D&D 5E Do I get sneak attack if I throw a Rapier or whack someone with my heavy crossbow

[billd91]

so how do you reconcile, under your interpretation of the rules, that a rogue can sneak attack with a hand axe if they throw it, but not if they use it for a melee attack?

Maybe the problem in the rules is worrying about the kind of weapon a rogue is using to get the sneak attack in the first place. It's not like it would be unbalanced if they tried to sneak attack with a great axe.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well, you heard it folks. All discussion here is meaningless. Time to shut down the forums and go home.

When it comes to people asking the boards for "Rules As Written", you are absolutely correct. Cause getting an answer from us here ain't gonna help their game at home.

 

[Umbran]

The Olympic hammer throw, though, is a metal ball on a chain. It would be weighted very differently than a maul.

The maul is a big weight on the end of a relatively light haft - once you have it off the ground, there's little difference. At least, little in the sense of, "The physics of the world include flying, fire breathing dragons, so let's not be too nitpicky, hey what?"

I Googled the hammer throw ball for children to practice with and the heaviest of them was a little over a pound.

Yeah, but the halfling, on average, has all the strength of an average grown human in that 3' frame, which the child most assuredly does not. That halfling can also use a longsword without penalty, which the child also probably cannot. So, really, this isn't a hill to die on if you want consistency.

This is a "close enough for government work" where "government" is "epic fantasy fiction".

 

[Oofta]

Good thing WotC defines Heavy in the weapon section as: "A heavy weapon's size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively." Nothing to do with weight.
But, yeah, a poor choice of shorthand by WotC on this one.

For a longbow it's bulk. I mean technically it could have been weight and/or bulk but it's close enough.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

When it comes to people asking the boards for "Rules As Written", you are absolutely correct. Cause getting an answer from us here ain't gonna help their game at home.

Citing the authority of "someone on the internet" won't help them at a home game. Using arguments and citations provided by someone on the internet for why RAW says X is, however, often a good way to convince a table that RAW says X if those arguments and citations were good and accurate, or at least compelling. You just aren't going to emphasize the source as some sort of authority.

I would equate good rules answer on a message board to American legal scholarship. It has no legal authority whatsoever, and ideally a lawyer finds court precedents (binding or otherwise) that they can cite and base their case on. But it's still worth consulting and sometimes even citing scholarship for the sake of its arguments or effective summary of something, and for the sake of finding out what the actual authorities you should really be consulting are.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Citing the authority of "someone on the internet" won't help them at a home game. Using arguments and citations provided by someone on the internet for why RAW says X is, however, often a good way to convince a table that RAW says X if those arguments and citations were good and accurate, or at least compelling. You just aren't going to emphasize the source as some sort of authority.

I would equate good rules answer on a message board to American legal scholarship. It has no legal authority whatsoever, and ideally a lawyer finds court precedents (binding or otherwise) that they can cite and base their case on. But it's still worth consulting and sometimes even citing scholarship for the sake of its arguments or effective summary of something, and for the sake of finding out what the actual authorities you should really be consulting are.

I'm willing to bet that more often than not if a player asks a question and the DM makes their ruling... if the player comes back later to say "No, that ruling is probably wrong, people on the internet say it should be 'X' "... the DM's impulse is going to double down on their own ruling (seeing as how their player wouldn't take no for an answer and went trolling for other people to side with them.) Now maybe I'm being a bit too cynical about those DMs. That's possible. But... that's genuinely what I suspect would happen. But hey... maybe the original poster will luck out and their DM will take this thread to heart!

Of course... seeing as how this particular 7 page thread thus far CAN'T agree on what the "RAW" is... the OP won't be taking this to their DM at all anyway because there isn't an answer for them to reference to.

 

[aco175]

I let dwarves use handaxes as if they have finesse property. I thought about taking away something, but found it does not matter if I take away heavy armor for a dwarf thief for example.

I would be open to other races and something similar. Elves and longswords for example just to get away from rapier. I could see halflings and thrown rocks or maybe something with a light staff or club.

 

[Seramus]

I would require an athletics check to throw a rapier smoothly, on top of the normal attack roll.

If the athletics check succeeds, the throw is smooth and I treat it as an improvised javelin. If the throw fails, the rapier doesn't land point first and is a basic improvised weapon (read, no finesse).

 

[Umbran]

For a longbow it's bulk.

It has all the "bulk" of a quarterstaff. With the longbow, I expect it is supposed to be draw distance - the distance between the hand that holds the bow, and the cheek to which you draw, simply isn't long enough on small characters.

 

[Xetheral]

Of course, the notion that you could throw a goblin with Dexterity also relies on the DM ruling that you can use a goblin as an improvised weapon, which I personally would not. A goblin is too unwieldy to be used as a weapon in my opinion.

Note that "a dead goblin" is explicitly listed among the examples of improvised weapons on PHB 147. Although a live one might indeed be more unwieldy.