A question arose from building my GM cheat sheets. The cost to move from close to medium is 1, medium to long is 2, long to extreme is 3. Since Range is relative, what are the costs from the following:

Close - Medium - Long - Extreme

1. Last turn you moved from close to long (cost of 3). What does it cost to move to 'extreme' this turn? In other words, is extreme now medium to you, while it remains extreme for the rest of your group? That would seem to make the most sense, otherwise you would have to break-up the extreme band just for your newly placed character...

• I assume that shooting back towards the group you initially moved away from is now at long range...
• and that everything that was in the original long range band is now considered close range for you...
• therefore suggesting it costs 1 manoeuver to move from your new location to extreme...
• which therefore suggests moving from close to extreme costs 3 and not 6.

I don't have my books with me, but it seems to me that the range of weapons might give us insight into the rough dimensions of the bands. E.g pistols are only good at close range, and therefore give us an idea as to what makes the most sense.

OR is it that range bands look like this (hopefully this picture makes sense):

[close] - [medium] - [ Long ] - [ extreme ]

Put another way, there are two options:

1. close to medium = 1, med to long = 1, long to extreme = 1; therefore close to long = 2, close to extreme = 3
   
2. close to med = 1, med to long = 2, long to ext = 3; therefore close to long = 3, close to extreme = 6

I believe the rules explicitly layout #2, but then returning to the above questions:

• There are creatures in long & extreme
• You move from close to long
• What is the range to the creatures in long from your new position?
• what is the range to the creatures in extreme from your new position?

I don't have my books handy either, but I seem to recall that the Long and Extreme range bands were more than "1" big. In other words, that it took more than 1 Maneuver to pass through them.

Sorry! I meant to include 1 more option (which seems the most likely given what I recall from the rules).

3. The costs are to move in 1 turn; at the point in which you stop moving, your range bands reset. This results in:

• Moving from close to long costs 3, you stop moving and now everything at long is close, everything at extreme is now medium for you. You engage (costs another fatigue), and then attack someone. You then burn another fatigue to move to the new medium (what was once extreme), off your weapon (costing 1 fatigue) and then SPRINT back to the start for a cost of 6, at which point you pass out. Extreme example, I know, but it highlights the possibility.

A - B - C - D

So you start at A. You run to C (cost of 3). D is now medium range. You engage someone (+1), attack, move to D (+1), off your weapon (+1) and sprint back to A (+6); total cost = 12!

This is the example I've put forth to my players; which I think makes sense.

Here is how it makes sense to me

You are long range from monster A, extreme from monster B

Close-1-Medium-2-Long-3-Extreme

You A B

you spend 3 moves to be "Close" to monster A you are still 3 moves from monster B so he is still at Long from you. Now it looks like this

Long-2-Medium-1-Close-1-Medium-2-Long

Party You+A B

Kaptain O said:

Ah - that's one I hadn't thought of in our discussion; essentially covert the remaining cost into the equivalent cost range... 3 move to extreme makes long to extreme long range... mmmm...

It's an abstract relativist system - it's not meant to be micro analyzed and shouldnt be in most situations, but in those situations where it does matter (typically where you have 3 places to measure between rather than just 2) I will use that method. Just try to remember that cinematic and fun is better than perfect accuracy in this system at least.

The question actually becomes easy to answer providing you set the distances of each group relative to each other group (that might not be easy to do on the table, but that's the only way to get a proper answer).

To explain, if the PC is facing two monster groups one is a long range from the PC and the other is at extreme, and the PC uses 3 manouvres to move to long range, they are then in close range to the first group, that bit is easy. How far are they from the second group, well that depends on how far monster group A was from monster group B. If monster group B was directly behind monster group A, then you may have previously decided that group B was medium distance from Group A (and extreme from PC, as already mentioned), so once the PC is close to group A they are now medium from group B.

This is how Kaptain's diagram looks.

you could however decide that monsters A and B were on opposite sides of the PC, but still say A was long and B was extreme from the PC (but you would still need to specify the distance that A is from B, which would have to be extreme as that's the longest distance we dela with in encounters. In that instance if the PC moved out to group A, they would then be close to group A and extreme from Group B....

Yeah, it's all too abstract and shouldn't really be measured linearly. If the groups are lined up, it's fine, but a group can be long from the PCs and another group extreme from the PCs, but those two groups could be extreme from each other, too, in a triangle.

Same thing crops up in my games. You are close range to an engagement. An enemy disengages away from the engagement. Are you now at close range to the lone enemy? Or is it Medium? Especially when you have multiple individuals engaging/disengaging and some individuals want to create distance, while others want to close distance.

So far I've been getting away with fudging and moving on quickly to cover the possible illogical results, but one day a character's life will be on the line, and it will cause an issue.

Please look at page 53 (Rulebook) - Abstract Distances & Movement.

1) The Troll Slayer is engaged with the Beastman. Is he also engaged with the Bright Wizard since his stundup contact with wizard's stundup?

I would say yes.

2) Player is in an engagement with 3 Beastmen. Have PC to perform 3 manoeuvres to disengage (1 manoueuvre for each Beastman) without any penalties or just 1 (for 3 Beastmen)?

3) Can players parry, block or dodge an attack with come from behind them?

4) How many enemies can be in an engagement with one Player?

Think of the bands as a circle, like a bullseye. Engaged is at the center; close is the area surrounding it, for example. Use additional tracking tokens to represent the distance between each "group" that is in the Close range band up to one band higher (Medium, in this case, which would put them on opposite sides of the engagement.)

Two groups in the medium band could be up to long range from each other (opposite sides.) Etc.

All of this is if you disregard what they say about abstracted ranges in the ToA. Close range could represent an entire building. Just extend Engaged to encompass both fights and scale up. I know that plays havoc with ranged attacks but.. well, it's abstract.

Just use tracking tokens to mark the distance between engagements. It's easy enough to keep track of multiple engagements. In general, there will be a "focal point" of a conflict that radiates range bands like a bullseye (such as the wagon in the demo adventure). Then, you can break down lateral disances by merely inserting some distance tokens.