Switch to feet for all distances

[scooper4711]

The current system supports measuring distance in either "map units" or "hexes". This causes confusion for GMs and players as to what to enter for missile ranges and how far can a character move.
Normalizing the game system to feet will offer several benefits.

• reduce the representation gap between the measure tool in FVTT (which measures in map units) and what is recorded on the character sheet
• inclusion of missile weapons in the Standard Weapon compendium since we can provide ranges
• allow pre-calculation of base movement rate (agility * 5 feet)
• calculate missile range correctly regardless of the scale of the map (as long as the map unit is feet)

The primary disadvantages of switching to only feet are

• metric users will be forced to specify distances in a measurement system based on body parts and multiples of two.
• users will need to convert the rules from hexes to feet on occassion.

[scooper4711]

Partial list of tasks to complete

• pre-compute base move and remove the ability to edit the base move field
• add a label indicating feet for base and effective move
• add labels indicating feet for missile ranges on the add item screen
• add labels indicating feet for missile ranges on the combat tab
• ❓ create a new attribute bar indicating movement remaining which is reset on each round ❓
  * difficulty with this idea is that you can - by the rules - sprint up to AGL * 3 hexes in a round if you don't do anything else.

[jpmcdonald]

I've never really understood this as it seems a personal preference. I've never had an issue with working with five-foot hexes, though apparently I am in the minority. This seems a trade-off between those who think in feet, and the need to use hexes in calculations for range and move distances on the tactical grid.

[scooper4711]

@jpmcdonald - TBH, I kinda like hexes too, but the main draw is the integration of ranges with the measure tool. The measure tool measures in ... feet. Well, in whatever unit you give, but if you're doing battle, then 5' squares or hexes is pretty much the norm. Maybe 10' hexes if the map covers a big area. But everything in foundry is set up for 5' squares. So that's what people do - they specify that the grid size is 5 feet.
Standardizing on that for Hârn then allows us to make some assumptions which further improves quality of life.

• ammo can be part of the compendium because we can specify the range. Otherwise we'd need to include "Arrow (shortbow) (ft)" and "Arrow (shortbow) (hexes)" which would confuse people.
• Allows range to be calculated correctly for 5' or 10' scale maps.
• future work - warn/prohibit an actor from moving more than his/her movement rate during a combat round. This would not be at all possible if we allowed the GM to chose between two options.

[jpmcdonald]

I’m not sure I understand.  Foundry supports hex grids as well as square.  Standardizing on five feet makes sense thats 25 mm scale. While programming would be more complex, I don’t see why you would need to include two arrow types.  You just make sure that you always input range/move etc in the same units, and that means 5’ (whether squares or hexes). Or feet, or yards, or whatever. Any needed conversion would be handled in code.  Whether range or movement.

…

On Dec 23, 2020, 12:15 AM -0600, Stephen Cooper ***@***.***>, wrote: @jpmcdonald - TBH, I kinda like hexes too, but the main draw is the integration of ranges with the measure tool. The measure tool measures in ... feet. Well, in whatever unit you give, but if you're doing battle, then 5' squares or hexes is pretty much the norm. Maybe 10' hexes if the map covers a big area. But everything in foundry is set up for 5' squares. So that's what people do - they specify that the grid size is 5 feet. Standardizing on that for Hârn then allows us to make some assumptions which further improves quality of life. • ammo can be part of the compendium because we can specify the range. Otherwise we'd need to include "Arrow (shortbow) (ft)" and "Arrow (shortbow) (hexes)" which would confuse people. • Allows range to be calculated correctly for 5' or 10' scale maps. • future work - warn/prohibit an actor from moving more than his/her movement rate during a combat round. This would not be at all possible if we allowed the GM to chose between two options. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[toastygm]

From my perspective, the main issue is in providing ease of use. Most all is secondary to that.

I'd like to be able to include in the standard compendiums missile weapons. Otherwise, it requires that although there is a standard compendium of melee weapons, there is no list of standard missile weapons.

But in that case, in order to specify missile weapons, I need to provide their range, and that range has to be in some unit. Either feet, or hexes, or whatever. So, essentially the inclusion of missile weapons requires me to take a stance (impose an opinion) on what units I want to use.

I could provide both units: hexes (per the book) and feet. That would seem confusing to people: should they use the one for feet, or the one for hexes? And it doubles the number of items in the standard list.

The problem becomes further complicated when you decide to use anything other than 5' hexes/squares. If you are outside, and you choose to use 10' hexes, if your missile weapons are all calibrated to 5' hexes things don't end up working. Even though this is no problem for Foundry VTT itself.

So, my thought is to just take the opinion that all ranges are expressed in feet. If you choose to use 5' hexes, or 7' grid, or whatever, that's your concern. But all ranges would be expressed in feet, and can then be mapped to the grid accordingly.

I could choose to use yards or meters or whatever. Again, for the purposes of making it easy to provide a standard set of gear, and make it easier for people to use the system, I think the best approach would be to simply standardize on feet.

A final benefit of this is that Foundry VTT has a measurement tool that allows you to determine the exact distance to another location. By using feet, we allow the easy use of that tool for people to determine the range to a particular point. That ruler is calibrated in Scene units, which defaults to 5' per grid or hex, but could be 10' or 15' or whatever per grid.