Why don't ranged spells have range increments?

[Kilrex]

Just wondering...

[Lost In Limbo]

Because casters scoff at penalties that puny martials have to deal with?

Or, while most mundane projectiles have an arc that makes distance shooting more difficult, spells ignore physics and travel in perfectly straight lines till they lose power at the end of their range.

[Create Mr. Pitt]

There are close, medium, and long ranges spells which are all in ranged increments with certain bases that then increase by a certain amount based on caster level. Unless you mean something else?

[Milo v3]

Create Mr. Pitt wrote:

There are close, medium, and long ranges spells which are all in ranged increments with certain bases that then increase by a certain amount based on caster level. Unless you mean something else?

He means like the range increments that ranged weapons possess.

[Jamie Charlan]

It would either completely obsolete ranged weapons as, you know, a form of ranged attack, OR be a massive nerf to the spells, depending on how it's done. Additionally, it's generally not needed in most games.

If a spell has 25ft + 5ft/2lv, then a level 4 caster already has 35ft range, which is enough to cover most engagements so long as you don't attempt to stay safely away and snipe... at least not till higher levels.

If a spell has 100ft + 10ft/lv, It's already comparable to the first increment of longbows and other ranged weapons, and will quickly equate their second, and eventually third and fourth increments as well. If using map combat, you'll rarely even get to fully use the second increment of any long-ranged weapon

A "long range" spell has perfect accuracy out to an absolute minimum of what, 440ft? that's "out of range" for the majority of throwing weapon users, pistoleers with a Distance weapon, and more in the vicinity of siege weapons showing accuracy problems by the time you actually know/cast spells with 'Long Range'.

If that fireball had ten long range increments, you can forget about fielding armies made of sword and spear users.

[UnArcaneElection]

Actually wouldn't be a bad idea to have spells that use an attack roll have range increments, although the size and number of range increments would need some tweaking for balance.

[Ciaran Barnes]

Jamie Charlan, I think the implication is that a fireball should have a much shorter range increment, and that at 400+ ft the spell caster is suffering some big attack penalties. The implication is not that each increment be 400 ft.

[Create Mr. Pitt]

I don't understand why you would want to create range penalties beyond range limitations. If you want range limitations then wouldn't a ranged touch attack be more appropriate. Either way there is definitely no need for an additional detail to deal with a caster.

[UnArcaneElection]

^Most spells that have range greater than touch and require attack rolls already require ranged touch attacks. Range increments would bring them into the same mechanics as weapons that use ranged touch attacks.