D&D (2024) Why is wotc still aiming for PCs with 10 *real word* feet of range? W/o vision range penalty/limit rules for the GM?

[Shiroiken]

Note, player minis are often in the CENTER of the table or battlemat. Meaning, the reallife distance to accommodate the ingame distance actually needs to be twice as large.

My experience has been the opposite. Unless you're ambushed and surrounded, we usually have the players starting on one side of the map, with the enemy on the other side.

 

[Yaarel]

One way I deal with these awkward distances is to think in magnitudes: 10⁰ 10¹ 10² 10³.

Then I draw a sketch to scale at the higher magnitude.

(Or oppositely, I grab a map from Google Maps from around the world at a far out scale, then for an encounter do a closeup a section.)

This is easier to do when the game uses standardized distances, namely "Range Types". For example, weapons and their distances are all over the place. It helps to think of the weapons as reaching categories of distances. One category is for thrown weapons, an other for bowshots.

Generally, just think in multiples, 1 foot, 10 feet, 100 feet, etcetera. Then the reallife "inch" can represent any of these distances, depending on scale of the map.

Now because the increasing magnitudes form a curve, the midway of the curve (10^1, 10^1.5, 10^2) is about 30 (10, 31.62, 100). In practice, round out the midpoint (31.61) to 30 feet, or visually approximate this distance as about one third of the way between 10 and 100.



RANGE TYPE

10 feet: Melee Range or Engaged (includes Touch, Adjacent, Reach)
30 feet: Close Range or Near, within a Move or Throw (aka Close Quarters Combat, Very Short Range)

100 feet: Short Range or Far or Distant
300 feet: Mid Range or within a Bowshot (city block)

1000 feet: Long Range
3000+ feet: Remote (approximately a kilometer) (includes "Line of Sight" and "anywhere in the same plane")




During gameplay, the only distances that really matter are 3 (≈5) feet, 10 feet (reach), and 30 feet (move, throw). Anything 30 or more feet away is "far".

But when dealing with bows and distant spells, it helps to switch to a different map at a different scale where the "inch" is 100 feet rather than 10 feet.

 

[Yaarel]

My experience has been the opposite. Unless you're ambushed and surrounded, we usually have the players starting on one side of the map, with the enemy on the other side.

Sure, but then the players "enter the room", or so on. Likewise being in a battle outside invites entering into the fray.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the answer is implied in @tetrasodium ’s title.

The game isn’t balanced if the archer gets four rounds of combat before everyone else does. The DM doesn’t want to do that to the other players and the other players most likely don’t want it either. We know how some players react to any GM fiat that isn’t to their immediate benefit.

The answer is vision distances based on assumptions of terrain and cover, which 5e doesn’t have. I’d be included to lean on the 3e versions if it came up.

Heh heh... or the other answer is don't have all these encounters where the bad guys go rushing across a massive open field to try and engage the party. Unless you are doing mass combat with armies, I don't see any reason for any small squad to rush across the open field to engage the enemy and leave themselves open to ranged fire. Why would they do that? At minimum they should bring out their own ranged weapons to fire across field as well... or if they don't have any, then retreat back out of sight and make the enemy come to them.

Having it happen once or twice in a campaign just as a variant encounter? Cool! Something different. But doing it so often that you need to come up with a house rule system to depower it? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work for something that doesn't/shouldn't occur that much.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think the answer is implied in @tetrasodium ’s title.

The game isn’t balanced if the archer gets four rounds of combat before everyone else does. The DM doesn’t want to do that to the other players and the other players most likely don’t want it either. We know how some players react to any GM fiat that isn’t to their immediate benefit.

The answer is vision distances based on assumptions of terrain and cover, which 5e doesn’t have. I’d be included to lean on the 3e versions if it came up.

You can see people on the order of several thousand yards (or meters, if you prefer, the difference does not matter much) well beyond any effective engagement range even with a longbow, as long as line of sight permits.
Unless one is dealing with armies or a large mobility difference (i.e., one force is mounted the other not) one or other side can disengage at those kinds of ranges. There should be no circumstances where a force should be willingly taking multiple rounds of ranged fire if they do not want to and they probably do not want to unless they have overwhelming numbers. If they have overwhelming numbers then the other group should be disengaging and running away.
Of course, some guidance in the rules for chases would be nice but that has nothing to do with mapping.

 

[Krachek]

To answer the OP:
Theater of the mind is a valid tool to run a fight
and lots of people play dnd the ride Pegasus and shoot arrows and spells in amazing fights.

 

[James Gasik]

I remember some funny debates in PF1e about that system's penalties for vision at great distances, where every 10 feet increased the Perception DC by 1, preventing low Perception characters from even being able to see long ranged targets.

And of course, making it impossible to see the Moon.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem starts squarely with the longbow. 600 feet of range (aka 200 yards or 2 football fields) IS INSANE.

Now can a longbow actually shoot that far....eh if you have a good bow and your nice and strong it can. But can you hit a target from that distance, no. Can you hit a target in a way that will actually do real damage...hell no. Can you hit a target in a way that will do damage while they have actual protection on....oh HELL no. Can you hit a target in a that will do damage while they have actual protection AND they are moving in anyway..... ha ha ha, oh lordy no. And can you do all that while also having to avoid damage yourself?..... nnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooo..

The longbow should have like a 200 foot max range, and then you can include some special sniper rules that are "ok if you are able to hold position for a minute and the target is unmoving and unware of you and your not in danger, etc etc your range is doubled (or tripled if you really want that fantasy).

That and a full volley fire where the bowman doesn't actually try to hit anything and your just using the weight of mass fire to hurt things....only then should we be discussing 600 foot ranges.

So you start there and then adjust other ranges appropriately.

 

[Stalker0]

In terms of vision, there was a great chart in 3e that gave encounter distances based on terrain and visibility conditions. It was

"The encounter begins at this distance if either side succeeds at a DC 20 spot check, otherwise, they both meet at half that encounter distance".

It wasn't perfect but it was clean and easy to use. One of the few things I really miss from 3.0 that didn't carry into 3.5.

 

[MGibster]

Because the default version of play is Theater of the Mind, not running on a battlemap. Previous editions used to provide a random distance to start each encounter based on the terrain (pretty sure it's in 5E too) which are on average much larger than most DMs choose to use. You can still utilize a larger area than the battlemap you're using by simply noting how far off the edge of the map any given mini is; my group's been doing it since 2E without any problems at all.

Is the default version of play theater of the mind's eye? 5th edition gives such precise measurements for speed, ranges for weapons and spells, and area of effect for spells & equipment that it just seems designed to be used with a grid map. When I see people playing D&D at the game store, pretty much every table has a map set up.