Math Matters
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i wish that it was more common to refer to the metrics in terms of what they are instead of who discovered them. i can’t ever remember off the top of my head if the chebyshev one is supposed to be the diamond metric (L^1^) or the square metric (L^∞^).
Chebyshev distance can also be called chessboard distance if you want something more descriptive.
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My group plays pretty loose goosy with the rules. We just look at it and make a quick estimate of whether something looks in range. They also have little range finder tools that are helpful for quickly determine cones, spheres, etc. We’re also the kind of party that doesn’t really keep track of gold. Apparently gold has a weight?
For this reason I actually don’t like playing one shots with people I don’t know, because they don’t play by all of our house rules, lol.
I think you’d like how Exalted handles money. (Note: I’m talking about second edition here; I never got familiar with third edition.)
In Exalted, wealth is represented by a Background called Resources. Backgrounds are essentially stats that represent useful things your characters has in a general sense like wealth, fame, contacts, or a mentor. They go from zero to five.
Resources is a vague representation of wealth. At Reduces 1 you’re one meal away from total poverty. At Resources 5 you have something that passively generates substantial amounts of money for your character, whether that’s ownership of a lot of land or an army of accountants maintaining your investment portfolio. Whatever is is, it works without you having to deal with it.
In terms of game mechanics it’s easy to use: Prices are expressed as Resource scores. If you want to buy something you just compare your score to the item’s.
- If yours is higher, you just get the item as the price doesn’t affect your wealth significantly.
- If both scores are the same you get the item but have to reduce your Resources by one. This represents you having to liquidate a large amount of your assets to cover the price.
- If your Resources score is lower than that of the item, you can’t afford it.
It’s a nice system for a game that doesn’t want resource management to get in the way of epic adventure.
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I think you’d like how Exalted handles money. (Note: I’m talking about second edition here; I never got familiar with third edition.)
In Exalted, wealth is represented by a Background called Resources. Backgrounds are essentially stats that represent useful things your characters has in a general sense like wealth, fame, contacts, or a mentor. They go from zero to five.
Resources is a vague representation of wealth. At Reduces 1 you’re one meal away from total poverty. At Resources 5 you have something that passively generates substantial amounts of money for your character, whether that’s ownership of a lot of land or an army of accountants maintaining your investment portfolio. Whatever is is, it works without you having to deal with it.
In terms of game mechanics it’s easy to use: Prices are expressed as Resource scores. If you want to buy something you just compare your score to the item’s.
- If yours is higher, you just get the item as the price doesn’t affect your wealth significantly.
- If both scores are the same you get the item but have to reduce your Resources by one. This represents you having to liquidate a large amount of your assets to cover the price.
- If your Resources score is lower than that of the item, you can’t afford it.
It’s a nice system for a game that doesn’t want resource management to get in the way of epic adventure.
Sounds cool, thanks for the explanation!
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Of those that has been the least common at my tables.
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If I think more about it i come to conclusion that is not really the math per se, but what I find boring is that 90% of the rules (measured by feeling) are about battle and battle takes such a huge and detailed part in the game.
That’s fair. Perhaps another style of DMing and/or a different system are more your speed.
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Fair point. I actually don’t know what, if anything, the D&D (or Pathfinder) rules say on this matter. I’ve always just treated it as a natural 3D extension of the 2D grid rules. If they’re three squares in one direction, same square in the other, and 10 feet up, I’d treat that as 15 feet away because of Chebyshev rules.
I’ve always just treated it as a natural 3D extension of the 2D grid rules
I believe that’s how it’s handled in D&D too, or at least how my table has always done it. I meant more as a practical matter, you’re very unlikely to have a vertical wall grid and some kind of stand of the correct height for your minis, so you can’t just count squares like you would for horizontal movement. That’s when the Pythagorean Theorem comes up in my experience.
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That’s fair. Perhaps another style of DMing and/or a different system are more your speed.
And there are more then enough systems out there for everyone to find his perfect match and then some.
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RAW yes, they’re 30 feet away.
As a home rule, I’ll sometimes run total distance = long distance plus half the short distance. That also correlates nicely with making every other diagonal count as 10’
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Thanks! Quite a few of us seem to have our cake days around this time…
Reddit API Fallout Crew
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Ah yes, the “APIcalypse” or “Rexxit”.
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Of those that has been the least common at my tables.
The lack of dnd-style multiclassing in Pathfinder was something I struggled with at first, but honestly now (especially with the “free archetype” optional rule) it’s one of my favourite underrated things about having switched. It’s not as flashy as the 4 degrees of success or three action system, but it’s a really great system.
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Ironaically enough, you just take either the horizontal or the vertical distance (whatever is longer) instead of calculating. I hate that rule and never use it, but that’s what RAW says.
