Approximated Ranges and Movement

[evildm]

Has anyone considered removing raw feet-based distances in combat and using rough approximations? For instance, the enemies you're facing are within Short range, so you can move up to them with a move action and attack, if they were Medium range or longer, it might take you longer to reach them.

I'm mostly asking because my players aren't big fans of miniatures-based combat and would like to stick to our method of just describing combat, which is fine, but there are alot of feats and abilities that are based on movement, range, and positioning in combat that I don't want to just ignore. So has anybody tried this before, or should I just start working on making it up myself?

 

[Infiniti2000]

It's tough to have tactical combat without a tactical area to plan. You need a really really good visual image and everyone needs to be together on it. When you tried mini combat, why did the players not like it? I think the number one reason is that it's "slow" but speed will follow quickly once everyone is used to it and some measures are taken to get people to respond quickly. It also doesn't suffer from the "I wasn't there, I was here" problem.

 

[Thanee]

What I sometimes do to speed up combat when not using miniatures, but still keep ranges and distances in the game, is to just set the encounter distance between the two groups and then memorize how far everyone moves towards or away from the other group.

Basically move them on a 2-dimensional grid. Sometimes this is even further simplified by having everyone in each group move together, so only one distance is really considered.

Like, the groups started out at 120 ft. distance, the party makes a single move ahead and is now at 90 ft. distance.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Li Shenron]

I've run some sessions now and then without maps, based solely on the DM's description. We didn't have problems, but you need players with a certain mindset.

For example in our case it was fine because the players didn't care when the DM (me) told them that they had a range penalty or that they could not hurt all the orcs with the same fireball. Players just assumed that those "out of range/area" circumstances were part of the randomness of the scenario, which in a way they are if the DM decides them, well, on the spot = randomly.

BTW I seriously doubt that DMs who say that they play everything perfectly to the last 5ft, always remember to calculate range penalties for things like Listen and Spot checks.

 

[evildm]

Thanks for the replies. The reason my players (and not all, just some) don't like miniatures combat is that they feel it makes things too mechanical and too much like a wargame. They prefer it much better when combat consists of just attacking and doing damage and not worrying about any tactics or anything, which is the way we've done it for pretty much ever. The current campaign I'm running however, I decided to use miniatures-based combat (though I do it with a virtual tabletop of sorts cause we play online now). It hasn't slowed down combat much, so that's not a concern, but it's really brought out the complexity of D&D's combat system.

What I'm looking for is something like what Thanee describes, a 2d distance scale kind of thing, only a bit simpler, like estimated ranges of Short, Medium, and Long. For instance, you're at Short range, so it'll only take a move action to close with the enemy, if it's Medium it takes two move actions, and Long could take any number more than that. I'm just not sure what the repercussions of making something abstracted like this will do to the game, or if anyone else has tried it before (or seem something similar in a d20 RPG).