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sturtus
December 10th, 2014, 18:47
Now that the DMG is out, are there any plans to modify the 5e ruleset to enable any of the options in the book? There are quite a few, and I'm hoping to implement a couple in my campaign. Some are very deep changes that I don't intend to use, but wondered where the developers stood with these options. Here's an overview of the ones that would deeply affect the game in FG.

Ability Options
Proficiency Dice: instead of a fixed proficiency bonus, you roll a die. So instead of a fixed +2, you’d roll a 1d4.
Honor and Sanity ability scores. Not really in our game’s theme.
Fear and Horror (very Call of Cthulhu): characters can become frightened more often naturally. I might ask you all to make Wis saves or become frightened (causes disadvantage). Horror is worse, and it can cause madness.

Combat Grid
- Using a grid to track movement, areas of effect, line of sight, and cover. These are very similar to 4e rules.
- Flanking rules to gain advantage when flanking. These are very similar to 4e combat advantage rules.
- Tracking the facing of your character and monsters. This affects shields as part of AC for front and the arm they are on and rear attacks get advantage.

Healing
- A healer’s kit is required, and a single use is used up, to spend hit dice during short or long rests.
- Slower healing: not all hp recovered in a long rest, but all hit dice are. You can spend hit dice to regain hp.
- Gritty Realism rests: a variant where short rests are 8 hours and long rests are 7 days.

Plot Points
- players get plot points to create an effect during play. effect examples are plot twists, plot complications, and even the removal of the DM where the game is run by plot points. it’s pretty crazy.

Combat Options
- Speed Factor Inititative: adding or subtracting from initiative based on the speed of your weapon or action, the size of the character, etc. In this case, we used to play 2e like this, you have to declare your action at the top, figure out your init modifier based on your action, then roll. If you change your mind and don’t do what you declared at the top, you don’t do anything. Initiative is re-rolled every round.
- Action Options (I love all of these)
- Climb Onto Bigger Creature
- Disarm
- Mark
- Overrun
- Shove Aside
- Tumble
- Injuries: If you take a crit or drop to 0 hp, or fail a death save by 5 or more, you roll on the injury table. it’s nasty, but kinda awesome.
- Massive Damage: if you take more than half your total hp in a single hit, you have to make a DC15 Con save or suffer system shock.

sturtus
December 10th, 2014, 20:28
There's also an excellent option to count diagonal squares similarly to 3.5.

Griogre
December 11th, 2014, 02:53
LOL, oh no! - not the *diagonal* squares count! :p I use to run 3.5 games at a game store and I swear to god, I felt I wasted more time correcting players counting diagonal squares than anything else.

hawkwind
December 11th, 2014, 08:05
a few extra options i liked are the lingering wounds "ooops my characters lost an arm", the near miss rule where you can succeed on a near miss but bad stuff happens, players awarding inspiration and best off a firing into cover rule that opens up the prospect of member s of your own party engaged in melee with your bow

Baron28
April 24th, 2015, 15:52
LOL, oh no! - not the *diagonal* squares count! :p I use to run 3.5 games at a game store and I swear to god, I felt I wasted more time correcting players counting diagonal squares than anything else.

Oh yes! I have a player in one of my games insisting that I ajudicate the rule using the complex variant that is similar to the one in 3.5. I'm ajudicating it using the simple way, that is, 1 square in any direction is 5 feet. Both ajudications are correct, but I thought it was up to the DM to choose which to implement and enforce for both players and creatures.

Also, another question. Do you consider two creatures standing next to each other diagonally a hard corner, like a wall, a large tree or terrain?

Griogre
April 24th, 2015, 20:24
DM's have final say on the rules they run. Obviously if you have a long standing group getting a consensus on which optional/variant rules they think are fun to use is good input. But DM's are supposed to have fun too - and the realistic diagonal movement rule is not a fun rule for the DM, its a "nag" the player rule that slows things down, IMO. When I played 4E, which also counts 1 square of movement in any direction as 5 feet, I became a fan of this simplification.

I do not consider two creatures just standing next to each other diagonally to have cover unless there is a wall or some hard cover between them.

Baron28
April 24th, 2015, 21:12
Thanks Griogre for your input. I'll consider taking a poll in the future regarding rules variants.

Let me clarify my last question from my previous post.

Two players are standing diagonally from each other. A creature attempts to move diagonally between the two creatures from his occupied space to an open space. Is this allowed?

Thegroo
April 24th, 2015, 21:25
Thanks Griogre for your input. I'll consider taking a poll in the future regarding rules variants.

Let me clarify my last question from my previous post.

Two players are standing diagonally from each other. A creature attempts to move diagonally between the two creatures from his occupied space to an open space. Is this allowed?

I can't remember seeing something about it in the rules.
But i would rule yes, if they are friendly and no, if they are not.

Baron28
April 24th, 2015, 22:14
I can't remember seeing something about it in the rules.
But i would rule yes, if they are friendly and no, if they are not.

I would really like to know for sure as I have heard differing points of view on this question from multiple sources. Thanks!

Griogre
April 24th, 2015, 23:31
I'd say yes you could move between them, myself. 5E is exception rule based and the only spaces I am aware of a creatures being unable to move into are: a) impassible spaces; b) enemies spaces unless the size difference is 2 or more. Those are not impassible or enemy spaces so you can move through them. Obviously, opportunity attacks would apply if they move far enough to leave the reach of one or both PCs.

damned
April 25th, 2015, 02:55
Id rule you can move between diagonally occupied squares - AoEs would apply.
When counting movement I allow 1 diagonal move the rest must be horizontal or vertical.

DrakosDJ
April 25th, 2015, 06:25
The DMG is out? I don't see it in the Store!

JeffKnight
April 25th, 2015, 06:51
The DMG is out? I don't see it in the Store!

The book is out, but not DLC for FG yet. I'm hoping they get it out soon though, along with the 3 adventure books!

damned
April 25th, 2015, 07:19
The book is out, but not DLC for FG yet. I'm hoping they get it out soon though, along with the 3 adventure books!

They have a license for it but it has to be fully prepped and then reviewed etc. Its definitely coming.

Trenloe
April 25th, 2015, 14:12
I would really like to know for sure as I have heard differing points of view on this question from multiple sources. Thanks!
Taking the PHB rules as written:

The definition of a "corner" ("Variant: Playing on a Grid" sidebar, PHB page 192): "Diagonal movement can't cross the corner of a wall, large tree or other terrain feature that fills its space.

(You mention this above).

As creatures don't fully fill their space and they aren't terrain features then, taking the rules as written, a creature should be able to move diagonally between two creatures on the other diagonal. Additionally, as far as this specific rule is concerned, one character isn't considered to have a "corner", so two characters standing diagonally adjacent won't have corners too.

But, hey, if you're the GM play it however you wish! :)

Mavrik6666
April 25th, 2015, 16:18
picking up on the dreaded 15ft per two square 3.5 rule.... my default mapping in a created 5e campaign seems to have that ... is there a way of setting / changing it ?

Doc_Jones
April 25th, 2015, 21:58
They have a license for it but it has to be fully prepped and then reviewed etc. Its definitely coming.

Is there any way to have a list of some kind that tells us what products are being worked on or that have a possible projected release date? I'm kind of a completionist, so I've been buying the books as they get released, but I don't want to invest the time of custom loading a module that is going to wind up being released anyway. Especially since the modules that FG releases would likely be far more effective than what I put together.

Griogre
April 26th, 2015, 00:22
picking up on the dreaded 15ft per two square 3.5 rule.... my default mapping in a created 5e campaign seems to have that ... is there a way of setting / changing it ?

No there isn't. The default rule 5E rule uses distance in feet (ie full on pythagorean theorem, tape measure stuff). I personally think it would be a great option to turn on the grid variable where squares are counted. This would be a good extension for 5E.

Personally, since I use the grid variant, as a work around I just measure the distances with a vertical or horizontal pointer. For movement it isn't that necesary but for range attacks its quick.

damned
April 26th, 2015, 05:52
Is there any way to have a list of some kind that tells us what products are being worked on or that have a possible projected release date? I'm kind of a completionist, so I've been buying the books as they get released, but I don't want to invest the time of custom loading a module that is going to wind up being released anyway. Especially since the modules that FG releases would likely be far more effective than what I put together.

Right now DMG, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Princes of the Apocalypse are all being worked on or waiting for approval to publish....

JeffKnight
April 26th, 2015, 07:22
Right now DMG, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Princes of the Apocalypse are all being worked on or waiting for approval to publish....

Don't forget Rise of Tiamat!

I have my $$$ ready for them. Hoping they get finished and approved soon.

Baron28
April 27th, 2015, 16:48
Taking the PHB rules as written:

The definition of a "corner" ("Variant: Playing on a Grid" sidebar, PHB page 192): "Diagonal movement can't cross the corner of a wall, large tree or other terrain feature that fills its space.

(You mention this above).

As creatures don't fully fill their space and they aren't terrain features then, taking the rules as written, a creature should be able to move diagonally between two creatures on the other diagonal. Additionally, as far as this specific rule is concerned, one character isn't considered to have a "corner", so two characters standing diagonally adjacent won't have corners too.

But, hey, if you're the GM play it however you wish! :)

I agree with this ajudication and the "simple" ajudication of diagonal movement (1 square = 5 feet any direction). I had a player who did not and this player has decided to leave the table. Thanks for all your input guys!

Mavrik6666
April 27th, 2015, 17:16
I don't know if I am reading the other comments right.... but the 5e movement on a combat board used the more than 5ft foot for a diagonal move, as it uses the Pythagorean movement and reads it in
When I get a player to move.. and I have token lock on , it does a diagonal 5ft then 15ft move for two squares, and when I range attack a line of monsters, all at 35ft, because of the movement I get a 35ft - 45ft range of ranges.... is this right ? If you cant change it, then the 5e rule set conforms to a set of optional rules in the DMG that you cant change ?

true ?

Griogre
April 27th, 2015, 22:57
Mavrik there are three sets of movement rules in play here. The base rule for combat is actual distance as explained in the PH on pg 190. In my still somewhat limited experience this seems to work best with "theater of the mind" encounters which, ironically, are usually less precise. So the base rules work best when - there is no grid at all.

On pg 192 of the PH there is a variant (optional) rule for "Playing on a Grid." This is the 1 space of movement in any direction (including diagonals) is treated as 5 feet we were talking about in some posts.

In the DMG pg 252 the variant grid rules are expanded upon which some other optional rules, one of which is the first diagonal is treated as 5 feet of movement and the second diagonal as 10 feet and you keep alternating with the 3rd counted as 5 feet and the 4th as 10 and so on. This is similar to the D&D 3.x movement rules.

Given all that background, I believe FG uses the basic non optional rules - but the movement, target and pointer lines are rounded to the nearest 5 feet. However it is possible they are using the optional rule to approximate the actual rule. The whole every other diagonal move equalling 10 feet is a pretty good approximation of diagonal distance if you are going to round to 5 feet squares.

Mavrik6666
April 28th, 2015, 15:40
Thanks Griogre.... I do know all the variants of the rules on movement, and options in the DMG. I was trying to get a definitive answer on which rules/options are used in FG, as it seems to be the 'DMG Optional Rule: Diagonal ' not the PHB Variant : Playing on a Grid. Is this changeable ?, can I play as per the PHB ?, or is this Optional Rule coded in

Griogre
April 29th, 2015, 21:24
I guess I was't clear. I believe they are using the PHB basic movement rule rounded to the 5' grid. FG doesn't measure distance without a grid.

I personally would like an option to use the Grid Variant rule of diagonal movement = horizontal movement.

Mavrik6666
April 30th, 2015, 14:49
I think you where clear, it just seems my FG does use the Variant, and not the PHB basic movement