I agree with your interpretation, nosig.
XXXXXX
XOXOXX
XXXXXXThose two Os are ten feet apart for every purpose in the game, as far as I can tell.
+1
They are 10 feet apart, I agree, but (and this is important), it is only 5 foot of movement for one to threaten the other.
I make this distinction to avoid any craziness regarding the charging rules.
Essentially "X distance apart" is "range from one creature to another".
I think I would agree with you. The way I explain it:
OABC
O is the medium sized character
A can be attacked with standard melee weapons, which are defined as having 5ft reach
B can be attacked with reach melee weapons, which are defined as having 10ft reach
C can't be attacked by reach melee weapons - it is 15 ft away.
If you have an ability that says "AT LEAST 10 ft" it means that an opponent 10 ft away is a viable target, so B and C (and everything further away) is viable.
Otherwise it would have to say "MORE THAN 10 ft away", and since the game only calculates in 5ft increments, the next step would be 15 ft, making C the closest qualifying target for such an ability.
I agree with you OP. In game terms, in your spoilered example they are 10ft (2 squares) away from each other. The confusion is probably coming from the fact that when the game talks about feet, it's actually using feet as a euphemism for squares (every 5ft = 1 square). This is a game concept that most people intuitively understand, and so when they read 10ft away, they think 2 squares away. 0X0 = 2 squares away, 0XX0 = 3 squares away, and so on…
However, if one were to understand feet literally as a unit of measurement within the game, then characters standing like X0X are actually anywhere from ~6-9ft away from each other, depending on how they are positioned within their respective squares. This is the wrong way to understand distance in the game of course, because it's attempting to make literal sense of an abstract game concept.
This makes me wonder why they didn't just define it as adjacent, since this would mean you're either sharing a square, adjacent, or at least 10 feet away.
I'm going to take the contrary view.
I think OO is "adjacent", OXO is "five feet away", and OXXO is "ten feet away".
This is because we are considered to be occupied our entire squares, so two opponents in adjacent squares are 0 feet away from each other.
I think that OXO is 5 feet apart, but your weapon would need a range of 10 ft to attack the other. This is because a range of 5 feet would just let you scratch his nose.
Yet another example of "consistency would be nice". With the downside of increasing wordiness, as always.
If everything that referred to distance used a standardised terminology, we'd never have these discussions.
I'm going to stick with the assumption that "X feet apart" means "at a range of X feet".
Yet one more reason that I dislike the grid and MUCH prefer a narrated combat.
And another argument to play without.
'Is Torvald in danger of getting hit by my arrows?'
'Yes, he's much too close to that foul smelling ogre.'
'Sorry Torvald, duck.'
No one had to count squares, or get on an internet forum to clarify.
In all my hoary years of gaming, I've never had issue with well described and narrated combat scenes. In fact, once upon a time (back in the dark ages of RPGs), it was the only way to do combats.
I prefer to keep my games of Warhammer separate from my RPGs. If I wanted to fiddle around little dudes on a table, I'll get out my Bretonnians, or my Beast men.
But, to be on topic, I would agree with the two square space is 10' away. Ie, XOXXOX
Yet one more reason that I dislike the grid and MUCH prefer a narrated combat.
And another argument to play without.'Is Torvald in danger of getting hit by my arrows?'
'Yes, he's much too close to that foul smelling ogre.'
'Sorry Torvald, duck.'No one had to count squares, or get on an internet forum to clarify.
In all my hoary years of gaming, I've never had issue with well described and narrated combat scenes.
I, on the other hand, enjoy playing characters who flank, reposition, bull rush, and generally find fun and creative ways to use the terrain and the positions of the combatants to my advantage. This is something I simply can't do without a grid, because even if the GM basically has a grid simulated in his own head (and I doubt he does without some clear fudging), statements like "my character goes to the place where he can disrupt the most enemy repositioning" or "my character goes where he can maneuver an enemy between two of his allies" simply don't have easy answers -- and even if they do, they're the GM's answers rather than mine.
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Another way of stating the question is: are you measuring the distance between the centers of the squares, or the distance between the nearest edges?
I tend to measure distances between the centers of the squares.
The times I don't usually involve Area of Effect abilities, which will have the shape of the effect specified.