4e on a hex grid?

[Fortuna]

If you wanted to play 4e combats on a hex grid, how much would you need to change up the mechanics? Would it drastically impact on balance?

[Calen]

Probably not to much. Flanking of Large and bigger creatures might be affected.
Burst spells would still work mostly the same. You would have to rule how blast skill work because the arc they cover could be narrower or wider. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

[Epinephrine]

Off the top of my head:
Fewer adjacent squares
Shape of blasts might get trickier to define (bursts remain easy)
Shape of creatures could get tricky (a large creature is 2x2 normally, and that produces lop-sided creatures on a hex grid)
Flight? I assume you use hexes that are hexagonal prisms, so it shouldn't be a problem.
I see no problem with measuring distance, pushes, pulls - they all seem to be fine. It is easy to measure distances.
Cover might be harder to determine, choosing "corners" of your hexes? I'm trying to think how that will work. Might have to come up with rules about how many unblocked lines can be drawn.
Getting around an enemy is possibly harder, taking more movement. A shift 2 can take you from one side of a foe to the other (flank) position in square grids, it takes a shift 3 now.

Edit: Ninja'd!

[Dimers]

A Large creature could be a 3-hex triangle, rather than a 4-hex rhombus.

[Kurald Galain]

I think it will work fine with no modifications on a hex grid.

[Kane0]

I imagine hexes would work fine. Just make sure you clearly outline how flanking and area effects work before you start and off you go.

[Tegu8788]

I think it can work, as long as you outline the shifts, and find figures that fit the new shape.

Personally, I plan on using hexes when my players cross into the Far Realm, using a high/Lo system to decide if I draw the lines, or they do.

[originalginger]

Takes very little if any mechanical change. The shapes of bursts are closer to round which is nice, and blast effects are easy enough to figure out. For my group, hex was sort of a transitional step towards grid less play, so we weren't really using it very long.

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/unearthedFacing.html
Has some cursory info on creature size and spell area for hex-based play. (bottom half of the page)

Written for d20 systems, but a lot of the info is edition agnostic enough to be used as a guideline.

[masteraleph]

Out of curiosity- how would people handle 3d with a hex grid? Or do you just not have anything flying in your campaign?

[allonym]

As Epinephrine pointed out, it should work fine if you assume the hexes are prisms.

[Yakk]

Blast proposal 1:


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Blast proposal 2:


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Blast proposal 3:


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Note that proposal 1 is proposal 3 offset by 1 hex.

Monster sizes?


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[allonym]

Blast proposal '1' is probably the closest to replicating how they work in square grids. However, I really like the ideas behind '2' and '3', they fit very well with how close blasts should feel - like a cone of fire. '2' would be a hefty nerf in area of effect. However - they don't really work for area blasts - especially not '2'.

[Yakk]

There are very few area blasts. There are lots of area bursts.

Bursts are obvious:


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it is just *blasts* (which are almost always *close*) that are tricky.

I do like #3, but it does not work with Blast 1 well, nor Blast 2. They are rare, so we could ignore the problem. Or we could go with this modified #3:


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where you start with (blast size) adjacent hexes (max 3), then go out in a cone (blast size) distance.

This nerfs large blasts compared to normal 4e, as large blasts can effectively cover half the battlefield in standard 4e, and under this system can cover 1/3 the battlefield. And you can carefully position to turn a large blast into a narrow one in raw 4e.

[allonym]

You are right - I had a quick search on the compendium and could find no area blast powers. It may not even be a 'thing' (I'd have to recheck my PHB)

Which is kind of odd, I'd have thought they'd want some kind of mechanism for creating a 2x2 or 4x4 attack which wasn't adjacent to the caster. But then, I guess you have the question of origin square...

Anyway, as for close blasts - I like the idea of being able to choose between "2" and "3" - the ability to focus the attack or widen it tactically. It's a bit of a boost to those powers, but since you are losing certain tactical advantages which "1" (and the normal 4e way of doing blasts) confer, I think it would be a good tradeoff.

[Yakk]

So here is a thought.

You can use a Blast in either Narrow or Wide modes.

In Narrow mode, you pick two adjacent hexes, and form a cone of the blast size by drawing rays from your own hex out.

In Wide mode, you pick three adjacent hexes, and form a cone of the blast size minus 1.

A Blast 1 does let you reach 2 adjacent hexes (which is distinct from the current rules, and could cause a problem), but...

[Rakaydos]

My interpretation is that blasts are triangles that are "blast X" on a side. Like the squares of regular 4e, you can arrange it however, as long as at LEAST 1 hex is adjacent to you- touch the point for a narrow spray, or the side for a wide, close in arc.

[Rakaydos]

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[Yakk]

Let Bl(x) be the area of a blast of size x, with Bl_h is hex and Bl_s is square.

If we calculate d Bl_h(x) / dx we get x.
d Bl_s(x) /dx is (2x-1).

(left discrete derivatives begin used here: df(x)/dx is f(x)-f(x-1).)

In short, square blasts grow almost twice as fast as triangular blasts.

My "narrow" triangular blasts have Bl_n(x) / dx = x+1, also slow, but faster at small x.

My "wide" triangular blasts (blast proposal 3 above, with 1 less size) are Bl_w(x) / dx = 2x-1 -- which is the same as a square. If you look at blast proposal #3, you'll see that it *is* a rhombus, with the top left corner being the origin square, which explains why it lines up.

Blast proposal #1 is also said rhombus, but with size 1 being adjacent to the origin square.

One very important feature of blasts is how many squares they cover. More squares, more targets -- or at least more chances for more targets. Significantly reducing the square count is a big hit on their utility.

My "narrow" blasts are bigger than the default blasts for small x. At medium X, "wide" blasts are almost identical in size to square blasts. The only downside is you don't get both "lots of squares" and "few squares adjacent to me" option that square blasts give you.

We could just use the rhombus shape and say "you can place this next to you anywhere".

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Gosh darned casters and their special requirements. :smalltongue:

[Adoendithas]

Now that we have these temporary rules I'm tempted to send the party against an OOTS-style Human Hexer.

Area burst 2 within 20
Effect: this power creates a zone of hex tiles which lasts until the end of the encounter.