As a newbie here, I was wondering if there were any resources for converting from range bands to specific numerical ranges, like in L5R? I understand the pros and cons of both systems pretty well (I think) and would like to have the option of using specific numbers for ranges and movement. Thanks to anyone who responds!

Is this getting moderator blocked?

No, it's just that this is a rather old question and the answer is basically: The system doesn't really work like that, and while you can try, it will break down at some point as the ranges are meant to be pretty abstract.

There are quite a few other threads on this topic. Some have done it. Most would greatly advise you to not go this route. Away put your hex grids, open your mind to the narrative style.

I've actually used hex grids for space combat. Relative positioning is far easier on the ground, and I would never use hex grids for that.

"I'm by the bench." "I'm by the light-pole." "My foot is stuck in the sewer drain." "Okay, the bounty hunter is getting out of his tricked-out landspeeder. He is at Short range from the second guy, and at Medium range from the other two."

That is something that you just can't really do in space, and having such larger range bands and more complicated movement makes it significantly harder to keep track of.

11 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I've actually used hex grids for space combat.

This I can get behind a bit. Visualization can help things a lot, so using an oversized hex or grid to visualize a major space battle can really help keep things in order.

I say oversized because I see something like the Battle of Scarif being only about a 3x3 workspace with the entire rebel fleet able to fit into a single cell with room to spare.

…..never really thought about that. Makes sense without any reference points. I guess I've never been using maps at all for space combat.

We use numerical values and hex grids in our campaigns. But then again we've heavily homeruled a lot of stuff. For space we use 10 hexes per band, so close is 10 and short is 20. Works pretty well in space combat and all, though it has hiccups for ground combat.

Yeah, this question has come and gone often enough in the past and you'll have to go with what works well for your group.

I do use hex based maps for ground combat and one of the important definitions that I make at the beginning of ground combat is "how big are the ranges in hexes."

This allows me to use different scales for different combats. In a relatively large area, I can go as broad as Short = 2 hexes, Med = 4 hexes, and Long equals 8 and Extreme = 16.

So I haven't really defined how long this might be in yards or feet (yet) and I don't have plans to do so any time soon.

So in my campaign, I'm not worried about actual linear distances. Does the combat map look plausible? And how long do I think short range should be?

However . . . I'm mapping out a C-ROC Cruiser in detail with 5 ft squares and I just defined that short range is equal to 10 hexes . . . so . . . Short Range is 50 feet (15 Meters), Medium is 100 feet (30 meters), Long Range is 200 Feet (61 Meters), and Extreme Range starts at 400 Feet (121 Meters).

The problem with trying to nail down "real" numbers to these range bands demonstrate that they don't scale well to reality.

Now having done some math, if I were to back fill this data, I'd take 200 Meters (sorry I was taught to shoot in meter distances) as the beginning of Extreme Range. (Maybe 300, but based on my observations the "average" shooter can't hit targets at 300 meters, but 200 is fairly doable with minimal training).

So Extreme Range Equals 650 Feet, Long Range starts at 330 Feet, Medium is about 150 Feet, and that leaves Short Range up to about 80 feet.

Honestly if you want to try to nail these range bands to "real" world numbers, either set will work well enough, but for practical purposes I wouldn't recommend worrying about nailing down "real" range numbers to the range bands.

Now if you want a better grasp an realism, check out GURPS. Looking at their scale I'd say that up to 7 Yards is "short," 30 yards looks about right for "Medium" and "Long" range looks like 200 - 300 yards for the purposes of shooting . . .

But that breaks down for "Running." People don't travel as fast IRL as they do using the Star Wars range bands.

And as long as you don't look at the numbers too closely, that's okay . . .