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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The 1 and the Prime" data-source="post: 5217250" data-attributes="member: 91434">The article referenced above calculates the horizon distance, which is based on the curvature of the Earth's surface and would not necessarily be the same on your campaign world. If the PC's are on a larger planet the horizon distance will be larger since the surface doesn't curve as much (relative to height). If they are in some kind of fantastical flat world, there is no horizon. Consider also atmospheric interference that is not apparent at short distances, but is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog" target="_blank">a noticeable haze</a> over long distances due to hanging particulates and water vapor. This would again depend on your campaign world (and even the weather on that day).However the OP's phrasing doesn't seem to be talking about this. The OP seems to be indicating that whatever it is, it is line of site visible (no mountains or curvature hiding it) and limits on vision will not be able to resolve it. I would point out that even my mortal communication device is able to see the local star and nearby planets with his naked eyes, and they are millions of miles away.You can actually fairly easily approximate the effect of distance with a prop. Just remember that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_%28visual%29" target="_blank">something twice as far away is half as high</a>. Another useful fact is that 20/40 vision means you can see at 20 feet something someone with "perfect vision" can see at 40 feet. So if you want demihumans to have finer eyesight resolution you can adjust for that fairly easily (if they see at 20/10 they see it like a human would see something twice as close). Here is how it works: Say you've got a 5000' high structure 100 miles away (say 100 miles= 500,000 feet). Then you could draw the structure 1.2 inches high in and amongst the other foreground and background material and hold up the picture 10 feet away from your players. Formula:(Structure height)*(Drawing distance)/(Actual distance in world)=(Drawing Height)Alternatively, if it is a needle in a haystack kind of problem, consider if the PCs had to notice a detail the size of the hypothetical drawn structure.</blockquote>

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