NPCs and combat range

[Applesauce]

This is a note copied from the in-game Request board, along with a reply from Takta. I understand there may not be anything that can be done about this, but it seems a potentially serious problem for some so I figured I'd post it here and see if anyone has ideas on how it could be made better.

It seems like NPCs don't have to deal with combat range issues the way
PCs do. I consider this a bug because in Southside I saw an NPC attack
someone literally across the room from them. By the time the PC was in
range to fight, the NPC had hit them 5 or 6 times with a "close range"
dagger.

If it's not possible for all NPCs to respect proper range, maybe at least
if the NPC has a real weapon to draw, they have to be in range to hit with
it but can still defend or whatever at other ranges.

(Takta) We try to account for this by forcing the NPCs to approach the
person prior to attack, but you're right that NPCs do not factor in range.
However, this is kinda required to make combat work smoothly, so I'm not
sure we can fix this.

[Applesauce]

It occurs to me that the ranges are actually very tight, and maybe they could be loosened a bit to ease the above situation? For example, I think close range is the same square, medium range is 1 square, and extended range is 2 squares, something like that?

Maybe close could be 0 to 2 squares, medium 2 to 4, and extended 3+ squares? That way there's actually some overlap so weapons don't become immediately usable or unusable, and in medium outdoor rooms you could cut down the number of attacks an NPC gets before being able to fight back with common medium- or even short-range weapons.

I could definitely be wrong about how range currently works, and maybe there's already some overlap, but if not then I think it could add an interesting dynamic to fighting. Or maybe it would make it too easy and I just don't see why right now.

Thoughts?