Zones on the Battlefield

Rather than rely on specific units of measurement to resolve movement and determine range, d20 Advanced uses a system of Zones to determine a character's place on the battlefield. A Zone is a rough area of measurement used during combat to determine range for Attacks and Area for Narrow and Wide area of effects. It is also used to measure Movement and position.
In most battles, a Zone is roughly 20 feet in radius, but the exact measurements of a Zone are irrelevant: anything from a room in a house to a third of a basketball court to the southeastern corner of a busy intersection are all appropriate Zones. For fights exclusively featuring particularly huge or very fast characters, a Zone may be an entire region of a city, while for fights that only include very tiny characters, an anthill may be a Zone all by itself. Zones are simply a convenient shorthand for describing where a character is.
During a battle, all characters involved will exist within one of the Zones of the battle. A character's exact position within the Zone is largely irrelevant, so players are encouraged to make their descriptions vivid and full of movement. A character cannot be on the border of a Zone: as far as the character is concerned, there are no Zones, and thus no borders. And since characters are assumed to be constantly moving within the Zones, their positions are at best an approximation.
A character's position within a Zone is only relevant when the question of melee combat arises. A character is further described as Engaged with or Adjacent to another character or key landmark in a Zone.
==Laying Out Zones==
When you are creating a battlefield, lay out Zones in a logical manner. Take for example the following floorplan of a simple house:
There are many ways we could divide up this house into Zones, but assuming the rooms are of reasonable size, we might do it like this:
Note that none of the Zones are exactly the same size or shape. The beauty of Zones in d20 Advanced is that you don't need Zones to be exactly the same size or shape. The system accounts for this abstraction. The exact measurements of each room are not important. Indeed, the exact position of characters within the Zones aren't important; only their relative position to one another matters.
==Using Zones==
Creating Zones is one thing, but how do we use them? Zones are how the game measures distances in a non-specific way. This is important for movement, for ranges with Attacks, and for Area attacks.
===Movement===
It costs one Move to move to an adjacent Zone. In the above example of the house, a character could spend one Move to move from the Kitchen into the Hall or the Living Room, which are adjacent to the Kitchen, but it would take an additional Move to reach the Study (one Move to go to the Hall, and another to go to the Study).
If you are using the Environment Module, a character may be blocked from leaving a Zone at a Chokepoint. In the above example, the doorways out of the Kitchen might be considered Chokepoints, as might the door into the Study. The whole Hallway might be a Chokpoint. Rubble or other difficult terrain may increase the cost to leave a Zone or move within a Zone.
===Touch Range Attacks===
In order to make a Touch Range attack against an opponent, you must first Engage that opponent in melee. It costs one Move to Engage an opponent in the same Zone. Similarly, it costs one move to Disengage from a melee, removing you from the melee but keeping you in the same Zone. Any number of characters can Engage in a melee, and once Engaged, all characters in that melee are within range for Touch Range attacks against one another. So if a character was in the Living Room, he or she could Engage any enemy in the Living Room for one Move, but would have to first Move into the Kitchen to Engage an enemy in the Kitchen.
===Ranged Attacks===
Ranged attacks use Zones to measure distances as well:
* Close Range Attacks: A Close Range Attack lets you target anyone within your Zone without penalty, or at targets in an adjacent Zone with 1 Penalty to your Attack roll. In the above house, a character in the Hallway could make a Close Range Attack against any enemy in the Hallway with no Penalty. Firing into the Living Room, Study or Kitchen would count as firing into an adjacent Zone and impose 1 Penalty. The GM may also rule that the doorways are not large enough to allow for an easy shot and enemies in those Zones have Heavy Cover, or even Total Cover.
* Long Range Attacks: A Long Range Attack lets you target anyone within your Zone or an adjacent Zone without penalty, or at targets in more distant Zones with 1 or more Penalties to your Attack roll. A character in the Kitchen could make a Long Range attack against any enemy in the Hallway with no Penalty, and if the GM rules that they do not enjoy the benefit of cover from the open end of the Hallway, fire into the Living Room without Penalty.
===Area Attacks===
Area attacks also use Zones to measure distances and area of effect:
* Narrow Area Attacks: A Narrow Area Attack affects all targets engaged in a given melee or adjacent to one another. So a character using a Narrow Area Attack in the Living Room could target everyone Engaged in a single melee in the Living Room, and no character outside of that melee would be affected by the attack.
* Wide Area Attacks: A Wide Area Attack affects all targets within a given Zone. A character using a Wide Area Attack in the Living Room would affect everyone in the Living Room, as every character in the Zone would be caught in the attack!
Category:Rulebook
Category:Action
Category:Combat