The Combat Example on page 61 in the rulebook says:

"The GM indicates that the beastman is in close range, and determines that this will be an easy check, which adds one challenge die to the dice pool".

How should this sentence be understood? Does it mean that close range is the same as default range and therefore results in an easy check; medium range is an average check; long range is a hard check; and extreme range is a daunting ckeck, if the weapon is able to shoot that far??

I suppose that if the default difficulty of a ranged attack always is an easy check, then this sentence would have been worded in a different way.

So far we have just used the default difficulty no matter what range the attacker was shooting from, but after reading this sentence I guess the difficulty of ranged attacks should be modified by distance.

Are you modifying the range difficulty so that it reflects the distance between the attacker and the target?

I think it implies that the GM can decide if they want the check to vary in difficulty depending on the range.

It's based on the weapon. It's easy up to it's range and more dice added after that.

Gallows said:

That's not true. The weapon can only fire up to its range, not farther. Hence, the longbow is special as it's able to fire at Extreme (as its special ability states).

Allavandrel said:

Makes sense. It'd be silly to assume that the difficulty went from Easy to Out of range/No check at all. The only other reference to this I've found is on page 53: "Some ranged weapons can fire at targets at extreme range, but usually with penalty."

I guess this hasn't been mentioned either, but I'd imagine the size of the target might make a difference as well. A troll or a giant should be easier to hit than a snotling.

With my players, we thought about that while playing : melee damage = range damage + risk to be hit taken.

To balance that, here is my GM's call on range difficulty : Add 1 misfortune dice per range up to the weapon's maximum range. So it's less easy to hit at range.

I sometimes put a challenge dice to shoot in melee too because it's quite inconvenient to shoot with a bow at point blank

willmanx said:

Just FYI the Ranged Attack basic card says you cannot be Engaged with the target and fire - so you can't fire at Point blank.

charlest said:

Yep and that card adds a challenge die as far as I know.