Issues with "range" on melee weapons

Melee weapons in equipment currently say "range": { "normal": 5 }, which is iffy in some regards:

1. Technically melee weapons don’t have range (unless they also have thrown), they are specifically not ranged.
2. The numerical data currently doesn’t reflect Reach property.

My first thought was to bump this by 5ft on Reach weapons, but after a closer look range isn’t accurate at all. For the record there is also a separate throw_range property for thrown.

As far as I can see, the default reach is a rule, not an aspect of any specific weapon:

A melee weapon is used to attack a target within 5 feet of you

So rules-wise this is strictly binary (does weapon have Reach property), not numeric (weapon has X feet reach).

[Rarst]

Yeah, as above, there are API convenience considerations. I think it might be best to just bite the duplication and have both derived effective reach property at root (5 or 10 in feet, I vaguely remember magic weapons might extend this? even if there aren’t any like that in SRD) and Reach entry in properties list.

To be clear my concern isn’t making API minimal, my concern is making language of the API consistent with that of the rules. 😃

P.S. against having reach in range because we get full circle to initial problem of melee weapons not having Range. 😃

[bagelbits]

Oh right. We were just renaming that to range?

{
  "index": "trident",
  "name": "Trident",
  "equipment_categories": [{
    "index": "weapon",
    "name": "Weapon",
    "url": "/api/equipment-categories/weapon"
  }, {
    "index": "martial-melee-weapons",
    "name": "Martial Melee Weapons",
    "url": "/api/equipment-categories/martial-melee-weapons"
  }, {
    "index": "martial-weapons",
    "name": "Martial Weapons",
    "url": "/api/equipment-categories/martial-weapons"
  }, {
    "index": "melee-weapons",
    "name": "Melee Weapons",
    "url": "/api/equipment-categories/melee-weapons"
  }],
  "cost": {
    "quantity": 5,
    "unit": "gp"
  },
  "damage": {
    "damage_dice": "1d6",
    "damage_type": {
      "index": "slashing",
      "name": "Slashing",
      "url": "/api/damage-types/slashing"
    }
  },
  "weight": 4,
  "properties": [
    {
      "index": "thrown",
      "name": "Thrown",
      "url": "/api/weapon-properties/thrown"
    },
    {
      "index": "versatile",
      "name": "Versatile",
      "url": "/api/weapon-properties/versatile"
    }
  ],
  "range": {
    "normal": 20,
    "long": 60
  },
  "two_handed_damage": {
    "damage_dice": "1d8",
    "damage_type": {
      "index": "piercing",
      "name": "Piercing",
      "url": "/api/damage-types/piercing"
    }
  },
  "url": "/api/equipment/trident"
}