AoO and ranged weapons.

[buchw001]

What?? What kind of crap is this? (Not bashing on you, but the rules.) If I'm holding a loaded bow or crossbow, and I see someone nearby casting a spell (or doing some other thing that provokes an AOO, like drinking a potion), I should be able to get a shot at him. We've always played that way, and it hasn't presented any real problems in the game.

I had a DM that allowed this also, but it was a house rule (one I did not like and here is why...).

I liked using my 5' move to avoid AoO's before I drank a potion, cast a spell, or anything else that provoked. In that campaign, it seemed like there was always some foe in the back with a bow that was just firing off AoO's. It ended up with me taking combat casting feat, more ranks in concentration, and casting on the defensive most of the time.

In other words I like the rule as is - Sorry Kerrick

 

[Staffan]

The idea behind AoOs is that when you're in melee, you are continually probing your opponent's defenses. In most cases, this results in one attack roll (or several, if your BAB is high enough to give you multiple attacks) per round. However, if your opponent does something to lower his defenses (such as cast a spell or chug a potion or whatever), you get an opportunity for an extra attack.

That reasoning does not work for missile weapons, because with those you aren't trying to get past your opponent's defenses in the same way - you just shoot them as fast as you can. If your opponent casts a spell, that doesn't allow you to shoot him any faster.

If you're concerned about an opposing spellcaster getting spells off, you can instead ready a ranged attack against him. Basically, you're holding off on your regular attacks and keeping an arrow pointed at the spellcaster, ready to shoot him when he starts casting.

 

[AuraSeer]

What?? What kind of crap is this? (Not bashing on you, but the rules.) If I'm holding a loaded bow or crossbow, and I see someone nearby casting a spell (or doing some other thing that provokes an AOO, like drinking a potion), I should be able to get a shot at him.

You can do that if you ready an action. Otherwise you don't have the time, because you're busy taking your other actions that round.

It's easy to keep an eye out for interruptible actions, but you can't do it while paying attention to other things. When you prepare yourself to react instantly when an opportunity arrives, that's readying an action.

Look at it this way: Taking a full attack with a bow represents the absolute fastest rate of fire you're capable of. You spend your entire six seconds drawing arrows, nocking, aiming, and shooting. Your hands simply aren't fast enough to do all that plus take yet another shot on a new target.

If you took some other standard action, or double moved, you can't take the shot because you're otherwise occupied. The action takes most of your attention, so even when you notice the spellcaster you don't have time to take a shot in response.

 

[Orm]

One way to use ranged weapons and being able to make AoO´s is: Use a dagger! There are some weapons that can be used ranged and in melee (at least six in the PHB, IIRC). As long as the opponent is out of reach, throw it. When he closes in, go melee. Having a couple of (returning) daggers, Two Weapon Fighting, Far Shot and Quick Draw might help.

Orm

 

[Rel]

What?? What kind of crap is this? (Not bashing on you, but the rules.) If I'm holding a loaded bow or crossbow, and I see someone nearby casting a spell (or doing some other thing that provokes an AOO, like drinking a potion), I should be able to get a shot at him. We've always played that way, and it hasn't presented any real problems in the game.

Similar to what Aura Seer said, my interpretation of what AoO's represent (originally penned by Hypersmurf) is this:

With a melee weapon, you are, in addition to making the attacks represented by your actual attack rolls, making lots of wild swings and stabs designed to keep your opponents off guard and defending against you. If they stop defending against you by doing something that provokes an AoO, one of these "wild swings" has a chance of getting through and hurting them.

In the case of ranged weapons, you are not sending a constant barrage of arrows down on them in the hopes that they will stop dodging around and drink a potion. Each roll represents a single shot and there are no "extra arrows" in the air that might get a chance for an AoO if they let their guard down.

Plus it's what the rules say.

 

[Kerrick]

In the case of ranged weapons, you are not sending a constant barrage of arrows down on them in the hopes that they will stop dodging around and drink a potion. Each roll represents a single shot and there are no "extra arrows" in the air that might get a chance for an AoO if they let their guard down.

Maybe it's just me, then, but I get the image of the archer in the tree (we'll use this for an example) shooting arrows into combat (an ambush, if you will). He's shooting targets, made his attacks for the round, and he spots someone casting a spell. He should be able to draw an arrow and shoot at the guy. You wouldn't be able to do it with, say, a crossbow, because it requires a move action to load, but a bow, dagger, shuriken... why not?

 

[Magic Slim]

Why does the wizard casting a spell let the archer fire off an additional shot? Or, asked differently, if the archer can shoot that additional arrow, why can't he shoot more arrows? Say the wizard moved before casting his spell (Moving in a threatened area provokes AoO's), could your archer shoot the wizard at every step he takes?

An archer, in your game, with combat reflexes and high dexterity (of course he has high dexterity, he's a ranged weapon specialist) would be able to make insane, abusive amounts of attacks. IMO, it's wrong.

Slim

 

[Rel]

Maybe it's just me, then, but I get the image of the archer in the tree (we'll use this for an example) shooting arrows into combat (an ambush, if you will). He's shooting targets, made his attacks for the round, and he spots someone casting a spell. He should be able to draw an arrow and shoot at the guy. You wouldn't be able to do it with, say, a crossbow, because it requires a move action to load, but a bow, dagger, shuriken... why not?

Bolding mine.

Kerrick, you are of course free to make whatever house rules you like in your own game. If you are genuinely asking for reasons why a DM might not allow this, I'll give you mine:

When you threaten enemies in melee, they are necessarily close to you. In most cases, they are within 5 feet of you unless you have a reach weapon. This makes it relatively easy to keep track of what they are doing and whether they take an action that takes their mind off of defending themselves.

An archer (or somebody with a dagger or shuriken) standing 30 feet away from the a pitched melee is not necessarily able to to pay as much attention to what everyone is doing. They are further away from him and with the chaos of combat going on all around him, he simply can't make a quick enough determination of when someone has let their guard down. Unless of course he is specifically watching a particular enemy Wizard getting ready to cast a spell...

Which is precisely where Readied Actions pick up.

The other exceptions to this are certain prestige classes that allow you to threaten an area with your bow. This is the result of having gained such incredible mastery of the bow and a level of comfort being in the middle of combat without benefit of a melee weapon that you are able to react to someone letting their guard down with lightning speed in order to get a shot off.

To me, this reasoning is fine but I still maintain that if you don't like it, you should absolutely modify the rules to your tastes (assuming that you are the one running the game). I will say that if one of the DM's that I play under introduced this as a house rule, I'd have several reactions based on it:

1) I would probably be hesitant to play a spellcaster, especially a Wizard or Sorcerer.
2) I would probably be inclined to play an archer since one of the major drawbacks (and, I would argue, balancing factors) had been removed.
3) I would strongly urge the rest of the party to attack enemy archers before anybody else, especially if we actually had a Wizard or Sorcerer in our group.

Add to that the fact that rules about AoO's become very inconsistent (i.e. do you provoke AoO's when moving in the Archer's "threatened area"?) and I'd be reluctant to play in such a campaign.

YMMV

 

[Norfleet]

With a melee weapon, you are, in addition to making the attacks represented by your actual attack rolls, making lots of wild swings and stabs designed to keep your opponents off guard and defending against you. If they stop defending against you by doing something that provokes an AoO, one of these "wild swings" has a chance of getting through and hurting them.

That was certainly the interpretation of previous editions, where rounds were a minute long and people had only a few attacks a round, and that's if they were a high-level fighter.

Now they're 6 seconds. I must say it's a little incredible to believe that a fighter could swing a greatsword 5-8 times in the space of 6 seconds(4 base, up to 4 AoOs with Combat Reflex for up to 18 Dex).

You can't AOO with a ranged weapon for a very simple, obvious reason: To spontaneously fire a bow, you'd have to pull out an arrow, nock it, draw the bow, aim, and then fire. To discharge it on very short notice would require that you'd have an arrow nocked and the bow drawn and ready to fire: This would be readying the action, not an "opportunity". Of course, you COULD ready the bow to be fired whenever somebody does something that WOULD produce an attack of opportunity, were you not holding a bow.

For a crossbow, the process of reloading it is even more complicated. If you had "rapid reload", the case would be similar to the above. If you didn't, your crossbow probably wouldn't even be loaded, and even if it was, you'd still have to aim at it, indicating that this is the target you wish to shoot at. Once again, that's falling into "Readying an action" territory.

And if you REALLY want an attack of opportunity while holding a bow, you could hit him with the bow. That's not a good idea, though.