Community

So, it's occurred to me that one thing I might like in D&D 5e is a miniatures combat system that ditches the grid in favor of measured distances -- in other words, the way most skirmish-level miniatires combat games play it.

I am currently a player of both WarMachine and Malifaux, and in the past have played many games, including the old D&D Chainmail (which came close to developing a measured system for 3.0). A measured system is so much nicer than a grid for adding a bit of realism to a combat scenario. It would require all combat powers, abilities, spells, and effects to be dictated in distances instead of grids, of course -- so a fireball would be, say, a 3" radius from the point of origin, etc.

The one concession that such a system would need, would be the adopting of a standard base size for miniatures used in combat -- stnadardizing base size being vital to determining when something is/isn't within an effect, or distance between models. 30mm, 40mm, 50mm round being popular right now, but adopting the existing basing sizes of D&D Miniatures would be equally awesome (and make those miniatures instantly adaptable). Minis without such bases culd easily be attached to such a base, or even one made of cardstock or paper.

In the "modular format" 5E is currently said to favor, it could even be one alternative. There could be grid combat rules and measured combat rules.  But it would mean developing both grid and measured effect distances for all spells, powers, etc.

A grid is measured distance, more or less.  A hex-grid would be better at it, though.
Neither should be mandatory.

@QMark: Yes, but it's more abstract and leads to strategy issues in combat, especially with PC groups who are into that sort of thing. Also, I always have hated every single solution I've ever seen to the "diagonal" problem.

A hex grid would be an improvement over a square grid, for sure, in terms of "realness".