-4 AC penalty when using missile weapons?

[lukelightning]

This is actually kind of silly.
I'm pretty sure there have been historical troops which used bow+buckler, or crossbow+pavise (pavise is kind of like a tower shield).

Well real bucklers are nothing like D&D bucklers. Real bucklers were held in the hand, not strapped on the arm, which is pretty unrealistic.

 

[shilsen]

Well real bucklers are nothing like D&D bucklers. Real bucklers were held in the hand, not strapped on the arm, which is pretty unrealistic.

Well, real humans aren't anything like D&D humans either, so it evens out

 

[Darklone]

Duh...
Real bucklers: Mostly used to bash and hardly any protection.
D&D bucklers: You can't bash but they are as good for protection as the bigger shields.

D&D humans: Cattle, with some wolves.
Real humans: Cattle, with some wolves.

Wuff.

Oops, threadjack. Well. That -4 for using a bow in melee wasn't in any 3rd edition book, but some people had it as a houserule years ago here... has been posted pretty often, I have it in three houserule files.

 

[Li Shenron]

I thought I read for sure that when a character uses a missile weapon, should another character or creature attack him in melee, the missile-using character receives a -4 AC penalty. Now, however, I have scoured the srd and not found a single mention of it.

Can someone point out to me where this might be in the srd or phb, whether it was changed in 3.5, or if they just added the rule in to Neverwinter Nights, please?

I think it must be someone's House Rule to replace the AoO when using ranged weapons.

It isn't a bad house rule, but you have to carefully state when/howlong does the AC penalty apply.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

I'm pretty sure there have been historical troops which used bow+buckler, or crossbow+pavise (pavise is kind of like a tower shield).

Yeah but they weren't often in melee; when they were, someone really screwed up.

 

[Gort]

I think you might have got this from Baldurs Gate 2 - that's the only place I've seen this particular rule. They put it in because in Baldurs Gate 1 bows were the ultimate weapons even when fighting in melee range, since there weren't any attacks of opportunity in 2nd ed, on which BG1 was based.

Speaking of bucklers, from what I've read/seen (hooray for the Royal Armouries) they tend to be used in an offensive fashion - you "attack" the opponents weapon with it so that he cannot use it. I wouldn't doubt that they would provide some small protection against arrows and suchlike though - you could at least hide your head behind it if you were aware of incoming arrows.

To be honest, though, D&D simplifies shield fighting quite a lot already - treating it as just another layer of armour. If you want bucklers to be more realistically modelled, you'd have to model all the other shields in the same manner.

Also, bucklers don't really become significant in any way until you start making them magical - taking a -1 on attacks for a +6 to AC is quite an easy decision to make. Add to this the fact that they have a 0 armour check penalty - you don't even need to be proficient with shields!

 

[Martian Agitator]

So where in the rules does it state that you provoke an attack of opportunity from attacking with a ranged weapon while threatened?

 

[Steve Jung]

It's in Table 8-2. Actions in Combat.

 

[javcs]

Referring to the OP, it is possible that you mixed in the disarming rules, where you have a -4 penalty on opposed disarm rolls with a ranged weapon.

 

[Snowy]

think that there is a penalty for not being armed in combat.

If you have a bow out then you're not armed, might that be it?