D&D 5E Rules a character "pass a Weapon" to another

[FormerlyHemlock]

How it works in terms of rules a character "pass a Weapon" to another character ?

A character can move the weapon with his free interaction object and the other one had with his "reaction"?

Is there a rule somewhere that I don't know about that says receiving an object takes your reaction? I would just count it as part of the next guy's free object interaction, when it is his turn. (First guy holds out the scissors. Second guy takes it, says "got it" to signal that it's okay for the first guy to release his grip, then stabs the intellect devourer in the brain with them. Yay for scissor safety.)

 

[MasterTrancer]

I don't have the current rules with me, but shouldn't everyone declare his actions at the start of the round, with the initiative ruling the order in which they happen? As for passing items, the interaction is not between the PCs and the object, but between the two PCs, it's a matter of relative positions and coordination, so it should at least evaluated on a case-by-case basis IMHO.

 

[Mercule]

I don't have the current rules with me, but shouldn't everyone declare his actions at the start of the round, with the initiative ruling the order in which they happen? As for passing items, the interaction is not between the PCs and the object, but between the two PCs, it's a matter of relative positions and coordination, so it should at least evaluated on a case-by-case basis IMHO.

This. I'll admit to not having even considered whether there were official rules to cover this. The few times it's come up, I've let the original owner use his free action to pass the item, w/o requiring anything of the recipient. If the recipient had tried to pass it down the line, I would have just said "no". If asked for a reason, it would have been something along the lines of, "because that's silly."

I do like the idea of having the recipient use his reaction, though, to catch.

 

[Katmandoo122]

Something I definitely would allow, though:

The fighter is disarmed by an opponent, and has no other weapon available. The rogue standing nearby is wielding two short swords. On the rogue's turn, he throws one of his short swords (already in his hand) to the fighter, and then attacks with his remaining short sword. The fighter uses her reaction to catch the short sword, and then attacks normally with the short sword on her turn.

If the fighter and the rogue were not adjacent, I'd probably require some sort of check to make the pass.

If the rogue is a thief, I'd probably allow him to use "fast hands" to pass a weapon as a bonus action, and then draw another weapon as his "free object interaction."

Just an aside...this makes sense and I would definitely do a DC against Dex for both characters (throwing and catching) at an appropriate difficulty level (distance, mayhem, etc). I would allow a "free" toss and attack is if one of them used an inspiration token (which, I guess, makes it not free anyway, but then I would forgo the DC).

 

[redrick]

Is there a rule somewhere that I don't know about that says receiving an object takes your reaction? I would just count it as part of the next guy's free object interaction, when it is his turn. (First guy holds out the scissors. Second guy takes it, says "got it" to signal that it's okay for the first guy to release his grip, then stabs the intellect devourer in the brain with them. Yay for scissor safety.)

I don't think there's any section in the rules covering the transference of objects between players during combat. That being said, most things requiring some sort of character action, while not on their turn, seem to require that character to use its reaction. So I'm just going with that.

Ultimately, these are all just speculated on the spot rulings for situations that probably don't come up very often unless players have hit on some sort of cheese they are trying to exploit. The most common situations I can see are actually passing potions and light sources. (Definitely had a situation in our game where a human-heavy party only had one torch lit and things got a bit awkward as the party got stretched out during a combat.)

 

[redrick]

Just an aside...this makes sense and I would definitely do a DC against Dex for both characters (throwing and catching) at an appropriate difficulty level (distance, mayhem, etc). I would allow a "free" toss and attack is if one of them used an inspiration token (which, I guess, makes it not free anyway, but then I would forgo the DC).

Yeah, very case by case basis for me. Two characters who are adjacent and passing an item side to side feels pretty automatic to me. After all, the first character already needs to be holding the item (couldn't draw an item and pass it all with the free "futz with an object" action), and the receiving character is giving up a reaction, which is a useful thing to have in melee. Throwing a sword to a non-adjacent character, on the other hand, seems totally deserving of a check. Similarly, if players had an action sequence that began to stretch my understanding of the bounds of the action economy, I might apply a high DC and let them try it anyway. Of course, playing catch with a sword could be a painful business if done poorly!

 

[Quartz]

Surely you can't do the 'pass down the line' anyway, as you only get one interaction with an object? Throwing the bow or sword over counts as one, but so does catching it. So you can't catch and throw in the same turn without using your primary Action.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't have the current rules with me, but shouldn't everyone declare his actions at the start of the round, with the initiative ruling the order in which they happen? As for passing items, the interaction is not between the PCs and the object, but between the two PCs, it's a matter of relative positions and coordination, so it should at least evaluated on a case-by-case basis IMHO.

Only if you're using AD&D-style initiative. Which I do, actually. The 5E DMG calls this "Speed Factor Initiative."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Surely you can't do the 'pass down the line' anyway, as you only get one interaction with an object? Throwing the bow or sword over counts as one, but so does catching it. So you can't catch and throw in the same turn without using your primary Action.

That's not quite right. It's not "one free object interaction," it's "free interaction with one object." So catching a dagger and sheathing it would be fine by PHB rules, even if that seems like two interactions to you. Change that if you want to though.

 

[Erik42]

The main thing that occurs to me is the very short period of time that is a round. PHB says about 6 seconds (I liked minute rounds better, but am I a game designer? No. One is probably too long, the other too short) and everyone's turn is taking place during that same round. So I ask myself, what can reasonably be done in this very brief amount of time? A lot of the time, it doesn't seem terribly reasonable that someone could get a couple of attacks and full movement squeezed into a turn, let alone bonus actions, attacks of opportunity, action surges, etc. So I tend to view what can be done as a free action as being very limited. In the case of passing and receiving an object, I'd probably rule that an object could only be passed once in a turn and not used in the same round it was received. Unique circumstances could be taken into account.