TheRPGSite

This came up over on RPGG and while the argument keeps drifting to pendanticland. There is a point in there I wonder?

Goes like this.

Opportunity attacks trigger when someone leaves reach. Which is normally 5ft.

Weapons with the Reach addition though have a 10ft reach when attacking. Additionally Polearm Master adds Opportunity when someone enters reach.

The argument being that Reach weapons create a problem by actually extending the safe movement zone around the weilder. The enemy could run round and round at 9ft and never trigger OA.

But someone walks into that 10ft radius and that triggers OA for the Polearm Master.

Or does Reach only apply to straight up attacks and OA does not count?

And on a related bit off topic note. I thought Opportunity attacks used up your attack for the round. Or is it like a bonus and added on? And of added. Then the full attack spread?

There's no problem, it's all very easy.

Reach extends your melee weapon reach by 5'.

Weapon Properties
Reach. This weapon adds 5 feet to your reach when you attack with it.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf, August 2014. p. 47.)

Opportunity Attacks are still attacks.

Opportunity Attacks only occur when a hostile someone (that you can see) leave another someone's reach.

Opportunity Attacks use your reaction.

Everyone gets per start of their turn:
1x Action
1x Move
1x Bonus Action Slot (zero to many bonus actions may be available to use this slot)
1x Free Interact with Environment
1x Reaction.

Opportunity Attacks
     In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past your foes without putting yourself in danger; doing so provokes an opportunity attack.

     You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack interrupts the provoking creature’s movement, occurring right before the creature leaves your reach.

     You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf, August 2014. p. 74.)

Polearms Master feat is a rules exception that allows you to use your opportunity attack under an additional circumstance: Entering Your Reach.

If your Reach is 10', as long as they never exit out into 11', they do not trigger Opportunity Attack's clause.

Yes, Rank Formation is a good thing.

Any other questions?

So basically what I said.

That was what this fellow is getting hung up on. That using a polearm makes you less effective at that.

I thought about that and it makes a sort of sense because one of the things they teach you is to try and get inside the effective range of a weapon so that they cannot bring it to bear on you as easily. The pointy end it now past you. (if its a spear or most pole arms and even a few swords.)

Yes, a polearm without help from a formation will suffer from lack of Opportunity Attacks. This is a good thing, it mimics close to life. Some players are complaining because they don't nova in a snowflake blizzard of diamond dust off on their lonesome. The complaint is ridiculous, and you had it right.

Yeah. I recalled my one session in Ragnarok, a sort of less safe boffer combat game and I had a spear and was up against their best guy who was just mowing down opponents in a sort of arena contest.

He got inside my spear and it was wham-wham and over. But I scored a leg hit and was one of only three out of about a dozen to even touch him. Being small had its advantages. But once he was inside the spear that was that.

He obliterated me in a an earlier test. Two short swords vs me in shield and sword. He was big enough to reach over my shield and tag me. Darn giants! :o

The misconception here is that being able to move around at 9 feet is a advantage against a pole arm weilder. It not because the fighter with the pole arm is able to attack the runner normally. Including if the attacker is within 5 feet. It may mean something against one of the pole arm fighter's allies or that the target gets to continue to use ranged attacks without disadvantage being more. than 5 feet away but that is as good as it gets.

EDIT: nevermind, I misunderstood. Obviously you can attack someone WITHIN your reach, right?

You can obviously attack within reach. The complaint is about the expectation to trigger more uses of one's Reaction. What's the most commonly available offensive reaction? Opportunity Attacks.

One of the big things with Rogues is trying to maximize triggering Opportunity Attacks as well, because you can Sneak Attack with it too. Similarly, a polearm master not using its reaction in attacking people either entering or leaving is also not maximizing. Basically you want to milk action economy for every last damage-per-round drop.

It's very white room analysis, as any wargamer can tell you that once you hit the table it is hard to control the variables of battle. But to whine without working together with your party in formation? That's just sad.

Regular reach is 8 squares. Ten foot reach is 16 squares. Sure if you're the lone polearm PC spread out upon an empty field it sucks. But a squad of polearms? Nasty. You can lock people into squares facing multiple OAs & space out against AoE attacks. You can tight formation and get twice as much melee attacks per forward face. And so on.

But that requires party coordination and adaption. Many new players don't take an array of weapons like we used to. It's all over-invest in one's single trick.

Quote from: estar;815065The misconception here is that being able to move around at 9 feet is a advantage against a pole arm weilder.

Exactly. This fellow was hung up for some reason on the Opportunity Attack thing. But think we are starting to get closer to understanding. Assuming he doesn't obsess.

Unfortunately... he obsessed... Though he has some good points in there.

Quote"Omega2064" I played in one of the rougher boffer melee simulators. And its been stated in instructional videos as well as demonstrated.

Quick example. I was in an arena style fight against one of the best. He had a sword and I had a spear. He got in past the spear and it was wham-wham and I was done. But I was one of the few to actually score a hit (leg) on him the whole contest. Once he was past the spear that was it.

"TheisMagle" ??? Are you talking about a computer game o real life fighting? But it is a ruleset, that has to be balance. I like the 3.5 more than 5e, but I still need to find the right balance in the game system before realisme.
But again it is more a argument of disadvange in close combat than other things...

"Omega2064" Read the comment on Opportunity attack. It says that you stop the opponent moving at the edge of your range. So that means that the pole arm master can stop someone coming in that round at the edge. Theyd be inside thereafter. But that is a round possibly where they did not get to hit you.

"TheisMagle" ??? where should I read this? on witch page. Nothing about in Players hand book page 195. Nothing about stoping them. On feat polearm Mastery on page 168 it also say nothing about stoping. Where do you get this stoping effekt from???

You talking about edge of range (belive you mean reach). But we just have a diffrent edge of reach. Yours 10 ft my 5 ft.

"Omega2064" If Both have polearm mastery here is the thing. One has to still move into the zone of the other to attack. So say I have my halberd and he has his. If I move in to hit him and he has mastery then I am going to trigger his OA the second I step in. I can still attack him. But He got first hit before me and if he has not attacked allready. He will get another attack on me soon after. Wham-Wham at 10ft vs 10ft.

"TheisMagle" If it's not about using the advange of a longer weapon, why is the ability only for polearm??? If you can do halberd vs halberd and attack him right when he inter you attack reach. Why should you not have that ability to Greatsword vs Greatsword. The advange come from the longe weapon and that you train to use this advange. You should not have it aginst other reachweapon. Or if you mean you should have it, normal weapon also should have the ability...

With regards to OA or Polearm Mastery ending one's movement, to put it simply, you're wrong, he's right. Only Sentinel feat stops movement outright with OA. OA, as written and cited above, merely interrupts the movement process to insert an attack.

As for him worried about great swords and axes being on par with polearms in some DPS pissing contest... :rolleyes: Polearms are already pretty much capped by d10 or Special text (lance). Besides, he's arguing within available weapon choices to a single best choice. There's no good argument about the unviability of other weapons, or class features limiting flexible utility.

We have this weird image of a lone lancer (or lone great axeman) lost on the plains with no other weapons. It's a bizarre image to argue from.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815116We have this weird image of a lone lancer (or lone great axeman) lost on the plains with no other weapons. It's a bizarre image to argue from.

Throughout most all of human history the reach of his weapon will be irrelevant since in any combat between the loner and the plains inhabitants the axe or lance clunched in the dead hands of his arrow riddled corpse won't be a threat to anyone. ;)

I did enjoy your explanation of attacks of opportunity.

It is hard to describe my utter sense of bewilderment of returning to RPGs in '09 and looking at 3e/PF characters who wouldn't bother beyond a singular weapon. I would ask about at least a ranged weapon, or even a fucking dagger to cut rope!, and only get blank stares in return. Another weapon? Using rope? Who'd bother with that when you can fly, with sparkles!
:rolleyes:

5e might be causing system shock to a whole new generation by being rather grounded in comparison.

???

I think there's pretty good balance when two-handed weapons w/o reach do a little more damage (2d6) versus two-handed weapons w/ reach (10' reach, 1d10 damage). Weapons are pretty well balanced; each special feature diminishes damage.

There's times when a small weapon (dagger) is better than an one-handed weapon (longsword), a two-handed weapon (greataxe), or reach weapon (halbred). That's the nature of the fight. Circumstances and your opponent make a huge impact on weapon selection.

Of course, this is a common critique of mine with Fighters; rather than work to make the character versatile, so many players build them to be single-mindedly obsessed with a singular weapon, to get "best DPS" and other silly shit. The idea of Tripping, Disarming, and god forbid Sundering ("we're losing out on LOOT!") gear is lost on many players.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815119It is hard to describe my utter sense of bewilderment of returning to RPGs in '09 and looking at 3e/PF characters who wouldn't bother beyond a singular weapon. I would ask about at least a ranged weapon, or even a fucking dagger to cut rope!, and only get blank stares in return. Another weapon? Using rope? Who'd bother with that when you can fly, with sparkles!
:rolleyes:

5e might be causing system shock to a whole new generation by being rather grounded in comparison.

We used to carry different weapons, even where it didn't make a difference at all (and not considering the occasional golf bag of magic swords). Stone hammer (and wooden shield) for rust monsters, or resistance to edged weapons; silvered edged weapon for lycanthropes; spare one handed weapon if a critical hit disabled one of your arms and prevented two-handed weapon use. Even with encumbrance limits enforced, we still tried to max out the number of weapons (critical miss/broken weapon). My biggest disappointment with AD&D weapons was that the holy water sprinkler did not get bonus damage against undead.

I now need to make a mace-sized aspergillum & holy water bucket cleric.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815116With regards to OA or Polearm Mastery ending one's movement, to put it simply, you're wrong, he's right.

Yep. I realized that afterwards. Why I said he had some valid points. And the OP in that thread has had several which along with the help here has most certainly changed my viewpoint.

Ok. Still at it. Can anyone here make sense of this?

I think he is arguing simmilar to my own initial thought that Reach only applying to active attacking and that OA should not take that into account. Before his own arguments made me realize I was wrong. Least I THINK I was wrong?

My answer to the Warlock example is "Then dont take warcaster and weild a reach weapon?"

QuoteThorn Hall Thanks for trying, but I have accepted, that you are not have a OA with reachweapon. So I don't need speciel rule for that.

We have been around a lot, but the keypoint in this tread is. What give most meaning in 5e, when you use it with all the other rules in 5e. In this dissussion the main problem is the new way of how you tricker opportunity attack OA. There are to way to see you reach, when you looking for OA

1. you have and ongoing reach of 10 when you have a reach weapon in your hand. So you do not get a OA, when a opponent move from 5ft to 10 ft away. You get your OA if just before he tries to move from 10-15 ft.

2. you only have +5 reach (10 reach) WHEN you make your attack. So to check for OA it is only when a opponent leave from 5 ft to 10 ft away. You don't get it if he move from 10 ft away to 15 ft away.

We have use a lot of time to argue for both point. I can understand why you would see it from point 1. One of the big factors is, that our mindset is for that, because that how it works in 3.5. But it also create some problems. Let me give you a new problem I have not used before:

You are a warlock fighting with a reachweapon. You have a powerfull spell with the touch ability. You have taken the feat War Caster (page 170), so you can use the spell, if someone tries to run away. You then use the War Caster ability to cast a spell insted of a attack in your OA. But hey when you get the OA the opponent is 10 ft from you. You can no longer use your touch spell. Bad luck because you held your reach weapon...

I'd need to see War Caster feat cited why this matters. Also an explanation why Warlock matters, too. But already anyone can create two different Reaches. Yes, every. single. class.

First off, forget what you know from other editions. This helps immensely.

The concept of off-hand, doesn't exist. Class or race limits to holding a weapon in each hand, doesn't exist. Lack of weapon proficiency stopping you from wielding any weapon, doesn't exist.

Weapon Proficiency only adds your Prof Bonus; lacking it just lacks the bonus. Holding a weapon in each hand is allowed; you designate which you choose to attack with during your action, reaction, and maybe bonus action. And there is no off-hand designation, thus no penalty, thus no singular overriding reach if you have more than one reach value. Both reach values are active.

Whip is a one-handed reach weapon.
Lance, while mounted, is a one-handed reach weapon.

A wizard is mounted with a lance and a longsword. A hostile they can see is next to them. The hostile Moves without Disengage 20' away from the wizard. Leaving 5' to 10' the mounted wizard may choose to OA with her longsword. She chooses not to. Leaving 10' to 15' the mounted wizard may choose to OA with her lance (she has not used her Reaction, so OA is still available). She chooses to do so. She will OA with the lance, not adding her PB. If the hostile is still ready, they continue 10' more feet to finish the 20' move.

Quote from: Opaopajr;815207I'd need to see War Caster feat cited why this matters. Also an explanation why Warlock matters, too. But already anyone can create two different Reaches. Yes, every. single. class.

Warcaster feat: When someone provokes opportunity attack, instead of attacking with the weapon you can cast a spell on them instead  as long as the spell has a casting time of 1 and targets just that creature.

So combine that with Polearm master and you can tag people coming in at 10ft, but cannot tag them going out till 10ft and they can dance around all day at 9ft and never provoke opportunity.

That is part of the OP in the threads hang up. He is just short of freaking out that you have this huge reach weapon and its incurring a penalty by making it easier to bypass or evade them.

Basically He and I started out with the same viewpoint. With me a bit worse off than him even. But at every turn someone here or there showed me that my assumptions were wrong.

The realization of "The right tool for the right job." Dont use a reach weapon if you want better OA. Dont spend a round pouring poison on your weapon to attack a Skeleton whos immune to poison. Or like in older D&D where skeletons took half damage from piercing and slashing weapons. Use something blunt to bash them.

Or accept that there are drawbacks.

Here is the text of answer to this question on Stackexchange (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/47864/attacks-of-opportunity-while-holding-a-reach-and-a-non-reach-weapon).

You can use your one reaction to execute an opportunity attack to attack with the dagger if the opponent steps out of 5 foot reach. Or the Whip if the opponent steps out of 10 feet reach. But you only get one or the other as you only get one reaction until after your next turn.

Since a whip is not a light weapon you can't use two-weapon fighting with a dagger.

But that only relevant to when you are taking your turn. The rule is limited to a grant of a bonus action to attack with the second light weapon. There is no rule prohibiting you from holding any combination of two one handed weapons. Without both of them being light you can only attack with one or the other with an attack option.

Also note that you only get one bonus action regardless of how many you could have.

In my opinion the main advantage of using two one-handed weapons without being able to use two-weapon fighting is to take advantage of some special property on one weapon versus the other. For example the use of a whip and a longsword. The whip has reach but less damage. So close in you use the longsword but if you need to attack an opponent further away you can attack with the whip. And it expands you flexibility in using a reaction for taking an opportunity attack.

Rules Details

From page 69 of the Players Rules for Basic D&D 5e.

QuoteYou can take only one bonus action on your turn, so you must choose which bonus action to use when you have more than one available.

From page 74 of the Players Rules for Basic D&D 5e.

QuoteWhen you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

and

QuoteYou can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature.

From page 70 of the Players Rules for Basic D&D 5e.

QuoteWhen you take a reaction, you can't take another one until the start of your next turn. If the reaction interrupts another creature's turn, that creature can continue its turn right after the reaction.

This some additional comments about the working of the Reach attribute for weapons.

From Page 147 of the PHB

QuoteReach. This weapon adds 5 feet to your reach when you attack with it.

Note that bolded part states when you attack with it. Not when you take the attack action with it.  While it could be written better I feel the intent that this distinction means that using a weapon with reach extends the area threatened by the wielder as well as the area in which he can execute a attack action or a bonus action involving an attack.

Moreso it my interpretation has the virtue of reflecting of how the situation would look if you are actually there witnessing the action.

I can't even tell what this debate is about. It's incoherent.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;815228I can't even tell what this debate is about. It's incoherent.

Welcome to the club.

For me it is gaining an understanding of why the various elements work. And eventually seeing it more and more clearly.

For the fellow in the thread that sparked this its spiraled further and further. We are now at the point hes trying say you can apply bows to gain Opportunity to 15ft.
Or that you can, while holding the bow, opt to punch someone as they leave your normal reach. Except the bow is two handed and you dont have a hand free to do that? And so on.
Or. Since you can punch them while holding your (usually 2 handed) reach weapon then that means the war caster can zap them.

And no it doesnt make any sense after a point. Especially over something that usually does not come up all that often. I can think of only one instance where anything has provoked Opportinity out the whole campaign I am DMing so far.

Next up the Circle of Moon Druid and exploding Spider Mad Bombers. I wish I were making any of this up... :banghead:

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;815228I can't even tell what this debate is about. It's incoherent.

I'm loving 5e so far, but if the rules are this convoluted regarding weapon reach and attacks of opportunity... House Rules a' comin'!

Quote from: Necrozius;815231I'm loving 5e so far, but if the rules are this convoluted regarding weapon reach and attacks of opportunity... House Rules a' comin'!

Its not that convoluted. But one or two seem to make it out to be really convoluted by adding in instances that the rules allready prohibit.

Reach weapons add 5ft to your opportunity zone. Making it easier for things to move around inside your reach and not trigger opportunity. Because you are swinging around a long and usually cumbersome weapon. It makes sense in context.

I did learn one thing from this thread. Only one Attack of Opportunity per turn from each creature. The way I've been playing it so far is letting an AOO happen whenever anyone left range, regardless of the number done previously.

So if 6 players all run past 1 zombie in the same turn, that zombie would take a swipe at all of them. In fact I think I like that way better.

I don't really understand what the question with this polearm is though. It also makes me realize that a weapon that's usually supposed to not work in close range works fine in the rules... like if you have a lance that has a range of 20 feet and somebody gets within 5 feet of you, in real life and intuitively you'd think the lance user is now DOA unless he can get farther away. Because the end of the lance would be far past the enemy, and would be unweildy to use in close range.

But from what I understand, it would be just as good at 5 feet as it is at 20, right? In other words, it has no minimum range.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;815236But from what I understand, it would be just as good at 5 feet as it is at 20, right? In other words, it has no minimum range.

I thought the same about opportunity attacks and misread that they triggered every time. oops.

As for the lance. It has the "special" flag. If the enemy is 5ft or closer then the lance user is at disadvantage. And needs 2 hands when you are not mounted. IE: It makes a not very great melee weapon on foot. But sometimes you use whats on hand or just to show how badass you are by bonking people to death with a tent pole...

It's not about disadvantage though. If you have a lance and the enemy in hand to hand range, hitting him with the tip of it is just physically impossible.

Whenever a PC uses a weapon in a way that it was not intentionally designed, I use the stats for an Improvised Weapon and may change the damage type.

So using a 20-foot lance against a guy within 5 feet? Improvised weapon doing bludgeoning damage. Actually, because a 20-foot lance would be nearly impossible to use that close, it would be at a disadvantage as well.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;815243It's not about disadvantage though. If you have a lance and the enemy in hand to hand range, hitting him with the tip of it is just physically impossible.

Right. You smack them with it like a club. Or try to jocky and hustle around. Pretty crazy. But then you got into melee with a lance. Its like getting into melee with a bow.

But if you or the DM want to say, "no. cant use it like that." then go for it and stick to it.

Quote from: Omega;815249Right. You smack them with it like a club. Or try to jocky and hustle around. Pretty crazy. But then you got into melee with a lance. Its like getting into melee with a bow.

But if you or the DM want to say, "no. cant use it like that." then go for it and stick to it.

Melee with a bow is actually more plausible since I could at least imagine some Legolas style stuff.

Although it makes me wonder how fast someone with a bow could switch weapons to a sword or something if an enemy closes the gap into melee. Would that be a free action?

If I am reading it right you could use your "interact with environment action" to draw a weapon. but youd have to throw the bow down to do so since you cant do both at once.

Quote from: Omega;815256If I am reading it right you could use your "interact with environment action" to draw a weapon. but youd have to throw the bow down to do so since you cant do both at once.

Correct. Dropping is so non-interactive or taxing it is like talking within 6 seconds. You can drop then draw.

A 20' lance currently doesn't exist. Reach only grants it out to 10'. Otherwise there's this weird useless, floppy 10' bit at the end. The rest of that conversation is completely up to GM campaign discretion.

A 10' lance is short enough to bop someone like a polearm, very poorly, hence disadvantage within 5'.

Any object of significant weight and damage potential can be used as an improvised weapon. There are rules for both: improvised melee weapons and improvised ranged weapons. Yes, that means you can use your lance as an improvised thrown weapon, and use your longbow as an improvised melee weapon (only caveat, your sling requires having ammo in it before).

The guy's talk about ranged weapon's range equaling reach is outright wrong. OA paragraph and Reach definition are both under the Melee Attacks subsection under Making an Attack section inside the Combat chapter. The Ranged Attacks subsection is immediately before that entire block of rules.

Any other questions? :)

Opaopajr to the rescue! Thanks chum! That works for me.

Well we are now getting a better understanding and I REALLY botched reading a few of the OPs comments in the RPGG thread which did not help in any way at all. My goof there.

So we gradually come to an understanding of how reach works.

Thanks everyone for the help.

If someone's closer to you than the pointy or choppy business end of that polearm, then buddy you're in trouble! Choke up, back up, switch to something shorter, or get hacked up.

Unless that's a friend, in which case you've just got a bit of awkward in shifting the long pole through that arc.

A phalanx helps with the first problem, but adds to the second. You want a well drilled unit that has good flank protection (though a 'wedge' formation may help with that). Good ground is important, too.

Yeah, polearms are a great weapon. But they do much better when working together. Standing alone in a field with one, as your allies are far behind you casting spells, probably not good formation tactics.

That said, they create great threat reach. You become a sort of glom ball, gluing things to you. And that reach is useful if you work it. i.e. A paladin with shield & high armor and a whip is very much a tank, their Divine Smites work on OAs. Go ahead, tempt the 2d8+ damage.