Currently this game does not have prevailing rules for ranged weapons. Somewhat because no one ever actually has used one yet. No one in Lair of the Lamb actually used the sling or the bow, and the fighter in Tomb of the Serpent Kings hasn't used his bow either.
Combination of resource management (no one wants to use their ammo if they don't have to) and what I would like to imagine is clever gameplay; no one is really getting themselves into a combat situation in the first place.
However, the time will come when someone actually tries to kill something else from far away. Either the players or, much more likely, me.
This is all largely inspired by Delta's 2011 post on D&D archery and probability curves and also by my instinctive drive for "realistic" emulation of certain mechanics. The post gives a rather nice table of a computer calculated probability to hit a target based on a certain range. When plotted, the graph looks something like this:
Nice. Notably, the decrease in accuracy is rather sudden from 200-400 feet than begins to taper out, taking longer and longer distances to become less accurate.
If I limit the amount of data that is used for a graph, I can also get some basic exponential equations for extrapolating further distances.
Somewhat useful. Despite the awful compression of these images, the basic trend lines can still be seen. (This particular screenshot is actually from when I was using polynomial equations, but a parabola doesn't make any sense) Equations are thus:
y=174e^{-.00357x}
y=165e^{-.00347x}
More or less the same result at a significant distance, a bit less accurate once you get closer. Both of these equations merely say that at a range of 1000 feet the computer calculated probability to hit is basically 5%. How sweet, roll those crits baby!
So how to we use this? This is where autistic emulation collides with practical goals. Is it fun to create a plethora of rules for how range and modifiers is supposed to be calculated? Not really. They can be hard to remember. This doesn't even factor in things such as skill of the archer, enemy AC, attack stats, environment, etc...
Which is why I am not going to give a shit about those. Attack and defense rolls are already intuitive, there is no need to mess around with those. So long as range is (more or less) the only major factor when using ranged weapons 95% of the time, even a relatively autistic method should be fine.
Of course, the assumption is also that when important, you will add or subtract modifiers. e.g. blinded, hard to see shit, hurricane winds, shooting into a crowd. But it may just be easier in those cases to just chuck in a basic -2 or -4 or just tell your PCs that it's not worth even attempting the roll in these occasions. These are rather situational; range is important enough that I felt the need to figure this out.
My basic solution was to define a bunch of parameters that stack -2 modifiers on the attack roll. So parameters of 100/200/300 feet would imply 100-200 as -2 and 200-400 as -4. By the time you reach 600 feet, you will have like 8 or 9 different -2 parameters.
Theoretically you can extrapolate this out to like -20 or some shit using the equations but I would emphasize that these calculations should only ever be used in niche situations (trying to noscope the dragon 1000 feet away).
Practically, I think only labeling the first two or so parameters is usually good enough. For a longbow, anything between 0-150 feet of distance has no negative modifier at all. There are very few dungeon rooms where 150 feet of distance is even possible (let along with light). Full thing: 150/210/240/270/300/360/450/ 540/700
The original post goes into the theoretical probabilities as a pairing of a 12th level fighter from AD&D and a target of AC 10. While you could try to pair the probabilities around these expectations to change the range parameters, I think it's close enough to not give a shit.
You could also crunch the parameters into groups of -4 instead. The original post uses a -5 and -10 parameter. But for my game in which ranged combat is not exactly a likely expectation, highly staggered parameters I think are ok.
Or, just use what you already have. Unless you're super into wargaming and certain mechanics these rules don't even have to exist. Just use a flat range or the standard ideas of your preferred system. Elegant minimalism to facilitate the parts of the game you want to emphasize should always trump autistic equations.
For my game, this only practically affects snipers. Everything needs to be closer, and things become more dangerous. I like that. But if you want the opposite result then you can flip this on its head. After all, even though having light "should" make you more likely to be seen in the dark, the theme of the Mythical Underworld has led me to use an encounter system that punishes being in darkness. Light, in a game that is focused on dungeon crawling, should not be punished in this game.
The main point is; think about the themes of your game first before you implement any rule.
Also, if you do end up with parameters, it should be fairly easy to use them for different types of weapons. I plan to just shift the range curve down until I think I'm satisfied. Realistic? Maybe not, but it should work!
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