Ranges you typically have encounters at?
I was curious how often different groups used different distances to begin encounters, particularly outdoors (indoors the distances are usually quite obvious due to room size and corridor lengths). This typical distance can have a huge impact upon relative power levels of characters and typical desired kit.
Most DnD weapon and spell distances are 60ft or less which is also the dashing distance of a majority of characters. 120ft is for popular cantrips and short range for longbows. There is not much beyond 120ft other than a few spells at 150 ft (fireball) and 300 ft. The notable exception is Meteor Swarm with a 1 mile range. The longbow is the frequent winner at 600 ft.
To put these distances in perspective, a typical US suburban lot is roughly 60-120 feet in width (highly variable due to neighborhood zoning). But basically, most DnD battles are kids playing in the yard. The longbow is king of easy distance with 600 ft which in my neighborhood is half of a long block (8-10 houses) or 1 short block. I bring these distances up because they put into easy perspective just how short these distances are. Which is fine by me to a degree. It's a game, they need to put some numbers onto a grid, and 5ft grid squares works well enough.
At least until the rules start to get much more vague concerning sound and visual sighting. In many environments it is not difficult at all to have 600 ft sight lines. Unless you are dealing with vegetation at head height, there are many outdoor situations where 600 feet is no problem. Even in forests, particularly on hills, if the shape of the land is concave long sight lines are common. Of course convex shapes can mean extremely close beginning distances. Flat terrain depends highly upon height and thickness of vegetation and if one group is actively trying to be stealthy.
The sound rules are just bizarre to me. The are numerous "Thunder" type effects with rules giving a 100ft distance to anyone hearing it. Are you kidding me? "Thunder" can be heard miles away. You can hear the lawn mowers going from a few houses over or someone working on their table saw in the relative noisy environment of suburbia (lots of extra noise from vehicles drowning out stuff). In the country I can hear someone on the table saw or using a chain saw from quite a distance (well beyond the 600ft range, I worked enough on a farm to know this). To give it a different context, 100 ft is a third of a football field. If I'm at the top row of a stadium with 60,000 cheering fans I can hear the referee whistle blowing. If the crowd isn't super loud at the moment I can hear a loud snap count.
This all matters as it greatly affects the value of different weapons, spells, mounts and feats. At a 600 ft distance (8-10 houses) it will take a vanilla DnD character 10 rounds to close the distance. A basic proficiency in longbow with 16 Dex and disadvantage makes for 3.18 DPR. (RPGNET Damage calculator). That's 31 HP before melee provided the archers aren't kiting. It's 2.35 DPR for 14 dex (a common Dex score).
A level 8 fighter with 20 Dex, Sharpshooter and Archery will be doing 14.70 DPR. Which granted, is below the target DPR of 15.8 for an 8th level character, but that's 9-10 rounds of 14.70 before opposing melee can cover the distance. (Or @ 147 hp of damage before melee begins).
A level 11 fighter6/rogue5 would be doing 25.28 DPR, a level 11 fighter would be at 22.05. A level 12 rogue with 20 Dex, Sharpshooter, and archery as a feat would be 23.1 without advantage, 29.03 with optional rule Steady Aim , and 30.67 if you throw Elven Advantage Feat on top. All of which beat the target 12th level DPR of 20.8.
I'm using Target DPR here because it's computed from expected damage a character needs to do for 3 rounds to hold their weight in a 4 person party based on expected average CR. Check out the fundamental maths of DnD for methodology.
So obviously a dedicated Archer will shine in a long distance fight. The impact of this is to prioritize movement speed so much more for melee characters (and really, anyone without meteor swarm or a longbow). Taking a 5ft movement buff such as Wood Elf racial trait, let's you close the distance in 9 rounds. A 40ft/move speed gets you close in 7 rounds attacking on 8. A 60ft walking speed (horses and high level monks) gets you there in 5, attack on 6.
Rogues with 30ft walking and double dashing get in range turn 6 and melee attack turn 7. A Wood Elf Rogue comes up 5ft short of melee attacking on turn 6 (so thrown or reach gets you attacking on turn 6). A Rogue with mobile is the same as a horse, attacking on 6. A Wood Elf Rogue with mobile attacks on turn 5.
Spells such as Dimension Door with its 500 foot range go way up in value. Even Longstrider and Expeditious Retreat (cast on the Wood Elf Barbarian with the mobile feat of course) will suddenly be getting looked at as well. Obscuring vision spells such as Fog Cloud go up in value.
Suddenly there is a point of looking at the tactical value of terrain. Is there a gully nearby which gets you closer without getting shot at? Is there full cover to hide behind while the thief sneaks around to the side? Is there full or partial cover scattered around (large hay bales in a farm field?). Scouting ahead becomes both more critical as well.
This means the encounter doesn't just start at 600ft anymore. 600 ft might be where you role initiative, but moving around prior to that choosing WHERE to fight suddenly has meaning. You may spot enemies a half mile away and just hanging out in the open may not be the best idea. Maybe you should retreat to the town you just walked through? Maybe you can get to the edge of a nearby forest? Maybe you see a low rise you can hide behind forcing them to get much closer before combat begins? (Or maybe you are a party of archers looking for the best places to force long range fights?)
So what's the point of all this? You as a DM will be shaping the relative value of mobility and ranged weapons based on the frequency of max range encounters. I've been a player in campaigns where basically every encounter was under 200ft and as none of characters were long range archers, no one was ever complaining. But as a DM, if early in the campaign you ambush the party with a small group of peasant archers with longbows at max range and follow that up with a variety of frequent encounters at long range you will be shaping your parties builds and tactics. You can introduce the layer of strategy of where to have the fight in the first place. You can introduce the need to seek out cover and depending on how well spaced the cover is you may be able to let the Wood Elf use their extra 5 feet of movement really shine. You can penalize any party members walking around in full plate without 15 Str. If you really wanted to, you could even house rule some advantages and disadvantages to different levels of encumbrance giving an advantage to low or no armor users (like say, monks).
What you don't want to do is suddenly throw players not used to long range encounters into a random encounter where the long range DPR differential will kill them, even though the CR says it should be okay. Depending upon the encounter, you might accidentally kill the characters if they are not used to thinking about this stuff and take 10 turns to run at the opposition under significant longbow DPR (whatever is significant damage for your particular party) when they should have approached through that ditch next to them full of sewage from the nearby town. You really want to think about it as a DM ahead of time and estimate both worst case and best case scenarios.
So back to the question of the article. In your campaigns, how much long range action do you get into? What impact does it have on your player's choices (build and tactics)? Does it add or subtract from your personal experience of the game? Does it make weather more important (something else frequently ignored)?