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?

[tetrasodium]

No one is suggesting any sort of teleport or shenanigans. There are a lot of people saying that combat wouldn’t normally happen at those ranges. No intelligent creature is going to charge at bow using players at those ranges. And no player can force engagement at those ranges without the adversary fleeing.

(Barring weird specific instances, like, um, zombies, or something equally mindless)

"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."
"but I have [ten feet of tablespace range on this] & the horizon limit for an earth sized world is about 2.9 miles"

Building the world's surface like a megadungeon (that was E) is hardly reasonable without player facing text taking the heat for the GM needing to do so.

 

[Reef]

"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."
"but I have [ten feet of tablespace range on this] & the horizon limit for an earth sized world is about 2.9 miles"

Building the world's surface like a megadungeon (that was E) is hardly reasonable without player facing text taking the heat for the GM needing to do so.

I guess my question is why do you need to map out thousands of yards? Is the exact positioning of miniatures at that distance even important? And if you did start a fight at the extreme end of longbow range, why wouldn’t you just say:

“Yeah, okay, it’ll take 4 rounds for them to dash on their mounts into reasonable range. All you bow folk, take your shots (at disadvantage), and then we’ll move to the battlemap”

In a video game, sure, maybe the entire world is mapped out. But in an rpg, I’d expect exact scale battlemaps never need to be ‘thousands of feet’.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

"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."
"but I have [ten feet of tablespace range on this] & the horizon limit for an earth sized world is about 2.9 miles"

Building the world's surface like a megadungeon (that was E) is hardly reasonable without player facing text taking the heat for the GM needing to do so.

Why do you need the map? and if you need the map, why not set a useable scale for the play surface you have?

 

[Irlo]

Legacy, Pretty much the same reason we have the price of string and a bag of ball bearings in the PHB.
I do not care whether they have or do not have those ranges. But I guarantee you that if you remove them there will be screaming about it.

There’s screaming about long ranges now.

 

[MarkB]

"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."
"but I have [ten feet of tablespace range on this] & the horizon limit for an earth sized world is about 2.9 miles"

Building the world's surface like a megadungeon (that was E) is hardly reasonable without player facing text taking the heat for the GM needing to do so.

Why are you putting an encounter like that on the tabletop? And if for some reason you desperately want to get the most out of your mini figures, why not just place the PCs at one end of the table and the opponents at the other, with a piece of paper in between them stating the current intervening range?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

There’s screaming about long ranges now.

Net yet more of a low groan.

 

[Raiztt]

There have been several examples throughout the thread with the types of situations that lead to thrusting the design clash. Here are several published by wotc &still more about 45 minutes before you posted here in post 56. Then there's the point that has come up a few times that got succinctly phrased in post 19 "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."

You and a number of others have flatly declared that "It's a GM skill issue". I absolutely agree there is a skill issue demonstrated through this thread that might track back to some GMs, but it's not the one you are suggesting. The tools currently available to the GM are

• A: Thre GM pilots the PCs into a reasonable range like puppets
• B: The GM teleports the opponents into a reasonable range
• C: The GM builds a world of warp points where you teleport straight from questgiver to the dungeon like some video games do.
• D: The GM invokes fiat to simply declare yea I don't care, you can't use that ability at this distance until the opponents are at a reasonable range
• E: The GM builds the entire surface world as a megadungeon with rooms & hallways. made of terrain structures & fog/dust/etc.

None of those are reasonable to the GM unless player facing rulebooks take the heat by making it clear to players that they are the expected norm. They aren't fair to the GM because we know how some players react to any GM fiat that isn’t to their immediate benefit.... unless of course the GM in question lacks the skill & experience to know how players react to fiat that isn't to their immediate benefit. Using fiat to let a PC use a reasonably ranged ability beyond it's range limit will be smooth sailing for the GM almost every time... The other way around with fiat to restrict the range of an ability with unreasonable range won't be smooth at all.

I've been DMing for 20 years and I've never had to do any of those 5 things.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that the PCs emerge from a forest and on the plains, they see a band of blood thirsty NPC bad guys* who, for some reason, don't have ranged weapons, have literally nowhere to go, no means to achieve cover, nothing, we're just standing on a perfectly smooth featureless flat surface.

The 'combat' is just "Ok they literally have no chance, your archer guns them down like dogs." No dice rolls, no maps, no miniatures. Because this isn't a 'combat' in any relevant sense because there are no stakes. The PCs cannot fail.

I don't make people roll dice to hop over a puddle.

Edit/Addition: Who exactly are people encountering in the middle of a giant open featureless field?? Cows? What is the ACTUAL situation that OP is imagining??

 

[tetrasodium]

I guess my question is why do you need to map out thousands of yards? Is the exact positioning of miniatures at that distance even important? And if you did start a fight at the extreme end of longbow range, why wouldn’t you just say:

“Yeah, okay, it’ll take 4 rounds for them to dash on their mounts into reasonable range. All you bow folk, take your shots (at disadvantage), and then we’ll move to the battlemap”

In a video game, sure, maybe the entire world is mapped out. But in an rpg, I’d expect exact scale battlemaps never need to be ‘thousands of feet’.

Lots of reasons that combine

• We all know how a good number of players react to using fiat not to their immediate benefit. It doesn't take much time to realize that the answer to that how tends to be negative
• Players want to minimize risk & will do things like describe how they travel/how they approach a quest location/etc to minimize risk.
• Players have abilities that scale out to ten real world feet of tablespace in one direction (ie 20 foot diameter of tablespace) from each C with such abilities.
• Players will chafe under all of
  Spoiler: these

  • A: Thre GM pilots the PCs into a reasonable range like puppets
  • B: The GM teleports the opponents into a reasonable range
  • C: The GM builds a world of warp points where you teleport straight from questgiver to the dungeon like some video games do.
  • D: The GM invokes fiat to simply declare yea I don't care, you can't use that ability at this distance until the opponents are at a reasonable range
  • E: The GM builds the entire surface world as a megadungeon with rooms & hallways. made of terrain structures & fog/dust/etc.

  [*]

• .With a VTT the reasons switch from "the battlemat is only this big so that's why we started at those ranges" to something more like "No I won't zoom out or drag a token across the map with a casual flick of the mouse". With the battlemat any "yea but" wheedling immediately crash into the fact that the table is not that big either & nobody has an arm reach that long... under a VTT those kinds of limits don't exist & the original problem of ranges
• @MarkB Switching to ToTM when there is a perfectly good VTT attached screen on the table or in front of every player's face in order to hide the fact that some players have abilities far beyond anything reasonable is going to cause chafing because some other players need more information for abilities trivially provided by said screen(s). It's not "Ok I'm going to ToTM this instead of setting up minis & maybe using some dry erase markers"... It becomes "sure I could plonk some tokens on a grid in seconds with a flick of my mouse but I won't" no matter how it gets phrased

Why do you need the map? and if you need the map, why not set a useable scale for the play surface you have?

Changing the scale doesn't fix much of anything until you start creating problems. 5e is built expecting 5ft increments You need to shift to something like battletch's 30ft squares where you have literally every PC moving one square (or less) per round & even abilities like AOEs that only impact a single square. Even the people saying they don't see s problem because they never have fights starting more than 100-150ft awat (20-30 five foot squares) show why switching from 120 five foot squares to 60 ten foot squares doesn't solve anything.

 

[MarkB]

• @MarkB Switching to ToTM when there is a perfectly good VTT attached screen on the table or in front of every player's face in order to hide the fact that some players have abilities far beyond anything reasonable is going to cause chafing because some other players need more information for abilities trivially provided by said screen(s).

Can you possibly be even a smidgeon consistent for one fraction of a second? You've been talking about physical table space for battlemaps, and now you're talking about everyone sitting around using VTTs.

And what information are these players being denied? They don't have to all shut down their laptops just because you're using TotM. Precise positioning isn't going to be particularly relevant at those ranges.

• It's not "Ok I'm going to ToTM this instead of setting up minis & maybe using some dry erase markers"... It becomes "sure I could plonk some tokens on a grid in seconds with a flick of my mouse but I won't" no matter how it gets phrased

You can plonk down some tokens on a blank battlemap without bothering about positioning them if you need it to track turn order and HPs, I didn't see anyone suggesting otherwise. And again, you can plonk the PCs' tokens down on one end of the map and the opponents' on the other and put a big "<====== 600 feet ======>" notation in between them, the same as you could on a physical table.

 

[Stalker0]

Let's just say for the sake of argument that the PCs emerge from a forest and on the plains, they see a band of blood thirsty NPC bad guys* who, for some reason, don't have ranged weapons, have literally nowhere to go, no means to achieve cover, nothing, we're just standing on a perfectly smooth featureless flat surface.

After a few days of travel across the plains, you notice a group approaching you from the south. It looks like they have been following you, and are starting to gain ground. You (making a good perception check) note the symbol of the dark triad on their clothing, an evil cult you all have pissed off before. They are about a 1000 feet off, what do you do?

Sharpshooter Archer: I wait till they get within 600 feet, and then I start taking them out!

The cultists also pull out their bows and begin firing at you archer. What do the rest of you do?

Melee Barbarian: I will pull out my bow, but start moving 40 feet a round to get closer.

DM: Alright, looks like the cultists are also moving and shooting to get closer, so should take about ~9 rounds to close to melee.

Melee Barbarian: Well....I have a +2 ranged attack at disadvantage....um here goes.

Wizard: Yeah....I'm not proficient in a longbow so....I'll guess I'll keep moving until I get to 320 feet with my shortbow.


The combat lasts for round after round with the barbarian missing every turn and the wizard just double moving, the archer decimating cultists but also taking a lot of damage in the process. Its....not the most exciting fight.