In the second-last session of the "Dust to Dust" campaign, I made a mistake when setting up one of the key encounters. Specifically, I had the bad guys start an excessive distance from the PCs, meaning the combat started with several rounds of the two groups moving towards one another, punctuated with ranged attacks that were, for both sides, fairly sub-optimal.
In hindsight, I think what should be done is as follows:
Missile and spell ranges should be split into two: short and long. Broadly, any thrown weapon should be short range, while bows, crossbows, and slings should allow long range attacks. (For spell and other attacks, I think I'll place the threshold at 100ft, that being a nice round number - a spell with a range any less than that is short range, anything longer is long range.)
When an encounter starts at long range, there should be one round of the two groups moving together prior to the 'real' combat, unless one of the features of the encounter is that something prevents them from coming together. In this single round, only attacks with long range can be used.
In the second and subsequent round, ranged attacks with both short and long ranges can be used. In addition, however, any combatant can use his movement to close the gap entirely, thus bringing them into melee combat range.
(Obviously, this assumes a continuation of "theatre of the mind" play - if miniatures are used then more accurate measurements are probably important. However, as I don't really intend to switch back to minis...)
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