Has anyone tried Zone Combat in their D&D game?

[The1True]

Late to the party, I guess, but I was watching a Professor DM YouTube the other day talking about his B4 campaign, and he kept mentioning the Zone Combat system he was using. I must admit, I'm intrigued. I mean, my group uses a VTT, so 5' squares are pretty easy to visualize and use, but I'm curious if anyone's tried this sort of halfway between theatre of the mind and squares approach to combat?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I was looking at this a while ago. Seems neat, certainly streamlines some stuff... though I don't know how it would hold up if you face more than one opponent, since the distances are all relative to a central point (one creature). I don't know about you guys, but my party gets pretty tactical about their positioning on the battle board, especially against multiple enemies.

 

[Two orcs]

I've used zone combat in a non-D&D system I forget the name of. The problem is that you increase abstraction and decrease immersion, it has no real advantage over using a rough map or going pure threatre of mind (which increases both abstraction and immersion). It might be useful to use zones to keep track of the action on the DM side if you're bad at visualizing the situation (some of my best friends are aphantasic) in your head when running threatre of the mind.

 

[The1True]

since the distances are all relative to a central point (one creature).

I think they're suggesting breaking the battlemap into zones like The Throne and The Fire Pit and Guard Station, so the PC's are in melee with whatever is assigned to each zone when they enter it? We're all about the tabletop game of tactical movement and combat maneuvres, so I'm not sure we'd be willing to give up that granularity for the smoother combat experience.
I guess this interested me because we're trying out a 5e game on the weekends at the moment and I'm hating the absolute shit out of the Attack of Opportunity rules (or lack thereof). This Zone system seems to offer some solutions to what I'm not enjoying about combat in that edition.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I'm hating the absolute shit out of the Attack of Opportunity rules (or lack thereof).

Huh? Lack of AoO rules? They seem pretty straightforward to me...

Leave adjacency to a hostile creature -> they can use a Reaction to take an Attack of Opportunity with a melee weapon. You can use Disengage as an action to avoid the AoO. No reaction action left this turn? No AoO for you.

I mean, that's pretty much all there is to it. What's so hated about it, exactly?

EDIT: Also, apologies, I didn't peep the original linked video - I thought were were looking at Professor DMs "zone combat" via his "ultimate dungeon terrain" stuff he keeps pushing (which also uses distance zones), which has the issues regarding multiple enemies I identified above. I am unfamiliar with any other form of "zone combat", but I'll check some out now.

EDIT2: Read the Sly Flourish article. Not my cup of tea. Seems like it's making a bunch of extra work and rule changes for little comparative payoff... but then, I guess I've never really had problems running large areas before.

My approach is to have multiple battle boards represent multiple areas; I can segment a huge area as much as I want with those, and TotM the distances between them easily enough. ("Miranda is fighting the goblin lord on this hilltop over here on this board, Cut-throat Bill is 200' due East up in tree taking aim, 100' South of that tree are Shelwyn and Norda simultaneously approaching the chieftain's hut on this board here..."etc.)

That way, I don't have to skirt all the inconvenient "edge cases" (as Sly calls them), for the sole benefit of not "losing the sense of wonder and excitement when we fall into the minutia of the mechanics" (as Sly puts it).

Your mileage may vary.

 

[The1True]

Huh? Lack of AoO rules? They seem pretty straightforward to me...

I guess pretty much everything in 3.5 draws an AoO and we got used to controlling the battlefield (on both sides of the DM screen) using those rules, and now everyone is moving around all willynilly. I miss 5' Step, Tumble, and Cast Defencively. It all feels very streamlined which makes me wonder if we should go further and try this zone stuff.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Wait, are you still playing 3.5e? I didn't know that.

In 5e, you can forget the whole "Threat Range" thing. Threat rage is now simply "adjacent". Much easier to manage. Also, taking a 5'-Step in 5e is as easy as saying "my character moves 5' to this square over here", since you can break up a move as much as you want over the course of your turn. Tumble is a mere contested Acrobatics check, and Defensive Casting is no longer a thing.

They streamlined it specifically because, as you state, it was getting hella-finnicky.

 

[The1True]

They streamlined it specifically because, as you state, it was getting hella-finnicky.

Which is why we're giving 5e a try. Turns out, we're pretty addicted to the hella-finnicky shit that turns the late-stage game into a slog. I'm hating it, but half the group is loving it, so I think we'll try another adventure after Phandelver and see how it goes.

Wait, are you still playing 3.5e? I didn't know that.

Yeah yeah, I go on and on about it. I know. Should I start a thread?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Should I start a thread?

I tried that once. I wouldn't recommend it...

 

[Palindromedary]

I've seen versions of this rule thrown around, but I've never seen the reason for it, personally. It looks as if by the time you work over all the kludges necessary to make it function, you've saved time only to throw it away in other areas, and I've never had a hard time running theatre of the mind combat to the point that I'd be willing to start making those kludges in any case.

 

[The1True]

The problem with Theatre of the Mind is it requires a very chill group. The second one person ends up imagining the situation a little too differently from how the DM is picturing it, things can go really really wrong. It leads to people trying to retcon their actions, like "OH! If that's what's happening than I certainly wouldn't have attempted that dangerous acrobatic maneuver to get past what I thought was an obstruction etc. etc."
When I'm going fast and loose I at the very least try to scribble X's on a rough map on graph paper so people are all on the same page about what's where.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

It leads to people trying to retcon their actions, like "OH! If that's what's happening than I certainly wouldn't have attempted that dangerous acrobatic maneuver to get past what I thought was an obstruction etc. etc."

While exacerbated by theatre of the mind, this problem is far from exclusive to it. I see it all the time, in all editions, at all skill levels, no matter if there's a battle board or not.

"Oh, can we just say that I had Bless cast this whole time? I always cast it before situations like this"

"Oh, can we just say that I actually hadn't removed my armor before we went to sleep? My character never takes off their armor"

"Oh, can we just say that I had listened at the door before we opened it? I would never open a door unless I was sure there was no sound on the other side"

And so on. Takes a strong DM not to pimp-slap the players sometimes.