D&D 1E Fireball throughout the ages

[FrogReaver]

No it is not because there are exactly zero historical weapons with effective ranges against armor crafted using magical means worn by individuals with magical or supranatural abilities

No idea what this has to do with anything.

 

[Zardnaar]

2d6 on higher level cast might have been the way to go with 3rd and higher level spells. I should've thought of this my self...

I'm awesome.

 

[Coroc]

Well I am glad that items do not need to save anymore, it just is to fiddly imho, and if they should save for fireball they also should save if hit with a big weapon, that is.

 

[tetrasodium]

Well I am glad that items do not need to save anymore, it just is to fiddly imho, and if they should save for fireball they also should save if hit with a big weapon, that is.

Fiddly is a meaningless term that gets thrown out too often to malign a rule without saying anything.
The problem with the item saves is that it needlessly forced the GM to interrupt the game to start rolling waves for items that might not even exist at this point and in reverse nobody wants to wait for Alice to roll to hundred DeX saves so it adds nothing but delays even if the internet was sound

 

[Raunalyn]

Lightning bolts used to bounce also. Lightning Bolt really needs to be widened to a 10' wide strip, or have bouncing added back.

Yes, that made Lightning Bolt so much fun back in the day.

 

[JeffB]

Medieval ranged weapons frequently had an effective range of 200 to 300 yd.

If you mean the Longbow- That's because it was employed en masse and was the medieval equivalent of artillery and resulting shrapnel. Having been a competitive archer (and hunter), both modern, and with traditional archery gear (longbows, recurve) I can assure you that as a single archer your target better be about the size of the side of a barn and already be nearly dead at that range. Between Trajectory and the massive decrease in Velocity (which results in decrease of energy) with feather fletched arrows, it's a joke. Plastic "vanes" (modern equivalent) is slightly better but trajectory on arrows is always drastic.

For deer sized game, with heavy mass wooden arrows and traditional hunting arrow heads, I limited myself to about 15 yards max for a quick ethical kill on stationary target (optimal Kill zone area roughly 8 inches in diameter) About 40-60 yards with modern compound bows with sighting mechanisms, carbon arrows and surgical steel bladed broadheads And Deer are extremely resilient.

In D&D Terms the scenario of Longbows in combat is much closer to my Hunting experience than the History Channel and the Battle of Hastings with rows of archers.

EDIT- Now imagine the Chaos of close combat, moving targets, and the desire to just hit something, not make a clean ethical kill shot.

 

[fearsomepirate]

realism has no place in a game If that's your strongest point there is nothing to discuss.

Are you a different tetrasodium than the one who was complaining for like ten pages in the other thread that 5e isn't as realistic as 3.5?

BTW my strongest argument is that you're wrong, an argument I make by citing rules. In this case, I cited ranges in both AD&D and 3.5 to show that 5e is anything but a radical departure from the norm.

 

[tetrasodium]

Are you a different tetrasodium than the one who was complaining for like ten pages in the other thread that 5e isn't as realistic as 3.5?

BTW my strongest argument is that you're wrong, an argument I make by citing rules. In this case, I cited ranges in both AD&D and 3.5 to show that 5e is anything but a radical departure from the norm.

because that's a massive misrepresentation of my arguments, no I don't think that such a person exists. Too bad you couldn't make an actual point to support your argument about ranges instead of this silliness.

 

[fearsomepirate]

because that's a massive misrepresentation of my arguments, no I don't think that such a person exists. Too bad you couldn't make an actual point to support your argument about ranges instead of this silliness.

You mean an actual point other than citing ranges from the rules, right? BTW, here are the ranges for ranged weapons across the ages.

Weapon	AD&D 2e Penalty: +0/-2/-5	3.5 Penalty: 0/-2/-4/-6	5e Penalty: 0/Dis (about -5)
Longbow	Flight: 210/420/630 Sheaf: 150/300/510	100/200/300/400/...	150/600
Short bow	150/300/450	60/120/180/240/...	80/320
Heavy cbow	240/480/720	120/240/360/480/...	100/400
Light cbow	180/360/540	80/160/240/320/...	80/320

Really not seeing how 5e radically changed things as you claim.

 

[tetrasodium]

You mean an actual point other than citing ranges from the rules, right? BTW, here are the ranges for ranged weapons across the ages.

Weapon	AD&D 2e Penalty: +0/-2/-5	3.5 Penalty: 0/-2/-4/-6	5e Penalty: 0/Dis (about -5)
Longbow	Flight: 210/420/630 Sheaf: 150/300/510	100/200/300/400/...	150/600
Short bow	150/300/450	60/120/180/240/...	80/320
Heavy cbow	240/480/720	120/240/360/480/...	100/400
Light cbow	180/360/540	80/160/240/320/...	80/320

Really not seeing how 5e radically changed things as you claim.

which has absolutely nothing to do with what I told you previously about how effective ranges are different. firebolt+spell sniper=240ft range that ignores cover. Let's take that 3.5 -6 400 ft range or example & say we are talking about an 11th level fighter shooting at the baddie next to his allies

That =11/+6/+1 set of attacks goes from +11/+6/+1 to +1/-4/-10 & all of them have a good chance of skewering one of his allies. That gets even orse if you are shooting through trees or something

In 5e advantage/disadvantage equates to about +/-5 so he's already ahead on that first attack by a pretty considerable margin with the odds only improving on his second and third shot of that 600ft disadvantaged set of attack. Not only that but you can ignore cover and get rid of the disadvantage with one feat

Spell sniper will make firebolt & eldritch blast extend out to 240ft & ignore over as well.

That's a pretty gigantic difference in the effective ranges.