Diagonal Movement?

[wframe]

Testing the system, I noticed that diagonal movement costs 2 for every other square, similar to how the 3.5 system handles it. Not only do I not see this in the SWADE rules, there's no way to turn it off in the settings. Is this correct? Or am I missing something? I'm strictly talking about token movement here, not chase or anything like that.

[kronovan]

SWADE doesn't, nor have earlier editions of the rules, featured movement based on squares. The rules have distance and movement that's measured in inches ("), as per the 1st page of the Combat chapter (pg. 91 or the SWADE PDF):

"Distance: Because the game assumes you are using terrain or a battlemat and standard 28mm miniatures, movement and weapon ranges are listed in inches. To translate that to regular distance, one inch is equal to two yards"

Pace explanation on the 2nd page of the Characters chapter, under Derived Statistics (pg 10 in the PDF):

"Pace is how fast your character moves in tactical situations like combat. Standard Pace is 6, which means six tabletop inches per game round. Each inch is two yards in the real world. "

Which is why all weapon ranges are quoted in inches. While it may appear on a gridded map when measuring diagonally that every other square is being doubled, what's actually happening is the distance is being displayed in inches, which equates to the same.

[wframe]

SWADE doesn't, nor have earlier editions of the rules, featured movement based on squares. The rules have distance and movement that's measured in inches ("), as per the 1st page of the Combat chapter (pg. 91 or the SWADE PDF):

"Distance: Because the game assumes you are using terrain or a battlemat and standard 28mm miniatures, movement and weapon ranges are listed in inches. To translate that to regular distance, one inch is equal to two yards"

Pace explanation on the 2nd page of the Characters chapter, under Derived Statistics (pg 10 in the PDF):

"Pace is how fast your character moves in tactical situations like combat. Standard Pace is 6, which means six tabletop inches per game round. Each inch is two yards in the real world. "

Which is why all weapon ranges are quoted in inches. While it may appear on a gridded map when measuring diagonally that every other square is being doubled, what's actually happening is the distance is being displayed in inches, which equates to the same.

The grid is set to inches. It’s still counting double movement for every other square. It shouldn’t be doing that.

[damned]

Some elements are built into the engine and are not ruleset specific.
Measuring and Line of Site and Lighting for example are largely not ruleset configurable.

2 diagonal squares does roughly equal 3 squares along a horizontal or vertical axis.
It is a close approximation.

[kronovan]

Adding to what Damned said...if on a SWADE map with a square grid enabled you move a token with a Pace of 6 in a straight line in alignment with the grid, you'll be able to move the equivalent of 6 squares. If on the other hand you move a token with Pace 6 diagonally on the same map, you'll be limited to a distance that actually equates to 4 squares. That's as expected based upon the difference in length between a square's diagonal and its sides, the diagonal being longer. That how the SWADE rules work and how the FG-SWADE ruleset works.

I just tried it on 3 or my maps and token movement worked exactly as expected.

[esmdev]

The grid is set to inches. It’s still counting double movement for every other square. It shouldn’t be doing that.

Hi. The key in SWADE is they are using tabletop inch. Tabletop inches are basically a miniatures term to determine distance. The idea is that you don't necessarily need a grid to play, you can play in a sandbox with a measuring tap and miniature figures and still calculate distance.

When you apply a grid that is to represent 1" across as a tabletop measurement then moving 6 squares diagonal would be cheating and moving about 9" of tabletop distance. So in order to keep movements fair people cam up with the 2 squares diagonal movement is equal to 3" of tabletop distance.

In D&D where they specifically say this because they are trying to avoid introducing the concept of tabletop inches. SWADE on the other hand specifically uses tabletop measurement in its movement rules.

[Jiminimonka]

Testing the system, I noticed that diagonal movement costs 2 for every other square, similar to how the 3.5 system handles it. Not only do I not see this in the SWADE rules, there's no way to turn it off in the settings. Is this correct? Or am I missing something? I'm strictly talking about token movement here, not chase or anything like that.

Set the grid to hexagons and unlock snap to grid for SWADE. You can also set the grid transparency to 1 or 2 so its basically invisible.

[Doswelk]

Set the grid to hexagons and unlock snap to grid for SWADE. You can also set the grid transparency to 1 or 2 so its basically invisible.
There were issues with gang-up when using hexes not sure if they were/could be fixed

[mac40k]

The other factor here is that FG is rounding to the nearest whole number unless you have that option turned off. With it off, you’ll see the actual distance out to several decimal places for fractions of an inch, which actually looks pretty bad, so most don’t use it. If you turn snap to grid off, you can slowly drag a token diagonally and see the actual point where it switches to the next whole number due to rounding. I prefer to turn grid snap off and turn down opacity of the grid lines so they don’t show. That way, my OCD players can move their full pace and not worry about whether or not their token is wholly in a particular square, which they will do if the grid is visible.

[Mike Serfass]

@wframe: You're correct about how movement works in Savage Worlds on a grid on the table top. I can't find the statement to quote here, but it was along the lines of "for simplicity and speed, just count each squares as 1" of movement, count diagonal squares the same as straight".

Since FGU uses a game engine, it does the diagonal measurement as 1.5 for reasons others pointed out, and we're stuck with that.

However, you can play with more accurate distances by not using grids of whatever shape. This is closer to what the rule book describes.

You can turn off grids completely; you don't have to set to hexagons and set transparency. It will still calculate range and gang-up. If you turn on "token movement lock mode" it will measure distance as the token is moved, and will do so in every direction and every angle. Just like playing on the table top with a ruler. If you don't turn on token movement lock mode, the movement isn't measured for you. So if you or the players don't like having to gm-approve every movement (mine don't), you can use pointers to measure.

Also, turn off grid snap so the tokens move smoothly. With no grids, snapping doesn't matter anyway.

A small downside to no grids is that it's not always clear what a token's personal space is (how much space that character takes up), and how crowded tokens can be. Players may try to fit a character into a space where it would be against another character. Grids make it clear who's in what space, how many characters can fit in a corridor, reach, etc. Sometimes simplicity and clarity outweighs accuracy. I point out they're crowding, and allow it, and give them a situational penalty for getting in each other's way. Follow the Savage rule of thumb; what makes sense.

I'm sure that after experimenting with the settings, you'll find something that works for your group.

[FrodoB]

@wframe: You're correct about how movement works in Savage Worlds on a grid on the table top. I can't find the statement to quote here, but it was along the lines of "for simplicity and speed, just count each squares as 1" of movement, count diagonal squares the same as straight".


I think this was indeed stated somewhere as a suggestion, but nowhere in the Core Rules.
Yes, Clint said in a long-dead and buried forum post that this is how he'd handle it at his table, but the ruleset (in my opinion correctly) only takes the rules into account. I'm sure the engine could override the 1.5 without much issue (after all, D&D 5E is also present in FGU and has no problem with it), but it would simply be not in keeping with the rules.

(Though I do like the way Roll20 handles it, giving you the option for 5E/3.5/Euclidian, or 1/1.5/1.414)

[wframe]

I think this was indeed stated somewhere as a suggestion, but nowhere in the Core Rules.
Yes, Clint said in a long-dead and buried forum post that this is how he'd handle it at his table, but the ruleset (in my opinion correctly) only takes the rules into account. I'm sure the engine could override the 1.5 without much issue (after all, D&D 5E is also present in FGU and has no problem with it), but it would simply be not in keeping with the rules.

(Though I do like the way Roll20 handles it, giving you the option for 5E/3.5/Euclidian, or 1/1.5/1.414)

That’s all I’m really asking for here, is the option to turn it off like you can in 5e/3.5. Regardless of the intention of the rules, it shouldn’t be the only option. It confuses some of my players and unnecessarily complicates movement in a system that is otherwise praised for its fast combat and simplicity.

[Mike Serfass]

@wframe: I made this extension for you. It sets diagonal movement to measure 1" per diagonal square rather than 1.5".

Put it into your extensions folder, and toggle it on for your campaign. It's called "Alternate Diagonal Movement" in the extensions list.

[FrodoB]

That's what we need - a solution maker! :D

Does this work with range as well or is this purely for the movement?

[srbongo]

That's what we need - a solution maker! :D

Does this work with range as well or is this purely for the movement?

Looks like it should change both the movement of tokens and targeting range.

[Mike Serfass]

Yes, it works with range as well.
This is something I wrote up quickly. If there's enough interest, I'll make it a little nicer and add it to the forge.

[Mike Serfass]

I'm going to turn this into a full extension which will add an option in-game so that you can change the diagonal measurement while playing. Like D&D 5e has. Give me a day or two to get that done and put on the Forge.

[Moon Wizard]

This will be included as an option in the next version of CoreRPG, if you want to save some time...

Regards,
JPG

[Mike Serfass]

Thank you Moon! Better to have it integrated than as an extension. Besides, I have other extensions to work on.

[wframe]

This will be included as an option in the next version of CoreRPG, if you want to save some time...

Regards,
JPG

That's great to hear. Thanks!

[wframe]

Thanks for this. It will be a great stop gap until the change to CoreRPG is made.