How do I track range in theater of the mind in Daggerheart?

Techniclee

Running without a grid can make a GM nervous. You picture the fight going sideways because nobody remembers who stood where, then a player asks if the archer is in range and you have no square to count. Daggerheart already gives you what you need. The range words are the tracker, and most of the time nobody at my table measures anything.

The bands in plain words

Here is how I say each one at the table:

Melee means close enough to grab someone.
Very Close is a few steps away, near enough to see the look on their face.
Close is across a big room, where you can make out what someone is holding.
Far is the other end of a hall or courtyard, where you see shapes but not details.
Very Far is so distant you can barely tell what it is.
Out of Range is past Very Far, and usually too far to target at all.

Range is counted from whoever is acting, and it is a maximum. A Close weapon hits anything at Close or nearer.

Why the words are enough

The words were written to make sense without a ruler, and they do. My players and I know by instinct what is close to us and what is far away. When I say the cultist is Far, nobody asks for a number, because everyone already pictures the same gap. That shared picture keeps combat moving without a grid, and it lets me describe a scene the way I would describe a real place.

When to pull out the feet

We do use the converted distances sometimes. Very Close is roughly 5 to 10 feet, Close 10 to 30, Far 30 to 100, and Very Far 100 to 300. I reach for them when a player is planning something exact, like whether a rope reaches a ledge, or when two people picture the same space differently and the scene stalls. A number settles it quickly, and then we go back to the words.

Close or farther, the movement call

Most range questions are really movement questions, and one rule settles nearly all of them. When a character is in danger or under time pressure, they can move somewhere within Close as part of an action roll. If they want to go farther than Close, or they are moving without making an action roll, they make an Agility Roll. So my only real question is whether the spot they want is Close. If it is, they go. If it is not, they roll. That habit also tells me when a roll is worth calling.

How it runs at my table

The kitchen one-shots I ran before our Motherboard campaign were pure theater of the mind, with no map on the table at all. The campaign itself runs online in Foundry VTT, and there I drop tokens on the scene art so everyone can see roughly where the bots are, but I leave the grid off and still say the band out loud. At the bridge toll gate, Ratchett wanted to get to the patrol on the gate, and I told Sam the remnants were Close. He moved in as part of his attack roll, and nobody counted anything. The words carry the scene, and we reach for feet only now and then, when a question needs an exact answer. A fight built to last one scene or a busy environment stays clear as long as I say the band out loud when something moves.

Tonight

Name the band out loud whenever an adversary or PC moves.
Say the bands the same way every time, so the table builds the same picture.
Keep the feet conversions on a card for the rare exact question.
Ask “is it within Close?” before you ask for an Agility Roll.

The free sheets on the Resources hub are there if you want paper at the table.