Elevation and Ranged Attacks

[Penitus]

Other than 1 more attack/defense die, How does elevation affect ranged attacks. This came up for our first time last night.

Example - Captain America has a clear line of sight to Abomination, who is 4 spaces away, but is 6 elevation hexes higher than Cap.

Our guess was that Captain America could not throw his shield because even though Abomination was within the range for the shield throw, his height (which is 5) was too low, preventing Abomination from being targeted. However, if Abomination was say, 4 spaces away, and 4 spaces higher than Captain America, he could have been targeted.

Were we correct? Educate me.
Thanks!

[johnny139]

Range ignores height. As long as you can see them, you can hit them.

Oh, and Special Attacks aren't affected by height. Just so you know.

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

You played it wrong. Johnny139 is correct. You do not count height when counting range spaces. If you can see the hit zone you can shoot him. In the case you described, Captian could have attacked Abomination. Abomination would have 8 defense dice, because he had height. If Abomination was lower Captain would NOT get bonus dice though.

[Penitus]

Originally Posted by johnny139

Range ignores height. As long as you can see them, you can hit them.

Oh, and Special Attacks aren't affected by height. Just so you know.

That's right. Sometimes we forget though.
Thanks folks.

[rdhight]

Think of the gameboard as being divided into tightly-packed hexagonal cells by the tiles. But where counting range is concerned, there are no horizontal cutoffs within each column, so even if Abomination is 5 or 500 levels above or below, all Cap cares about is counting horizontally to the column containing his enemy. It doesn't matter how high or low on that column the figure is, as long as Cap can see him.

This is one reason why there are no figures with a range of 2 and very few with a range of 3 or 4. Even though going from 1 range to 2 range is a minor improvement in terms of getting first strike, it extends your range massively up and down along nearby columns. So a hypothetical spearman with attack 3 and range 2 could attack someone from atop a double-height castle wall, as long as he can count over to the column where the besieger is standing. Very implausible.

[jcb231]

Originally Posted by rdhight

Think of the gameboard as being divided into tightly-packed hexagonal cells by the tiles. But where counting range is concerned, there are no horizontal cutoffs within each column, so even if Abomination is 5 or 500 levels above or below, all Cap cares about is counting horizontally to the column containing his enemy. It doesn't matter how high or low on that column the figure is, as long as Cap can see him.

This is one reason why there are no figures with a range of 2 and very few with a range of 3 or 4. Even though going from 1 range to 2 range is a minor improvement in terms of getting first strike, it extends your range massively up and down along nearby columns. So a hypothetical spearman with attack 3 and range 2 could attack someone from atop a double-height castle wall, as long as he can count over to the column where the besieger is standing. Very implausible.

Yup....this is why the much-desired "Reach" power is so much trickier than folks realize and why there was an enitre thread devoted to getting it's wording just right over on HeroscapeHQ.

[Penitus]

Yeah, it is odd that Captain America can't throw his shield 6 hexes away, but can throw his shield 2 miles into the sky to hit someone on say, a skyscraper.

[rdhight]

Yes, that problem pervades the game. But where range fails, line of sight sometimes comes to the rescue.

Standing too close to a high wall blocks LOS, preventing some of the more outrageous vertical shots. Most medium figures can't see another medium figure on top of a single-height castle wall when they're standing as close as they can get to the base, even if the wallwalk is not equipped with battlements. And if Cap is one space out from a double-height wall, he probably won't be able to see someone on top of that, and so on. Eventually, for a real skyscraper-size tower, the horizontal distance you need to see the hitzone of someone on top will be greater than a range of 3-5 will let you shoot, and the problem limits itself (admittedly, only after allowing much greater vertical travel than the horizontal range involved). Most of us may well never build a map so high that Captain America's shield throw cannot hit someone standing on top of it, but it's still comforting to know that there's some kind of limit somewhere.

[RobWeaver]

Finally got the Marvel expansion. Even though I'm not a big superhero fan, I'm really impressed with it. I couldn't help but notice how many of the characters roll a fistful of dice when they attack, though. It made me wonder if the set hadn't been designed around the terrain. It's mostly flat, with very little elevation. Rolling a bunch of dice will keep the action going, and encourage getting out there and fighting, rather than running to the nearest elevation at the corners of the board. (This is a problem I noticed when I created a bunch of custom Western characters for shoot-outs.) Any thoughts?

[Fatespuppet]

I agree that the range/height equation is a bit skewed, but I believe it was done this way in favor of simplicity. I'm happy that they didn't go into all types of equations for horizontal and vertical range limits.

The marvel game is, in my opinion, very good about portraying the overpowering nature of the superheros. One or two dice of defense or attack can make a HUGE difference in the survivability of a figure or how brutal it can be.

I can't wait to see more heros with ranged capability though. The Punisher, being a personal favorite, could be quite interesting; deadly at range but a pushover in melee.