can print off your own or even print pre-drawn maps!), and use thumbtacks for everyone's characters (either a different color for each person/enemy or modify them in some simple way).

Now you not only have a battlemat for under $10, it can also fit on any table! Hobby Lobby has cork rolls (http://shop.hobbylobby.com/store/item.aspx?ItemId=165041) for $5 where you can cut your own size.

As for playing without a battlemat just for experience, experiment, style, or speed, I started playing during D&D 2e and through 3e and we never really used a mat until we started playing 3.5. I love the battlemat because it definitely gives the players the ability to coordinate and "exploit" openings in the system that they otherwise would not have been able to, but playing without one just requires a different approach.

When DM'ing a battlemat-less game I would try to make it clear during certain actions or positions what would and would not provoke AOOs or if flanking was available, etc, because these are obviously very important "hard-coded" systems with the mat in mind. Try to think about what each player has in mind with their character when you are describing the situation to them. If you know there is a rogue, always keep in mind to describe when the enemy is flankable. Without a battlemat consider using facing rules, too, since the grid doesn't interfere and you can just say "so-and-so is looking away / distracted / busy with...". If there is a mage, make sure to describe the combat scenarios with friendly fire in mind. For ranged characters describe whether or not enemies have cover; for melee make sure to note whether or not a charge path is open to particular foes. I think if you keep player character motivations and priorities in mind when laying out a combat scene you can avoid a lot of redundant questions every round. Make sure to do refreshers and updates during combat rounds, especially if you have plenty of enemies.

Plenty of old throwback rules from 3E and earlier were clearly designed without a table grid in mind. The old "tenths" cover system, much like facing rules and line of sight, are a lot easier to do with no battlemat.

With the way 3.5e and 4e play (especially 4th), I would recommend maybe seeing if the members of your group are okay with trying out another system. If not, don't despair, it just takes practice. For large-scale battles or battles from distance or spanning large distances (such as mounted raids, chases, etc) I still love going back to the old way and leaving if off the table, so to say.

Chemiisan
2012-08-06, 06:58 PM
Dungeons and Dragons is typically not a system you would use without a battlemap. But, here's the way you solve the problem: line graphs.

To visualize, imagine a straight line that represents the field.

http://oi50.tinypic.com/212vbbl.jpg

This image will do for those of you who like visualizations. let's say your party, a Yellow Archer, Blue Wizard and a Green Warrior, are ambushed by goblins. A Hobgoblin Mage is on space 5, Blue Wizard is on space 15, Yellow Ranger is on Space 18, and Green Warrior is on space 21. Far off on space 32 and space 36 are a Hobgoblin Warrior and a Hobgoblin Archer respectively.

I figure a space is equal to five feet apart, so arrows would follow the regular rules for distance (15 spaces away with a shortbow in 4e, etc. Not so sure on the numbers, since I'm not the one with a 4e book- my GM is.) In this mode, fighters would need to be about 2 spaces away to hit with a sword, 3 with a pole and 1 with a dagger. Regular range penalties for magic and bows apply.

So, now Yellow Ranger uses his Doubleshot on the Hobgoblin Mage. Since he was a minion, he dies instantly. The Yellow Ranger feels a pain or regret for using his Doubleshot on a minion, and proceeds to have an existential crisis.

http://oi46.tinypic.com/2cos8jm.jpg

The other Hobgoblins haven't moved yet, waiting for the cue from their Mage. It will never come. The Blue Wizard and the Green Warrior approach, with the Yellow Mage not far behind, stweing in his own crisis. The Hobgoblins sopt them now, but have barely moved before the mage has cast an area Fire spell under them. It spreads in a 3x3 square in the regular game, so we'll make it a 3 space radius on either side of the casting space.

http://oi45.tinypic.com/2cs9abr.jpg

Hobgoblins take fire.

http://oi47.tinypic.com/334sto3.jpg

The Hobgoblin Archer, another minion, is instantly burned to a crisp... but not without firing an arrow into Green Warrior's skull. The Hobgoblin Warrior is still alive (but burnt) and charges for the Green Warrior.

http://oi45.tinypic.com/2ivmclz.jpg

It ends. Badly. The players win the encounter.



Now, in this case I used a visual, but you could have just as easily marked the first positions like so:

GW 21
YR 18
BW 15
HW 32
HM 5
HR 36
And kept track from there. If two non-neutral characters passed, you would do the calculations for opportunity attacks and the like, and knockback would function as normal.

If anyone spots any problems, it might be good to cover those now.

Water_Bear
2012-08-06, 08:29 PM
I have often found myself without a battlemat when playing 3.5/Pathfinder, and the best decision I made was to play in WH40K style. Since you don't need to worry about facing, it's really easy to do.

Take a tape-measure or a piece of knotted string and measure ~1in (2.5cm) for each 5 feet, build terrain out of old boxes and Legos, and use those clear plastic dice-boxes to keep minis 'flying' with a note of how high they're supposed to be. If those >400ft ranges come up, you can just put minis on the other side of the room.

Sometimes things like Flanking might be a little iffy, but Cover actually works and you can use the flying rules without getting a migraine.


<Line Graphs?>

This... does not really seem to solve the "D&D sans battlemap" issue. I'm not familiar with OD&D AD&D and 4e, but for 3.X and Pathfinder at least you really need to know distances in at least two dimensions and keep track of NPC hp fairly studiously. Maybe 1-D would work for a dice-less game, or just a free form, but it sounds awful for D&D.

-Edit-

I also forgot; for WH40K style D&D, you really need to make little paper 'cones' and 'circles' for 15ft/30ft/60ft radius spell effects and 10ft cubes for shape-able spells. Lines are easy, but those are killer.

huttj509
2012-08-06, 10:04 PM
I have often found myself without a battlemat when playing 3.5/Pathfinder, and the best decision I made was to play in WH40K style. Since you don't need to worry about facing, it's really easy to do.

Take a tape-measure or a piece of knotted string and measure ~1in (2.5cm) for each 5 feet, build terrain out of old boxes and Legos, and use those clear plastic dice-boxes to keep minis 'flying' with a note of how high they're supposed to be. If those >400ft ranges come up, you can just put minis on the other side of the room.


So, you play with figures laid out in their positions, moved appropriate distances (measured with tape or string), but physically laid out on the table.

How is this not equivalent to a battlemat? I think we have people working with different definitions here.

My understanding is that "playing without a battlemat" refers to, at most, the DM has a small sketch of the field layout. The players do not have a visual aid, and if they do at best it's very rough (1" is somewhere between 5 and 35 feet), with the intent of just giving an idea of "ok, there's the room, there's a ledge here, and stairs over there." I've also heard this referred to as "theater of the mind" style.

Are others working with a definition that requires a battlemat to have a grid drawn on it? Or be a physical object you lay out and reuse?

Cause if there is a definition difference, I think some folks are arguing while agreeing, if I'm interpreting their definitions correctly.

Chemiisan
2012-08-06, 10:51 PM
This... does not really seem to solve the "D&D sans battlemap" issue. I'm not familiar with OD&D AD&D and 4e, but for 3.X and Pathfinder at least you really need to know distances in at least two dimensions and keep track of NPC hp fairly studiously. Maybe 1-D would work for a dice-less game, or just a free form, but it sounds awful for D&D.

The setup I gave is actually 2D, but has no battlemap. I'm not sure why the poster is requesting this, but I provided. Also, I didn't keep track of enemy HP for the sake of tutorial. A fully fleshed out list would look more like this:



BlackMage 12 5/16HP Bloodied Poisoned
Fighter 28 30/36HP
BlackBelt 10 0/36HP Stoneskin
Sarda 130 234/450HP

Skaven
2012-08-08, 10:34 AM
I have only ever actually played one campaign that used a battlemap.. and sometimes we didn't use it anyway. You can play pretty much any system without one, if you get a little more descriptive and are happy to wing a few things.

Gamgee
2012-08-08, 11:31 AM
I don't use maps, it just seems weird. I've tried here and there it just adds to the clunkyness of combat. We can do the combat faster just by imagining. I give rough locations for everything. Be specific, those Tau firewarriors are at long range so -10 to hit them, but their guns out range yours so they are going to have an easy time shooting you. ect.

NichG
2012-08-08, 01:20 PM
Certain battles run better with or without a map. If you're planning to play without a map, its important to recognize this and skew things a bit. Rather than focus on things that are better with a map (I think its clear that if you have complex terrain, etc, a map helps) I'm going to focus on things that can make running without a map specifically confusing:

- High enemy diversity. If you have a single enemy its easy to track where it is mentally. If you have a group of enemies of the same type, it doesn't really matter as much where they are individually. If you have a group of enemies of different types, then it may start to matter whether the enemy caster or the enemy archer was in that fireball radius. It also means more things for people to keep track of. In this case I'd suggest limiting the number of distinct enemy types to three to keep things easy.

- Positional gimmicks. Tron trails, trap runes on the ground, etc. Especially things that are supposed to be hidden from players but that they might trip if they move incorrectly. A map helps make this concrete so you can tell whether or not they really tripped the trap. Without a map, expect players to say 'but I didn't move that way!' a lot.

- When line of sight is important. This is something I love about virtual tabletops. You can have one PC see something that another cannot, and you don't have the problem of narration spoiling it for people who can't see it yet. More of a VTT thing than maps in general I suppose.

Now, things that are worse with a map:

- High mobility situations. If, for instance, you're doing a fight where everyone is on cars that are all moving at different speeds, you could spend tens of minutes fiddling with updating the map each round. If you just abstract it to 'there's a fast lane and a slow lane' which can be used to get closer/further from enemies, then it becomes much simpler.

- 3D. You can map this, but its a headache to try to keep track carefully, and higher dimensions tend to make obstructions less relevant (there are more ways to get around things in 3D than in 2D, and even more in 4D if that's your thing). At this point I think its better to just abstract it to distance ranges and assume that people can basically get anywhere that's connected and within their range.

- Multiscale fights. If you've got a battle happening at the 30ft scale, but there's something important 1200ft away (a sniper or whatever), then mapping this is a pain, whereas doing this in the abstract isn't any harder really.

- Invisible opponents. This is actually a lot easier without a map, for the simple reason that the DM doesn't need to attempt to track what squares ten different invisible creatures are occupying without actually putting down markers. Similarly, the DM doesn't need to try to separate his knowledge of where the invisible PCs actually are from his opponents' tactics.

Chemiisan
2012-08-09, 12:33 PM
Certain battles run better with or without a map. If you're planning to play without a map, its important to recognize this and skew things a bit. Rather than focus on things that are better with a map (I think its clear that if you have complex terrain, etc, a map helps) I'm going to focus on things that can make running without a map specifically confusing:

- High enemy diversity. If you have a single enemy its easy to track where it is mentally. If you have a group of enemies of the same type, it doesn't really matter as much where they are individually. If you have a group of enemies of different types, then it may start to matter whether the enemy caster or the enemy archer was in that fireball radius. It also means more things for people to keep track of. In this case I'd suggest limiting the number of distinct enemy types to three to keep things easy.

- Positional gimmicks. Tron trails, trap runes on the ground, etc. Especially things that are supposed to be hidden from players but that they might trip if they move incorrectly. A map helps make this concrete so you can tell whether or not they really tripped the trap. Without a map, expect players to say 'but I didn't move that way!' a lot.

- When line of sight is important. This is something I love about virtual tabletops. You can have one PC see something that another cannot, and you don't have the problem of narration spoiling it for people who can't see it yet. More of a VTT thing than maps in general I suppose.

Now, things that are worse with a map:

- High mobility situations. If, for instance, you're doing a fight where everyone is on cars that are all moving at different speeds, you could spend tens of minutes fiddling with updating the map each round. If you just abstract it to 'there's a fast lane and a slow lane' which can be used to get closer/further from enemies, then it becomes much simpler.

- 3D. You can map this, but its a headache to try to keep track carefully, and higher dimensions tend to make obstructions less relevant (there are more ways to get around things in 3D than in 2D, and even more in 4D if that's your thing). At this point I think its better to just abstract it to distance ranges and assume that people can basically get anywhere that's connected and within their range.

- Multiscale fights. If you've got a battle happening at the 30ft scale, but there's something important 1200ft away (a sniper or whatever), then mapping this is a pain, whereas doing this in the abstract isn't any harder really.

- Invisible opponents. This is actually a lot easier without a map, for the simple reason that the DM doesn't need to attempt to track what squares ten different invisible creatures are occupying without actually putting down markers. Similarly, the DM doesn't need to try to separate his knowledge of where the invisible PCs actually are from his opponents' tactics.

You forgot time. Oh god, I hate how long it takes to get 5 players to all perform actions on a grid. I personally avoid combat in D&D for that reason.