In general I don’t really like Pen&Paper RPGs where you need miniatures (and for worse range finder tools) to play them. But that is a me thing, don’t read my words as that I want to say D&D should change. Far away from that, D&D is a great game and I love it on the PC (where it IMHO only works, not at the table)

Happy cake day!

And multiclassing.

Happy cake day to you!

Is that so? Why would some spells specify geometry then? For example fireball says it is a 20 ft radius while Hallucinatory Terrain specifies that it affects a 150 ft cube which, under Chebyshev distance, would be the same as a sphere right? My understanding was that D&D 5e uses euclidean distance with a minimum threshold of a square that has to be covered to be counted.

Fireball says radius, but in a non-Euclidian geometry radius doesn’t translate to a Euclidian sphere. Embrace the cube of constant radius!

Right, but again why would it draw a distinction between “20 ft radius sphere” and a “cube” in different spells? Would they not all be “spheres” is that is truly how the game is meant to be played?

In PF1e you’d still alternate between Manhattan and Chebyshev. I used to know the rules to that so well I’d run it without the book for reference.

Have you actually read the rules? The game, as written, isn’t really meant to be played at all. It just vaguely gestures at activities and suggestions, and if you look too closely you’ll find a lot of junk that doesn’t fit or doesn’t really work.

People don’t play 5e. People leverage 5e’s one core feature and then build their own games around it, ignoring most of the published rules.

I don’t fully disagree with you, but you’re just wrong about the area of effect shapes. The rules are very defined on how to represent and find spheres, cylinders, lines, cubes, cones, etc. The new 5.5 rules make it even more defined. The game is absolutely designed to be played as written, because it’s braindead easy compared to most systems, which is basically all 5e has going for it: easy to learn and run, easy to homebrew. Every DnD 5e game I’ve played has followed the rules, not just for areas, but most mechanics, especially when using actual battle maps. Theater of the mind gets a bit more loosely goosey. Every group has their own house rules, but the game is definitely meant to be played, and it is. It almost seems weird to even make that claim, because a quick trip to a LGS or playing in a few local groups would tell you otherwise. Everyone wants to be Critical Role or Dimension 20.

erin (she/her) said in Math Matters:

I don’t fully disagree with you, but you’re just wrong about the area of effect shapes. The rules are very defined on how to represent and find spheres, cylinders, lines, cubes, cones, etc.

You understand that I was making a joke, right? “Embrace the cube of constant radius!”?

D&D’s targeting rules are quite strange, but yes, it’s very explicit that Chebyshev is used in 5e by default, if playing on a grid. On page 192 of the 5.0e PHB:

To enter a square, you must have at least 1 square of movement left, even if the square is diagonally adjacent to the square you’re in.

The DMG presents, on page 252, an optional variant of the optional grid rules, which is to treat it the same as Pathfinder 2e does (alternating 5 ft and 10 ft):

The Player’s Handbook presents a simple method for counting movement and measuring range on a grid: count every square as 5 feet, even if you’re moving diagonally. … This optional rule provides more realism.

When measuring range or moving diagonally on a grid, the first diagonal square counts as 5 feet, but the second one counts as 10 feet. This pattern…continues when you’re counting diagonally even if you move horizontally or vertically between different bits of diagonal movement.

As for the value of cube vs sphere in the context of Chebyshev ranges, there are two key differences.

First, cubes measure side length, spheres measure radius. A 10 ft cube covers 4 squares. A 10 ft sphere covers 16.

Second, and more importantly (since the above could easily be translated by using only cubes or only spheres throughout the system, with either half or double the numbers), cubes are cast from one side, whereas spheres are cast from the centre. If you’re standing in the front line with enemies in front of you and allies behind, a cube cast with you as its origin point will hit either allies only or enemies only, but not both. A sphere cast with you at its origin point will affect both allies and enemies. Note that the rules for cube, on page 204 of the 5.0 PHB say “A cube’s point of origin is not included in the cube’s area of effect, unless you decide otherwise.” So you could include yourself and your allies, or you could include enemies but not yourself, if you so desired. Or, less likely, you could include allies but not yourself, or enemies and yourself.

From memory, cube spells are mostly cast from a range of “self”, which is where this becomes an important distinction. If a spell has a range of X feet and cube, then the main difference is just that its area is smaller but its reach is longer than a sphere with the same numbers.

As it happens I’ve just looked up the 5e rules for this for the sake of another comment, and their rules are that, like PF1e, if you go vertical, you follow the same rules (i.e., Chebyshev by default, optional alternating) as on a flat plain.

I’ve not looked up the PF2e rules, but I feel safe in assuming it’s the same in this regard as 1e.

Ah right, so “diamond” (depicted as a square rotated 45 degrees) is Manhattan, circle is Euclidean, and square is Chebyshev, then?

Though for area damage spells, it’s much, much more complicated.

That’s an optional variant rule described in Xanathar’s Guide. The default rule for grids is simpler: just do Chebyshev.

I’m more concerned with the “people don’t play the rules” part, but fair enough.

Thanks! Quite a few of us seem to have our cake days around this time…

Ok, fair enough. Let’s talk about it.

So here’s the thing, 5e is incomplete. It was shipped without being properly tested, and was pushed out the door because the whole D&D team thought they were getting axed after 4e flopped. It wasn’t designed to be “easy to learn, easy to run, easy to homebrew” – it’s actually none of those things – it was just designed to be a product on the shelves for the 40th anniversary that was not and that did not resemble 4e. There is more product management and marketing to the game than there is design, and somehow two mid-edition rebalances after it was printing money didn’t change this.

But why does 5e feel easy to learn, and easy to homebrew? Because it provides almost zero guidance on how to do these things. It all but completely abandons the player. This has been treated as a feature, rather than an issue, by apologists because it gives tables a lot of perceived freedom. A lot of people, seemingly, see having the responsibility of filling in the gaps as freedom, while also seeing having the option to ignore rules they don’t like as some kind of cage. So, lacking the cage of professional advice, people feel free to do whatever they want.

But here’s where it gets weird. The gaps provided by the PHB and GMG are relatively small. But having the reputation of not having rules for this, that, or the other thing matters much, much more than actually not having them. So, people nail down advantage and disadvantage, look up someone else’s class builds online, and then lean on setting-specific class content to flesh out their fantasy. And why is this? Because none of the sub-systems are as easy to understand and use as dis/advantage is. They are incongruent with the game’s core mechanic, and so they are unceremoniously thrown out. Often, these days, without knowing it, because people are learning how to run the game from YouTube and podcasts, not from reading the books, so they are inheriting someone else’s decisions to cast those systems aside.

Almost nobody is playing 5e as it’s designed, and when people do, many of them don’t like it.

It always comes up at some point. Most DMs will either handwave or give a generous approximation. Inexperienced DMs (or those that just run a tight ship) will actually calculate it.

That’s really stupid but apparently I’ve been playing wrong this whole time.