DragonQuest Combat houserule

I got a comment on my last post, mentioning playing DragonQuest without a battle map. Personally I have nothing against miniatures with my rpg, unless it slows down play. If you count hexes or squares it will slow down play is my experience. Playing online I find it a bit fiddly. So, I always look if I can do without them.

Thinking a bit about DQ I realized that the big thing is if you are engaged or not, and if you can get engaged after doing a half move. With that in mind, and inspired by the classic Traveller rang band system for combat I present the following:

The dividing line down the middle is separating Team A from Team B, or Attackers from Defenders. Well, you get the idea.

All placed in the green fields are Engaged and play according to those rules for initiative and if you can Trip, Disarm and so on. If you are in the blue fields you are disengaged and far away. Here you can only do ranged attacks, and you need more than half of your TMR to engage. In the areas in between you only need to do a half move to be Engaged.

That sheet can be printed and laminated and you can write on it, or you can use actual pretty miniatures. But, you skip the analysis-paralysis of counting hexes.

I think this i how I would try to run DQ if I did run it online.

If you have any ideas or response, I'm all ears!