Ranged touch - why no range increment?

[Plane Sailing]

A couple of weeks ago the wizard pulled out his Melf's Acid Arrow spell - ranged touch attack... with a 600ft range!!

I find it bizarre that ranged touch attacks are as easy to make at 600ft (or more... much more with the range increasing metamagic) as they are at 30ft. Somehow it seems rather strange that when the target is a dot on the horizon you can aim the spell just as well as when you stand in the same room as him!

Why do you suppose that ranged touch spells are not given range increments? How would you justify it to your players (something like "the spell travels so fast that motion isn't an issue and there is no falloff due to gravity"?)

Obviously one could wave ones hands and say "its' magic, don't think about it". Given that I don't want to do that, what do you think?

Cheers

 

[Murrdox]

I honestly think it is there simply for "Rule Simplicity".

There aren't that many rules like this in D&D, but there are if you look carfully for them. Rules that are simply rules just to keep the game simple. A good example is that a 5' step is the exact same type of action for a diminutive sized creature as a gargantuan sized creature. Couldn't a Gargantuan creature move 20' with one step? Instead of a 5' step shouldn't they get a 20' step? Should a Pixie get a 1' step instead of a 5' step?

Similarly... if you were going to give range increments for touch attacks, think of all the tons and tons of different types of ranged touch attacks that are out there, and all the different ranges each of them would have. It would just be a pain in the butt to divide up the maximum range of all your spells, abilities, etc, to obtain range increments.

I think it's just done that way for simplicity's sake.

 

[IceBear]

But for each ranged touch attack, they COULD have given a range increment for that specific touch attack. It wouldn't really add any more complexity than there already is when you look up the range for the spell, it would have been nice if they had.

Also, I *think* Star War's has range increments for blasters, so the "no gravity, instanteous travel time" argument is weak. I can't really think of anything other than it's magic and the beam gets there instanteously (I don't think the blaster bolts in Star Wars are instanteous - though they probably should be )

IceBear

 

[Pielorinho]

It also means that it's harder to hit a small creature 10' away from you than a medium creature 600' away from you, since the small creature presents a smaller target and gets a +1 AC bonus.

Just a wee bit unrealistic.

At the same time, it's not an unrealism that the PCs would realize, since it's got an overall small effect on the dice rolls; in order to keep the game simple, I'm willing to put up with it.

Daniel

 

[Murrdox]

I'll never expect D&D to be realistic until they ditch the HP system completely.


Anyways, it's simplistic. That's my argument.

If you WANTED to, I suppose you could take the maximum range of the spell or ability, and divide it by 3, and then that would give you the range increments.

Whatever way you did it would be a house rule.

Keep in mind that unless you're firing over a perfectly flat plane or something, you could grant the target a cover bonus to AC for any small trees or hills in the way of seeing him.

 

[IceBear]

I'll never expect D&D to be realistic until they ditch the HP system completely.


Anyways, it's simplistic. That's my argument.

If you WANTED to, I suppose you could take the maximum range of the spell or ability, and divide it by 3, and then that would give you the range increments.

Whatever way you did it would be a house rule.

Keep in mind that unless you're firing over a perfectly flat plane or something, you could grant the target a cover bonus to AC for any small trees or hills in the way of seeing him.

That's not what I meant. I leave it the way things are for simplicity, but what WotC COULD have done was give ranged touch attacks a range increment value instead of a range value. If they had done that it would remain simple and make a little more sense. That's all

IceBear

 

[Murrdox]

Oh, I definitely understood you, Icebear.

You're talking about changing the spell text so that under range, for "Melf's Acid Arrow" for example...

Instead of saying:

Range: 300 ft + 25ft per level

it would say

Range increment: 100 ft + 10ft per level

(Yes, I know the ranges don't translate properly)

Personally, I think this would be a nifty idea to apply to rays and touch attacks in general

 

[Dr. Zoom]

Obviously one could wave ones hands and say "its' magic, don't think about it". Given that I don't want to do that, what do you think?

That's kinda like asking us how gravity works, but barring any talk of "physics" in the answer. But the answer really is "it's magic." Melf's Acid Arrow simply is much easier to hit a target far away than it is with a crossbow.

 

[IceBear]

Actually, I would have used something like 60ft+5ft per level, but yeah, something like that would be nice to see in 3.5.

IceBear

 

[Spatzimaus]

Re: Re: Ranged touch - why no range increment?

That's kinda like asking us how gravity works, but barring any talk of "physics" in the answer.

Duct tape.

Anyway, I'd go with a (increment = range/4) method, since the standard ranges use factors of 4. So, a ranged touch attack with a Medium range has range increment equal to Close range. A Long-range spell has range increment equal to your Medium range. That way, you don't need to keep track of a bunch of other ranges, you can stick with the three "standard" ranges for everything.

But, let's face it, caster BABs suck because they're not supposed to get into combat. However, this shouldn't mean they can't aim a spell. So, unless you want to give every class three BAB progressions (ranged, melee, and unarmed), it's probably not a good idea to nerf the classes any further. Ooh, there's an idea...