D&D (2024) Why is wotc still aiming for PCs with 10 *real word* feet of range? W/o vision range penalty/limit rules for the GM?

[Raiztt]

The combat lasts for round after round with the barbarian missing every turn and the wizard just double moving, the archer decimating cultists but also taking a lot of damage in the process. Its....not the most exciting fight.

No it doesn't - "The ranger/archer picks them off one by one as they stupidly advance over land intead of coming up with a better idea!" No dice get rolled, there is no threat or stakes, the PCs cannot fail this "encounter".

Or, if the PCs are on the receiving end their option is: flee.

What you are describing is simply a poorly designed encounter - a GM skill issue.

 

[Incenjucar]

After a few days of travel across the plains, you notice a group approaching you from the south. It looks like they have been following you, and are starting to gain ground. You (making a good perception check) note the symbol of the dark triad on their clothing, an evil cult you all have pissed off before. They are about a 1000 feet off, what do you do?

Sharpshooter Archer: I wait till they get within 600 feet, and then I start taking them out!

The cultists also pull out their bows and begin firing at you archer. What do the rest of you do?

Melee Barbarian: I will pull out my bow, but start moving 40 feet a round to get closer.

DM: Alright, looks like the cultists are also moving and shooting to get closer, so should take about ~9 rounds to close to melee.

Melee Barbarian: Well....I have a +2 ranged attack at disadvantage....um here goes.

Wizard: Yeah....I'm not proficient in a longbow so....I'll guess I'll keep moving until I get to 320 feet with my shortbow.


The combat lasts for round after round with the barbarian missing every turn and the wizard just double moving, the archer decimating cultists but also taking a lot of damage in the process. Its....not the most exciting fight.

Not a fan of sieges?

 

[Stalker0]

No it doesn't - "The ranger/archer picks them off one by one as they stupidly advance over land intead of coming up with a better idea!" No dice get rolled, there is no threat or stakes, the PCs cannot fail this "encounter".

So what you are saying is.... you will never let the PC enjoy the benefit of their sharpshooter feat? Just cross that part out because it might as well not exist?

 

[Raiztt]

So what you are saying is.... you will never let the PC enjoy the benefit of their sharpshooter feat? Just cross that part out because it might as well not exist?

What are you talking about? They just took out an entire group of enemies without having to roll a die. How could they not enjoy that level of combat superiority???

 

[Reef]

After a few days of travel across the plains, you notice a group approaching you from the south. It looks like they have been following you, and are starting to gain ground. You (making a good perception check) note the symbol of the dark triad on their clothing, an evil cult you all have pissed off before. They are about a 1000 feet off, what do you do?

Sharpshooter Archer: I wait till they get within 600 feet, and then I start taking them out!

The cultists also pull out their bows and begin firing at you archer. What do the rest of you do?

Melee Barbarian: I will pull out my bow, but start moving 40 feet a round to get closer.

DM: Alright, looks like the cultists are also moving and shooting to get closer, so should take about ~9 rounds to close to melee.

Melee Barbarian: Well....I have a +2 ranged attack at disadvantage....um here goes.

Wizard: Yeah....I'm not proficient in a longbow so....I'll guess I'll keep moving until I get to 320 feet with my shortbow.


The combat lasts for round after round with the barbarian missing every turn and the wizard just double moving, the archer decimating cultists but also taking a lot of damage in the process. Its....not the most exciting fight.

There is no set of rules out there that will stop a DM from making boring encounters. Seriously, there is no reason the DM had to set it up that way. Why are the cultists not coming up with a better plan?

“Ok, the sharpshooter fires a few arrows, killing one cultist, and they pull back and seem to retreat. I’m sure we’ll see them again…”

So what you are saying is.... you will never let the PC enjoy the benefit of their sharpshooter feat? Just cross that part out because it might as well not exist?

No, what I just described was the Sharpshooter being good enough that they quickly forced the cultists to back off! Good job, they save the party a combat they didn’t need.

 

[Stalker0]

What are you talking about? They just took out an entire group of enemies without having to roll a die. How could they not enjoy that level of combat superiority???

Ah, so if the archer didn't have sharpshooter, then the battle would have continued?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Lots of reasons that combine

• We all know how a good number of players react to using fiat not to their immediate benefit. It doesn't take much time to realize that the answer to that how tends to be negative
• Players want to minimize risk & will do things like describe how they travel/how they approach a quest location/etc to minimize risk.
• Players have abilities that scale out to ten real world feet of tablespace in one direction (ie 20 foot diameter of tablespace) from each C with such abilities.
• Players will chafe under all of
  Spoiler: these

  • A: Thre GM pilots the PCs into a reasonable range like puppets
  • B: The GM teleports the opponents into a reasonable range
  • C: The GM builds a world of warp points where you teleport straight from questgiver to the dungeon like some video games do.
  • D: The GM invokes fiat to simply declare yea I don't care, you can't use that ability at this distance until the opponents are at a reasonable range
  • E: The GM builds the entire surface world as a megadungeon with rooms & hallways. made of terrain structures & fog/dust/etc.

  [*]

I find this scenario as presented as incredible. In that, I can scarcely believe it. You seem to have the most unreasonable players in creation and I would have lost patience with them long before now.

• .With a VTT the reasons switch from "the battlemat is only this big so that's why we started at those ranges" to something more like "No I won't zoom out or drag a token across the map with a casual flick of the mouse". With the battlemat any "yea but" wheedling immediately crash into the fact that the table is not that big either & nobody has an arm reach that long... under a VTT those kinds of limits don't exist & the original problem of ranges
• @MarkB Switching to ToTM when there is a perfectly good VTT attached screen on the table or in front of every player's face in order to hide the fact that some players have abilities far beyond anything reasonable is going to cause chafing because some other players need more information for abilities trivially provided by said screen(s). It's not "Ok I'm going to ToTM this instead of setting up minis & maybe using some dry erase markers"... It becomes "sure I could plonk some tokens on a grid in seconds with a flick of my mouse but I won't" no matter how it gets phrased

Changing the scale doesn't fix much of anything until you start creating problems. 5e is built expecting 5ft increments You need to shift to something like battletch's 30ft squares where you have literally every PC moving one square (or less) per round & even abilities like AOEs that only impact a single square. Even the people saying they don't see s problem because they never have fights starting more than 100-150ft awat (20-30 five foot squares) show why switching from 120 five foot squares to 60 ten foot squares doesn't solve anything.

You do realise you can re-scale in time as well as in space.
If you want to turn D&D into Squad Leader, be my guest but I really doubt the official rules will do it any time soon.

 

[Stalker0]

Why are the cultists not coming up with a better plan?

I mean if I have 6 cultists with bows and only 1 pc seems to have any good with a bow....seems like a decent idea to try and snipe them out. You think its better to try and find a place where they can be in fireball range or in melee with a barbarian?

 

[Reef]

I mean if I have 6 cultists with bows and only 1 pc seems to have any good with a bow....seems like a decent idea to try and snipe them out. You think its better to try and find a place where they can be in fireball range or in melee with a barbarian?

I certainly don’t expect them to stand there as they die one by one accomplishing nothing.

And again, the DM created this scenario. They know the capabilities of the party. They knowingly set up an ultra long range encounter they knew most of the party can’t help with. Nothing forced their hand.

And sure, if you have a sharpshooter PC, once in awhile you want to give them a chance to shine. But it doesn’t have to be often, and it doesn’t have to be played out round for round.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

After a few days of travel across the plains, you notice a group approaching you from the south. It looks like they have been following you, and are starting to gain ground. You (making a good perception check) note the symbol of the dark triad on their clothing, an evil cult you all have pissed off before. They are about a 1000 feet off, what do you do?

Sharpshooter Archer: I wait till they get within 600 feet, and then I start taking them out!

The cultists also pull out their bows and begin firing at you archer. What do the rest of you do?

Melee Barbarian: I will pull out my bow, but start moving 40 feet a round to get closer.

Frist off I would not do that. I would enquire about cover.
If there is hard cover nearby or a reverse slope, I would lead the party there and commence long range fire when I have a reasonable chance of hitting.
Alternatively I would go to ground, hide in the long grass and again wait to open fire at an opportune time.

DM: Alright, looks like the cultists are also moving and shooting to get closer, so should take about ~9 rounds to close to melee.

Melee Barbarian: Well....I have a +2 ranged attack at disadvantage....um here goes.

Wizard: Yeah....I'm not proficient in a longbow so....I'll guess I'll keep moving until I get to 320 feet with my shortbow.

The rest of the party should hide also. Ideally make use of cover. let them close in and ambush.

The combat lasts for round after round with the barbarian missing every turn and the wizard just double moving, the archer decimating cultists but also taking a lot of damage in the process. Its....not the most exciting fight.

On the other hand at the initial observation, the ranger could cast Pass without Trace and the party evades the encounter.