That's fair, but I think armies and sieges and the like are pretty archetypical elements of D&D. And if we look at ways that pcs are so much better than real world humans, I think allowing them a decent chance at landing a long range shot with a bow is far less egregious than letting them walk away from a 100' fall without even being seriously wounded. And in a setting with any kind of magical scholarship, I can't see longer range/siege magic not develop eventually.
Armies have never been presented well in core dnd rules, look at how many mass combat systems have been developed over the years. And again I have no problem with a mass archer unit noted in the book with a 600 foot range “volley fire”, that’s fine.
As for magic, if you want a magic bow that doubles your range that’s also fine, it’s a dm decision to release that bow or not.
I recognize we have gone around the circle on this topic a lot, so I’ll make this final point. WOTC saw fit to reign in the ranges of magic spells in the interest of game improvements (fireball went from ~550 feet in 3e to 150 ft now), so it’s not like they have just used history to set all the values, but made adjustments where it makes sense. Reigning in bow range is really no different
Sorry, I'm not quite understanding the bolded part. Can you rephrase that? If you have an engagement between the party and enemies at 600 feet across an open field, why is there a battle map on the table at all? Who put it there? What's actually ON that battlemap? Are you saying that the DM MUST use a battlemap in every single combat? That's pretty contrary to what D&D actually says.
there was a typo "Remember, it's a flick of the mouse & a couple of clicks not fetishized minis & terrain. " That "o" got missed. Sarcasm aside though, I can do better & give you video
People have made a lot of statements throughout the thread as if the root of the problem is being too excited about dragging out the chest of minis & getting fancy with showing them off.
Coincidentally when I first ran this first one I had one player with spell sniper, a second had sharpshooter, -AND- a third had a familiar up in the sky doing circles for them to watch through..
This one's a bonus showing off some stuff related to improvising map building on the fly.
A VTT can do things unthinkable for a battlemat with trivial ease & in less time than it takes just to find some minis & setup a battlemat. When the players start saying "well no we were..." or "actually lets back off and..." to make use of those overly extreme ranged abilities everyone knows that making the map do it is trivial in the extreme.
It's not a matter of players accusing anyone of being sketchy as @Reef mentioned in #137. It's the fact that everyone knows that the dry riverbed through the desert is pretty flat & not too dense with anything higher than knee height while plenty of their PCs are carrying lots of reasons that justifiably bring up "but what about..". Everyone at the table knows for a fact that it's trivial to show out to max weapon range & beyond but there's a long list of reasons why things should be seen at greater distances like sayyyy..... "several thousand yards"...
If anyone wants yet another example in the thread... How far away do you really need to be to notice a 42 foot tall tarrasque or anything else even a couple steps adjacent to that weightclass*? Now what happens if the gm simply refuses to make a few clicks & flicks of their mouse to adjust the map like those videos for a plan the players have because they see a better approach than the one the GM tried to sell as a good idea based on all of their scouting & prep?.... How long before the players start to feel railroaded by "terrain" or question why there are so many burrowing & stealthy/invisible ambush predators?
there was a typo "Remember, it's a flick of the mouse & a couple of clicks not fetishized minis & terrain. " That "o" got missed. Sarcasm aside though, I can do better & give you video
People have made a lot of statements throughout the thread as if the root of the problem is being too excited about dragging out the chest of minis & getting fancy with showing them off.
Coincidentally when I first ran this first one I had one player with spell sniper, a second had sharpshooter, -AND- a third had a familiar up in the sky doing circles for them to watch through..
This one's a bonus showing off some stuff related to improvising map building on the fly.
A VTT can do things unthinkable for a battlemat with trivial ease & in less time than it takes just to find some minis & setup a battlemat. When the players start saying "well no we were..." or "actually lets back off and..." to make use of those overly extreme ranged abilities everyone knows that making the map do it is trivial in the extreme.
It's not a matter of players accusing anyone of being sketchy as @Reef mentioned in #137. It's the fact that everyone knows that the dry riverbed through the desert is pretty flat & not too dense with anything higher than knee height while plenty of their PCs are carrying lots of reasons that justifiably bring up "but what about..". Everyone at the table knows for a fact that it's trivial to show out to max weapon range & beyond but there's a long list of reasons why things should be seen at greater distances like sayyyy..... "several thousand yards"...
If anyone wants yet another example in the thread... How far away do you really need to be to notice a 42 foot tall tarrasque or anything else even a couple steps adjacent to that weightclass*? Now what happens if the gm simply refuses to make a few clicks & flicks of their mouse to adjust the map like those videos for a plan the players have because they see a better approach than the one the GM tried to sell as a good idea based on all of their scouting & prep?.... How long before the players start to feel railroaded by "terrain" or question why there are so many burrowing & stealthy/invisible ambush predators?
But again, what are you looking for? All you keep doing is saying about how easy it is for VTT’s to adjust maps, and therefore players expect huge battlemaps.
Here’s your Magic Wand of Game Design (tm). Wave it and make WOTC change D&D to your specifications. What would you do?
But again, what are you looking for? All you keep doing is saying about how easy it is for VTT’s to adjust maps, and therefore players expect huge battlemaps.
Here’s your Magic Wand of Game Design (tm). Wave it and make WOTC change D&D to your specifications. What would you do?
I literally gave you an answer that explained why it's not so simple the last time you asked that question. Wotc is expanding what kinds of player abilities can reach these excessive ranges in the latest playtest packet. That expansion makes the cracks in the system significantly wider in ways that are unfair to the GM. Some people though seem to be getting caught up in this chain:
"x is a problem"-> "no it's not just do this& gitgud" ->
"well no that's not always reasonable to expect the GM to shoulder because of [reasons]" ->
"what do you mean about this specific part of those [reasons] or why not just do this thing that works in some other totally different situation" -"well Y & Z explain why" ->
"ZOMG how do quotes work? stick to a topic why are you talking about Y & Z? How did you get from X to Y & Z?"
@Incenjucar roll20 & other browser based things yes. In person locally run VTTs not so much. Checking the min/recommended specs on the one I use wikipedia lists those as being 8-10 year old video cards. That's hardly the "five thousand dollar alienware" boxes used for wotc's creator summit vtt demo. Coincidentally as a 3d VTT wotc's eventual offering will probably have more difficulty rendering all of those texture wrapped triangles than the flat 2d ones in use today.
I literally gave you an answer that explained why it's not so simple the last time you asked that question. Wotc is expanding what kinds of player abilities can reach these excessive ranges in the latest playtest packet. That expansion makes the cracks in the system significantly wider in ways that are unfair to the GM. Some people though seem to be getting caught up in this chain:
"x is a problem"-> "no it's not just do this& gitgud" ->
"well no that's not always reasonable to expect the GM to shoulder because of [reasons]" ->
"what do you mean about this specific part of those [reasons] or why not just do this thing that works in some other totally different situation" -"well Y & Z explain why" ->
"ZOMG how do quotes work? stick to a topic why are you talking about Y & Z? How did you get from X to Y & Z?"
@Incenjucar roll20 & other browser based things yes. In person locally run VTTs not so much. Checking the min/recommended specs on the one I use wikipedia lists those as being 8-10 year old video cards. That's hardly the "five thousand dollar alienware" boxes used for wotc's creator summit vtt demo. Coincidentally as a 3d VTT wotc's eventual offering will probably have more difficulty rendering all of those texture wrapped triangles than the flat 2d ones in use today.
Okay, so it is the ranges of attacks that is the problem you are seeing. I’m sorry if I’m slow. I have to admit I sometimes get lost in the large posts you do (but that’s on me).
I’m certainly not trying to be patronizing when I make suggestions for how to potentially deal with these situations. I just like talking shop, and problem solving. It’s not about ‘git gud’ (as you say). It’s things that have worked for me in similar scenarios. Heaven knows I’ve learned tons of tips and tricks by listening to other DM’s (and I’ve been playing for 40+ years). So, I can’t help but make suggestions.
I know I can’t relate exactly to your situation, because you play with strangers you don’t know (which is something I’ve never in all my years done). But I’m doing my best to put myself in your shoes,
The ranges may be expanding, but unless you are going to arbitrarily restrict everything to under 50’, you are going to have this issue to some extent. And as has been covered above, this isn’t the only version to have long ranges. Heck, most games have longer. (You should try to play Star Wars Saga sometime…heh).
Anyway, I’m sorry if I’ve come across as condescending or arrogant. I’ll stop trying to offer solutions, as I think this is a problem only you can solve with your table. I don’t think there’s anything realistically that anyone else can suggest that you’ll like, or anything the rules could do that would completely alleviate your issues (without causing other ones).
Yes I'll admit that I have focused discussion on bow ranges, as to me they are the principle cause of the range issue.
If you lower ranges to a more 200 feetish basis, then you can just completely ignore longer ranges for encounters (as there is nothing really to do at those ranges), and so all possible encounter ranges become grid viable should a dm care to do so (and of course can always ignore the grid should they wish to wing the combat).
And as I noted before, this is how dnd used to play. Early editions had much shorter ranges, though you could get mid level magics starting to get out into 300ish feet range (like 2nd fireball from a 10th level wizard as example).... ranges of 600 something feet just weren't there.
Do you really need to ask what kinds of information gets lost when moving from grid to ToTM in a thread where people are throwing around accusations of GM skill problems? If you don't have the experience to know the answer here's a few just off the top of my head.... precise positioning needed for flanking based abilities sneak attack & pack tactics, positioning needed for judging the impact & need of AOEs Control abilities etc, anything that requires line of sight, etc.
Okay, so it is the ranges of attacks that is the problem you are seeing. I’m sorry if I’m slow. I have to admit I sometimes get lost in the large posts you do (but that’s on me).
I’m certainly not trying to be patronizing when I make suggestions for how to potentially deal with these situations. I just like talking shop, and problem solving. It’s not about ‘git gud’ (as you say). It’s things that have worked for me in similar scenarios. Heaven knows I’ve learned tons of tips and tricks by listening to other DM’s (and I’ve been playing for 40+ years). So, I can’t help but make suggestions.
I know I can’t relate exactly to your situation, because you play with strangers you don’t know (which is something I’ve never in all my years done). But I’m doing my best to put myself in your shoes,
The ranges may be expanding, but unless you are going to arbitrarily restrict everything to under 50’, you are going to have this issue to some extent. And as has been covered above, this isn’t the only version to have long ranges. Heck, most games have longer. (You should try to play Star Wars Saga sometime…heh).
Anyway, I’m sorry if I’ve come across as condescending or arrogant. I’ll stop trying to offer solutions, as I think this is a problem only you can solve with your table. I don’t think there’s anything realistically that anyone else can suggest that you’ll like, or anything the rules could do that would completely alleviate your issues (without causing other ones).
Look at it this way. Ever hear a player say words along the lines of "well if I had known that I would have done [something different] instead" or "well I have $reason, I should have seen that & not knowing it changes what I would have done"? I don't think I've ever been in or had a group for any length of time longer than a session or two where phrases along those lines didn't come up at some point. Those phrases are friction for the GM to deal with & they are the entirely predictable result of the GM needing to shrink down a 20 foot radius circle for abilities with ranges amounting to ten feet of tablespace.
When players have abilities that expand out to ten feet of real world table space & technology comes along to shrink that down into a lightweight & portable device that fits on the table with ease it's still a bunch of abilities spanning excessive ranges the problems & miscommunications coming from shrinking it down don't simply go away.
Some players will want to see the map instead & it places a huge burden on the GM to manage so much mapspace because of these abilities. Other players will be ok but feel more justified in saying those "well if I had known..." statements with the expectation of replaying the ToTM bit back in one of two ways...
Either the player engages in retcons & expects the opponents to behave exactly as they did the first time (ie run into a web they can clearly see or whatever)
-OR- both the player & the opponents start engaging in retcons as the entire ToTM segment is replayed in the grueling grid map covering ten feet of tablespace that just now happens to scroll in a 20ish inch box. So Alice casts web wall of fire blade barrier or whatever obvious thing in the gigantic span between her and the opponents but the opponents move around it causing bob to say "well I would have seen that and done [this] instead"
Either way the GM faces this friction & either avoids it by doing it in the grid start to finish with out of place "terrain" that coincidentally turns the great outdoors into a dungeon/puppets the PCs/etc or they just shut down all of those friction generating statements with something like "but you didn't (because I refused to show you what I could have trivially shown)" & that underlined bit starts straining the social contract if anything goes bad because it's too unreasonable to say yet known to be true for everyone at the table
