I just had a thought. Take a 10th caster level fireball with enlarge spell, and that's 1600 ft!! Now looking at spotting distances in the dmg, the max distance they give for spotting is 840 ft. Consider with just a little more metamagic or higher caster level, you can easily get 2400 ft, 3200 ft, etc just exactly how far can a wizard spot a target to hit with a fireball.
Just how far can a person see anyway?
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The Souljourner
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Eyes of the Eagle, baby. Eyes of the Eagle.
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Kalle Palander
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we are not worthy master!
AuraSeer said:If the object you're looking at is distinct enough, you can see a practically infinite distance. Want proof? Go outside on a clear night and look up.
While I agree with you logically, if that was true in game terms there wouldn't be max spotting distances in the dmg.
Destil
Explorer
Thoes are encounter distances, IIRC. They factor in things like how well you can make out other groups moving over terrain at a distance. It should most likely have modifiers and max distances based on size and contrast (and a seperate roll for flying creatures or aerial encounters).Stalker0 said:
Celebrim
Legend
Well, according to the _extremely_ broken 'spot' rules in d20 an average character can't reasonably be expected to spot a man sitting on the ground in a field on a clear day at 100 yards.
Human vision isn't entirely motion based, but human scanning paterns are. In practice a person with good eyesight can spot a person at maybe at two miles or more if the person is moving and wearing a color that stands out against the background (or is backlit). That would be a spot check at a -1000 or more penalty under the rules, but well within most people's vision. Even a motionless human should be resolvable at a mileif you happen to be starting in the right direction. I've heard incidents of pilots with good vision picking up other aircraft at thirty or even fifty miles - well before thier radar resolved the object.
My solution is to put spot DC's on a semi-logrithmic scale. Up to 100' is a -1 penalty per 10' of distance. After 100', the penalty falls to -1 per 100'. After 1000', the penalty falls to -1 per 1000' and so forth. Same thing with listen checks. This allows a shout or a thunderclap to be heard at a considerable distance without having the sound suddenly disapate over the course of 200', and without having ludicrously low DC's to hear the sound like -1500 or something. Of course, such a rule probably doesn't interface well with epic level assumptions, but I don't much like epic level assumptions anyway.
Human vision isn't entirely motion based, but human scanning paterns are. In practice a person with good eyesight can spot a person at maybe at two miles or more if the person is moving and wearing a color that stands out against the background (or is backlit). That would be a spot check at a -1000 or more penalty under the rules, but well within most people's vision. Even a motionless human should be resolvable at a mileif you happen to be starting in the right direction. I've heard incidents of pilots with good vision picking up other aircraft at thirty or even fifty miles - well before thier radar resolved the object.
My solution is to put spot DC's on a semi-logrithmic scale. Up to 100' is a -1 penalty per 10' of distance. After 100', the penalty falls to -1 per 100'. After 1000', the penalty falls to -1 per 1000' and so forth. Same thing with listen checks. This allows a shout or a thunderclap to be heard at a considerable distance without having the sound suddenly disapate over the course of 200', and without having ludicrously low DC's to hear the sound like -1500 or something. Of course, such a rule probably doesn't interface well with epic level assumptions, but I don't much like epic level assumptions anyway.
S
shurai
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AuraSeer said:If the object you're looking at is distinct enough, you can see a practically infinite distance. Want proof? Go outside on a clear night and look up.
Right on! That's what I was going to post : ]
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