{"id":3454,"date":"2024-01-17T16:25:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T23:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/?p=3454"},"modified":"2025-04-27T14:04:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:04:37","slug":"dd-5e-rules-ranged-attacks-and-relative-height","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2024\/01\/dd-5e-rules-ranged-attacks-and-relative-height.html","title":{"rendered":"D&#038;D 5e\/5.5e Rules &#8211; Ranged Attacks and Relative Height!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2984\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-300x196.webp\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-300x196.webp 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-650x425.webp 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-768x502.webp 768w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-1200x784.webp 1200w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules.webp 1300w\" alt=\"Know the Rules\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" \/><em><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2022\/09\/dd-5e-rules-a-prologue.html\">Part of an ongoing series of <strong>5e (2014)<\/strong> Rules notes.<\/a>\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #800000;\">See the end of the post for notes on <strong>5.5e (2024)<\/strong> rules.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This discussion has very little Rules-as-Written (RAW) basis; <strong>RAW really don&#8217;t address this<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This actually doesn&#8217;t come up very often, unless you have flying characters (insert cat hissing here). But sooner or later, at the very least you will encounter flying <em>enemies<\/em> &#8212; or else you&#8217;ll have people shooting down (or up) at you from a ledge in a big chamber, or things like that.<\/p>\n<p>And inevitably the question will be asked: &#8220;How far away are you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>D&amp;D 5e has, as a design goal, relative simplicity, at least from older editions. It&#8217;s very easy to add a lot of complexity over a relatively niche cases, but this really does feel like something that we should be able to come up with a way to approach it. It strains (my) suspension of disbelief to ignore altitude differences, and it&#8217;s just the sort of thing that players will raise\u00a0<em>at the moment it becomes contentious<\/em> that you probably don&#8217;t want to improv.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s consider a couple of home-brew approaches, since the question of how to deal with it is, again, not addressed in RAW that I&#8217;ve been able to find.<\/p>\n<h1>How far away are you?<\/h1>\n<p>Let&#8217;s assume you are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>shooting at something that is<\/li>\n<li><strong>A<\/strong> feet away from you horizontally, and<\/li>\n<li><strong>B<\/strong> feet above you (or below you) vertically.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For range purposes, what is the actual distance <strong>C<\/strong> you are firing\/throwing?<\/p>\n<h4>1. Pythagoras<\/h4>\n<p>Huzzah for ancient Greek geometers! The actual distance C is the square root of (A<sup>2<\/sup>\u00a0+ B<sup>2\u00a0<\/sup>).<\/p>\n<p>This is geometrically accurate, but also requires a pocket calculator (or an online <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calculator.net\/right-triangle-calculator.html\">right angle calculator<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h4>2. Diagonals<\/h4>\n<p>This is actually a pretty clever workaround:\u00a0 C = (A + (B\/2)).<\/p>\n<p>This &#8220;works&#8221; from extending the grid system and using the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dndbeyond.com\/forums\/d-d-beyond-general\/general-discussion\/174250-diagonal-rule-from-the-dmg?comment=5\">DMG 252<\/a> optional rules for diagonal movement (treat the first diagonal as 5 feet, the second as 10 feet, etc.).<\/p>\n<p>In my games, we don&#8217;t use that style of movement because it&#8217;s a PitA and the basic grid rules on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dndbeyond.com\/sources\/basic-rules\/combat#VARIANTPLAYINGONAGRID\">PHB 192<\/a> are fine enough &#8212; but for these purposes it makes for an easy head calculation.<\/p>\n<h2>But there&#8217;s a problem here we&#8217;re not talking about (yet)<\/h2>\n<p>This is all cool if you are just shooting lasers (or firing spells) &#8212; weapons that <em>ignore gravity<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot of these use cases are for when you twang with your bow, or throw something (often pointy).<\/p>\n<p>Gravity is your enemy if you are twanging\/throwing upward. It&#8217;s your friend, to a degree, when twanging\/throwing downward.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/preview.redd.it\/74ra69aaxs311.jpg?width=640&amp;crop=smart&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=19fa2a3b18a0709ce6b2e4f4b409071fe1e5f2ce\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Amusing memes aside, the high ground does carry an advantage.\u00a0 But beyond that, aiming at things above you (or below you) isn&#8217;t something that most people train on.<\/p>\n<p>So that brings us another suggestion:<\/p>\n<h4>3. Simple Math<\/h4>\n<p>If you are <strong>twanging\/throwing<\/strong> at something <strong>higher<\/strong> than you, the effective distance C is (A + B).<\/p>\n<p>If you are <strong>twanging\/throwing<\/strong> at something <strong>lower<\/strong> than you, the effective distance C is the <em>greater<\/em> of A or B.<\/p>\n<p>This takes into account that gravity is a bitch (harder uphill ranges), while keeping things easy and rewarding the high ground.<\/p>\n<h4>4. Just fudge something<\/h4>\n<p>We&#8217;ve focused on figuring out\u00a0<em>range.<\/em> A lot of tables just ignore that aspect, count the horizontal squares\/hexes\/distance (to see how it fits into the weapon range factors), and then apply a modifier to the attack based on high ground or low ground. In 3.5e, height advantage provided a +1. Some tables, in 5e, just apply Advantage for being higher, or Disadvantage for being lower (a rather extreme\u00a0 plus\/minus, but 5e is about simplicity).<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a bit of a fudge that gives some feel and is easy to do, but it strikes me as a little\u00a0<em>too<\/em> simple.<\/p>\n<h2>Let&#8217;s Test It<\/h2>\n<table class=\"userscript-userscript-table table-bordered table\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Target<\/th>\n<th>1. Pythagoras<\/th>\n<th>2. Diagonals<\/th>\n<th>3. Simple Math<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>100 ft away, 30 ft up<\/td>\n<td>104<\/td>\n<td>115<\/td>\n<td>130<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>30 ft away, 100 ft up<\/td>\n<td>104<\/td>\n<td>115<\/td>\n<td>130<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>100 ft away, 80 ft up<\/td>\n<td>128<\/td>\n<td>140<\/td>\n<td>180<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>100 ft away, 100 ft down<\/td>\n<td>141<\/td>\n<td>150<\/td>\n<td>100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Which is &#8220;best&#8221;? Whichever one is easiest and feels right. My\u00a0<b>house rule<\/b> inclination is to go with Option 3 for everything, or, if you are feeling a bit more adventuresome, use Option 3 for thrown\/twanged attacks, Option 2 for magic attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Note that this affects the Bad Guys as much as it does you.<\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"color: #800000;\">How about 5.5e?<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The 5.5e (2024) rules really don&#8217;t change any of this. You can find plenty of discussion about house rules for this through your favorite search engine.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Combat is not always on the same level, no matter how two-dimensional the map looks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,44,78],"tags":[92,93,47,94,91],"class_list":["post-3454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onedd","category-dd","category-dd-5e-rules","tag-altitude","tag-combat","tag-dnd5e","tag-flying","tag-height"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3454"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4221,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3454\/revisions\/4221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}