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.