How does moving less than 5 feet interact with tactical grids

battle-mapdnd-5emovementterrain

Ok so I recently came across the spell plant growth, which says for every 1ft moved you require 4ft instead.

This prompted me to look in the rules, and I found out that you can use any amount of your movement you want each round, this really confused me since I always thought in squares or hexagons.

Ultimately my question is not about this spell at all but about how does this strange movement work? If you move 17ft do you only move 3 squares because you could not complete the last few feet or do you move 4 squares rounding up your movement?

If you only move 4ft each round do you just not move at all or do you just jump up one square?

Best Answer

In 5e grids are an optional rule, the rules don't assume you are playing on a grid leading to awkward situations. The movement rules are no help, they just say "you can move a distance up to your speed". The difficult terrain rules say "Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain." but again don't mention what to do with grids.

In the DMG the section called "Tactical Maps" covers how to play with grids:

You can draw tactical maps with colored markers on a wet-erase vinyl mat with 1-inch squares, on a large sheet of paper, or on a similar flat surface. Preprinted poster-sized maps, maps assembled from cardboard tiles, and terrain made of sculpted plaster or resin are also fun.

The most common unit for tactical maps is the 5-foot square, and maps with grids are readily available and easy to create. However, you don’t have to use a grid at all. You can track distances with a tape measure, string, craft sticks, or pipe cleaners cut to specific lengths. Another option is a play surface covered by 1-inch hexagons (often called hexes), which combines the easy counting of a grid with the more flexible movement of using no grid. Dungeon corridors with straight walls and right angles don’t map easily onto hexes, though.

In the rules for Movement there's a section on the Playing on a Grid variant rule which offers a little more information:

Rather than moving foot by foot, move square by square on the grid. This means you use your speed in 5-foot segments. This is particularly easy if you translate your speed into squares by dividing the speed by 5. For example, a speed of 30 feet translates into a speed of 6 squares.

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To enter a square, you must have at least 1 square of movement left

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If a square costs extra movement, as a square of difficult terrain does, you must have enough movement left to pay for entering it. For example, you must have at least 2 squares of movement left to enter a square of difficult terrain.

Divide your movement into squares, then pay 3 extra squares of movement every time you move 1 square. If you don't have 4 squares total available to pay, you can't move.

If your character has 17 feet of speed, then divide that into 3.4, then round it down to 3 squares of movement. You need 4 squares to move, so in this example you can't.

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