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?

[S'mon]

D&D missile weapon ranges have always been silly. They seem to be based on how far someone can get an arrow to fly, not on effective combat range for what are relatively slow moving projectiles. AIR 3e D&D was the worst, 4e D&D was a lot better.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You realize a Costco parking lot is larger than most Medieval and Renaissance cities right?

Someone on the Internet just told me that most Medieval and Renaissance cities were smaller than 5 acres, so I guess it must be true!

 

[S'mon]

600 feet is in fact the historical lethal range of the longbow.

There's a lot of debate about this. Medievalists seem to be swinging towards the view that the contemporary artistic depictions, which show direct fire at short range, are an accurate depiction of how longbows were actually used. In the past it was thought that archers used arcing shots with massed fire (as shown in '300' with the Persian composite bow archers) for maximum range, but there are no contemporary depictions showing this.

 

[S'mon]

So yeah I would argue that giving bows a range of 200 feet under normal circumstances, and then adding in a special rule to triple that for "very special perfect sniper circumstances" would not only be very accurate with real numbers, but also would remove a big part of why combat boards can't handle "long combat distances".

I agree. Notably, the 1e AD&D 'dungeon' range was 210 feet, vs 210 yards outdoors. Gygax recognised an issue, at least to some extent. IMCs I use the 'dungeon' ranges outside too, works fine. 4e D&D I think uses 40 squares/200 feet, it's the only edition I know with realistic missile weapon ranges.

Re how to implement in 5e, well Dragonbane, which is a very well designed modern RPG, stacks Banes (Disadvantage) - one extra d20 per range increment beyond the first. Stacking disad ought to work in 5e AFAICT and would still allow for the insanely good archer who can hit a moving target at 600' - and they get to roll a bucket of dice, previously the prerogative of the spellcasters.

 

[S'mon]

As far as solutions go, well IMCs I typically say that the combat rules are just for what happens on the battlemat. Long range shooting off-mat is likely to be handled differently.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In many American cities maybe. Medieval or Renaissance cities? 200 yards is HUGE. Good grief, Rome was only a couple of miles across when it was one of the largest cities in the world. Most pre-Industrial battlefields could fit in a soccer field.

As an example, Paris in the 14th Century was the largest city in Europe. At 439 hectares, it covered about 4 square kilometers. As in just a smidgeon bigger than a square mile. And that was the largest city in Europe at the time.

Paris at 250,000 inhabitants in the 1400s was obviously far, far larger than a Costco parking lot. Seeing as how other medical cities ranged from 70,000 to 125,000 inhabitants I think it's a pretty safe bet that none of them were smaller than 5 acres either.

I spot-checked your claim about battlefields and it doesn't seem to hold water. The Battle of Bosworth Field's location is not known for certain but one of the candidate locations is over a kilometer across:

Battle of Bosworth Field - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Agincourt also is not known exactly but accounts describe deployment along a front 750 yards across, which obviously wouldn't fit into a 105 meter by 68 meter soccer court.

Where are you getting your ideas about medieval city and battlefield size?

 

[Hussar]

Mostly obvious exaggeration for comedic effect. But the size of Paris was Wikipedia.

The point being, the idea you routinely have the 600 foot sight lines really is ridiculous.

I mean sure. Knock max range of everything including spells to 200 feet. It will come up exactly as often as it comes up now.

Somewhere very close to never.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Mostly obvious exaggeration for comedic effect. But the size of Paris was Wikipedia.

The point being, the idea you routinely have the 600 foot sight lines really is ridiculous.

I mean sure. Knock max range of everything including spells to 200 feet. It will come up exactly as often as it comes up now.

Somewhere very close to never.

This is called a Motte and Bailey fallacy. You make a ridiculous claim, then when challenged on it you claim it was a joke that doesn't need to be defended. And then you pretend like it was successfully defended and go back to relying on it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

That leads into a bigger problem; the game was made for dungeon exploring, and so it doesn't really want people seeing clearly beyond a certain point, even with darkvision, you're typically at disadvantage to see things out to 60'. But on a clear day, you can see very far if there's nothing in particular blocking your vision. I live in a Midwestern state, and within 5 minutes I can drive out of town and be confronted by empty fields of nothing for miles around.

Reading this thread, outside of a dungeon, I get the impression everything needs to be forest primeval or full of big rocks to hide behind for melee combat to even exist. Nobody would dare travel down a road that is anywhere near straight, for fear of being mowed down by arrows, lol.

Every monster and enemy must have a piece of terrain they can spring out of to ambush the player characters, or be sniped down!

Oh and flying enemies apparently are impossible to ever encounter during the daytime, since you'd be able to see them coming long before they could ever get into melee. Might as well take all of them out of the Monster Manual!

This is basically nonsense; the issue is that no one other than the OP really has an issue with long ranges in D&D. It is not that long range observation cannot happen but that, it either makes no sense to open an engagement at long range because well, how do you know that they are hostile? and if you do know that they are hostile and you think you can win, then it make much more sense to let them close and open fire when you have a better chance of hitting.
If they know you are hostile, then they will not close but seek to evade out of range.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is not worth addressing if you can't express why those extreme ranges belong in the system. Stop praising a table from 2e (at least) that got added to the 5e gm screen as space filler absent the rules it worked with and justify the excessive ranges that it limits and justify those ranges.



Same question. Justify those ranges. That shouldn't be hard If those have a purpose other than providing a shield of ruleslawyering to obstruct the GM's efforts to restrain those ranges to reasonable limits,

Nobody needs to justify those ranges. There are several real world scenarios where these ranges would come in to play, at least as to observation of other parrties.
You are the one that wants to change the rules, so you have to justify the change.

So what ranges do you want that don’t need justifying?

Half longbow range to 300’? Still need to dash 5 rounds to get into melee range.

200’? Still dashing 3 rounds.

100’? Okay, fits on a small battlemap, melee characters still have to dash 1-2 rounds, but now you have the opposite problem and the players you have been saddled with want you to justify why your bows only shoot 100’.

And you ignore question: how often is this causing problems in your game to justify changing the rules?

I will echo, this? What are the actual rule(s) you want to see in the game?