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Jan 13, 2013 -- 5:43PM, Samrin wrote:

Jan 13, 2013 -- 5:35PM, The_Jester wrote:

Jan 13, 2013 -- 5:14PM, Samrin wrote:

Squares work better for long distances. If you're using a battle mat, it's a lot easier to count 26 squares than it is to figure out 130 feet. They need to support both playstyles. Squares are easier to use than feet when using the grid.

Not really.
IF I'm using a battlemap for an encounter, counting out 35 squares (the size of my 1-inch graphpaper) or counting 175 feet by 5s (5, 10, 15... 165, 175, 180) are equally easy. Skip counting is not hard: I work in an elementary school, there are 8-year-olds that can do it. 

However, anytime I have a fight occuring someplace that is:
a) not easily mapped
b) occuring on more than 2 dimensions
c) in a space larger than half a football field
d) resolved quicker than it will take to draw  
I'm not going to use a battlemap and refering to distances in "squares" becomes a liability.

It hurts imersion of the game: the mental image people picture when I say "the orc is 5 squares away" is of a orc miniature 5 squares away not an orc twenty-five feet away from them. 

D&D is not a board game. It should not be designed as such. Battlemaps should be optional. 

They should be optional, yes. That is why I'm saying they need to make it as easy as possible for both ways. It is easier to use squares when using it. 30 (6) is a simple way to handle it. The tactical rules haven't been released yet. I'm hoping we see this kind of stuff when they release them.

This is another case of "my way only" with you. I'm asking for both ways to be equally supported.

Many people prefer hexes. All my Chessex maps have hexes on the flipside and hexes represent cones and radiuses better and don't have the funkiness of diagonals. Most bases are round anyway. Shouldn't they also support hexes equally? So it should be 30 feet (6 squares/ 6 hexes).
And again, I'm Canadian and metric. I'd like to be supported to. So it should be 30 feet/ 1.5 meters (6 squares/ hexes). 
It gets silly quickly.

And should the listing in squares aways be included? The range of a longbow is 600ft. Does it need a (80 squares) after it despite few people playing on a 7-foot long table? 

While adding (# squares) is easy for races and monsters, it doesn't work well with the spell formatting (and some monster powers). I'd post an example (likely using ice storm or light or lighting bolt) but the playtesting license prevents me. Spells are written in very plain language and interrupting the flow with square conversions seems unecassary. 


Ranges such as those in spells are conveniently always in 5 foot increments, so a grid is possible without having to worry about unusual numbers. Battlemap players are considered, but "feet" is mentioned 150 times in just the limited spell section we have. Adding (# squares) would add a quarter of a page just in the playtest document. Pagination is going to be tight in the final document. Fitting everything will be hard. I'd hate to lose a page just to save myself 30 seconds of math every so often. I'd rather have a new subrace or speciality or that extra bit of advice.