I always felt that the "increased cost for diagonal movement" thing was a big waste of time.  "How could it," I thought, "Possibly make a difference?"  Well, I discovered a difference today.  If you want to move diagonally so that you can drop something on someone, then with a normal move of 30', you can get an additional 12 feet of "extra move" over two move actions, as shown here:
http://i9.photobucket.com/albu...hing_zpsghthxonm.jpg

Seems like rather a niche thing, though -- anyone else have any situations where diagonal move at normal cost on a grid would result in a tactical difference?
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 20:29, Sun 28 Feb 2016.

Every... freaking... time.. I play table-top (which I don't do as often anymore.)

There's always that one "tactical-grid" player.  You know - the one who uses enlarge self potions (or other Props), along with a spiked chain, a class that lets you waffle its use, various skirmisher abilities...and so on and so forth..

Nothing wrong with this type of player.

But, I made the mistake once of acquiescing to the idea that "diagonals weren't a big deal".

LOL.  Every turn this player could destroy anything that wasn't at least 25 feet off of the ground.

That's a great idea.

I believe that reach is a specific exception to the diagonal rule.  I have to admit that I wouldn't see much of an issue potentially only skipping the first even diagonal's extra cost.

Reach gets its own caveat in 3.x and PF, but it only applies to the 10' diagonal squares.  Past that, reach is calculated normally.

Use hexes

It's a big function of how to figure a spell's range and area of effect on a grid.  You end up with big giant squares and triangles that affect too much area.

Buildings and walls don't fit well with hexes and anything bigger than one-hex-base in size ends up with weird bulges.  I'd rather have square/rectangular horses than bulgy cancerous horses. ;)

4th Edition D&D dispensed with tracking diagonals and I thought it was for the best. I could see someone abusing it, but I never did, and if I had I would have just stopped playing with them.

For the most part, 4e just removed the rules that it would have been a problem with.

I think, on balance, that counting diagonals as only one square is a wash.  Some stuff gets bigger, but movement across the field gets faster, too.

Right, my apologies; I forget that people want different things from their rules.

Yes, though because it's a wash one could also say that nothing is really changing at all. By any measure other than tactical combat, nothing is changing.

You do realize that moving diagonally doesn't really affect much?  You still only move one square at a time.  I realize it's further across the square diagonally than edge to edge.  But, it's still a square at a time.

The other option is rectangles. A 1 inch by 2 inch rectangle. the diagonal would only be 2.25 inches.

And if you are using hexes you still draw the building with straight lines. It give you partial hexes but so what.  :-)