Distance, Range, and Movement

Instead of precise distances like 10 feet (3.5 m) or 90 feet (27 m), Cypher uses simple range categories for most distances: immediate, short, long, and very long.

Immediate distance or immediate range is what's in reach of your character or within a few steps. If you're standing in a prison cell or a small room, everything in the room is within immediate distance. At most, immediate distance is 10 feet (3.5 m).

Short distance is anything greater than immediate distance extending up to 50 feet (16 m) or so. As your entire action you can move a short distance (you don't also get to move an immediate distance when you do this).

Long distance is anything greater than short distance extending up to 100 feet (30 m) or so. You can run a long distance as your entire action, but the GM may have you make a difficulty 4 running roll to avoid tripping, falling, or otherwise not making it the whole way.

Very long distance is anything greater than long distance extending up to 500 feet (150 m) or so. Beyond very long distance, ranges are always specified—1,000 feet (300 m), a mile (1.6 km), and so on.

All weapons and special abilities (including creature abilities) use these terms for ranges. For example, melee weapons have immediate range—they are close-combat weapons, and you can use them to attack anyone within immediate distance. A thrown knife (and most other thrown weapons) has short range. A bow has long range. Magic spells vary, but a particular one might be short range.

Cypher uses these categories for areas, too—an immediate area is an area about an immediate distance across, a short area is a short distance across, and so on. Because the categories aren't precise, it doesn't matter if the area is a cube or sphere.

Movement

When you take an action, you can also move an immediate distance. In other words, you can take a few steps over to the control panel and activate a switch. You can lunge across a small room to attack a foe. You can open a door, then move through it.

As your entire action for a turn you can move a short distance (but you don't also get to move an additional immediate distance).

You can try to run a long distance as your entire action, but the GM might ask you to make a difficulty 4 Speed roll to avoid slipping, falling, tripping, or otherwise stumbling as a result of moving so far so quickly.

For example, if your party is fighting a group of cultists, you can likely attack any cultist in the general melee—they're all within immediate range. Exact positions aren't important. Creatures in a fight are always moving, shifting, and jostling, anyway. However, if one cultist stayed back to fire a pistol, you might have to use your entire action to move the short distance to make a melee attack against that foe. It doesn't matter if the cultist is 20 feet (6 m) or 40 feet (12 m) away—it's simply considered a short distance. It does matter if the cultist is more than 50 feet (16 m) away because that distance would require a long move.