Thomas Shey
Legend
It depends on the usage; for general usage, feet, yards or meters are fine, but for combat distance meters or yards are good because they can be used for square/hex size.
Cubits. Keep it biblical.
"Smacking" distance
"Shooting" distance
"Yeah, that's right, you'd better not come any closer" distance
That's perfectly fair. More detail allows more nuance. For example, wood elves in 5e have a higher speed than humans, and that's part of the overall balance between them. If you move to a fuzzier system that won't matter anymore, and perhaps they should be given some other ability to compensate.To make it clear, I actually don't mind range bands conceptually (I have a little more problems with zones because I have trouble conveying them usefully), but I'm often playing games where I want more specific detail than that (because it allows distinctions in things like range, area and movement that usually broad categories don't) but there's nothing that says that distinction has to be important to everybody, and it isn't even always important to me.
That's perfectly fair. More detail allows more nuance. For example, wood elves in 5e have a higher speed than humans, and that's part of the overall balance between them. If you move to a fuzzier system that won't matter anymore, and perhaps they should be given some other ability to compensate.
That would probably require a significant overhaul. Especially given that 5.0e couldn't really keep 5-foot grid references out, despite not being a grid-required game. I'd say a 3rd-party could do it, but while 5.0 has been Commons-released, I don't expect the same from OneD&D.
Did Level Up include such a thing... cinematic mode with zones? Just speculating.
I don't see how spells are so different. They cause an effect within a range. The range is something you've already had to decide for the ranged weapons (near/close/far). So you mostly just need to decide how many things an AoE affects (which can be all in a zone or 1d6 random targets or a static number based on the diameter - the specifics are not important, only that there is a general ruling).Yeah - ranged and melee weapons would be easy, but the spells is where it starts to take some work. It could be done, but we're talking almost at a spell-by-spell level once you get past touch range. With errata just about every time a new batch of spells drops.
I don't see how spells are so different. They cause an effect within a range. The range is something you've already had to decide for the ranged weapons (near/close/far). So you mostly just need to decide how many things an AoE affects (which can be all in a zone or 1d6 random targets or a static number based on the diameter - the specifics are not important, only that there is a general ruling).
There's a few pells with unique effects, like Wall of Force, where you'd just have to trust the GM to go 'okay, the point of this spell is that you separate things from each other, so what do you want to separate/contain?' But, even as things exist in the base rules, many spells are murky enough that GM has to make judgement calls anyway... I don't see this as a big departure.
But then how do you start balancing spells' areas of effect?
How does lightning bolt compare to cloudkill
burning hands to magic missile
That depends entirely on what your goals for AoEs are. Do you want friendly fire to be a thing? Are you trying to avoid extra dice rolls, so no randomization via stuff like 1d6 random targets. Do you care about the differentiation between 10ft and 20ft area etc.
Edit: To be clear, you make a general ruling. There is no reason to go through spell by spell, because most of them are not doing anything particularly fancy.
One hits everyone in an area once, the other is an area damage-over-time?
Hits everyone in an area vs hits 3 targets of your choice?
These were bad examples, because they are actually different, and the zone thing doesn't change them.
I feel like you are not understanding zones, if you think these example spells changed in any noticeable fashion over gridless DnD being played right at this very moment and GM making vibe guesses on how many things any AoE catches.I disagree - their difference is exactly the point - between levels and different effects, the balance of the game should mostly be preserved if a group were to switch to close/near/far mechanics. Without more granularity in the design, I suspect that balance would change. Maybe that's an acceptable risk in the mechanics, maybe not.
I do not think it would be a good idea to just add zones to 5e-as-is. You'd need to build the system assuming that's what's in use, and design spells accordingly. So, using burning hands as an example, you don't go "how would I convert a 15 ft cone into zones?". You'd go "OK, this spell creates a directed gout of flames. That sounds like an AOE, and kind of indiscriminate. So maybe all targets except the caster in either the same zone or an adjacent one?"Sure, you could just start with "close = range up to 10', near = range up to 100', far = range up to 500'" or somesuch. But then how do you start balancing spells' areas of effect? How does lightning bolt compare to cloudkill, or burning hands to magic missile without introducing changing the power level of certain spells dramatically? If Wizards were to do it, I know I'd want a more thought-out approach than just some basic guidelines that I could've put together.
Another thing I thought of regarding range bands: they work best in a situation where there is a single thing to focus on, and everything else is defined in relation to that thing and with the relationship between different non-focus things being mostly irrelevant. The only situation I can think of where this is mostly true is when the PCs are all in the same vehicle, and in a chase/vehicle combat situation.
I prefer games where you don't need exact measurements. Zones as in Fate or The Troubleshooters works quite well.
If a grid and tactical map is needed, then fine, having 1 square equal either 1 meter or 5 feet is irrelevant as long as it is consistent, and matches the scale of the system (and the figures used). But when distance goes up, it kind of turns abstract, so then it is more "is he in range of your ranged weapon or not".