Li Shenron
Legend
I do the same as you and run gridless combats. We have rulers or actually fixed sticks for common ranges (where all it matters is within/out of reach) and flexible tapes for movements, but most of the rounds you don't even need to use them, only when it's unclear.Do you as a DM (or does the DM you play with) always tell specific distances of objects, creatures, or location from a player?
For instance: “The goblin is 35 feet from you.”
Or are distances estimates or left to PC’s to figure out?
I tried using estimations while using minis on a gridless table. Players could look and estimate distances, but they wouldn’t know until the distance mattered (for range attack or spell) and we used a tape measure. They really didn’t like this at first but got used to it.
I can can see this as an option using theater of the mind (“The goblin seems about 30 feet or so away.”). Gridded maps make this less than useful.
I guess PCs could also use an intelligence check to know more precisely.
Thoughts?
For out-of-combat exploration I don't mind telling precise distances but I think it's generally not useful. Again, if you intend to use some ranged ability, within/out of range is all you need to know.
For travelling, I never use distances but always time. "The town is 50 miles away" is useless without context, "the town is 3 hours away on horseback" is what they need to know.