D&D 5E Drop bow and unsheathe sword: still get to attack?

[Yaarel]

In my last session I allowed the fighter to drop his bow, unsheathe his sword, and still attack on the same turn. The PHB only mentions unsheathing the sword as an example of a free object interaction, but I figured dropping an object adds hardly any further complexity to the undertaking (certainly no more than reaching into a backpack to pull out a potion bottle, which is allowed). Legit ruling?

I consider dropping an item (carelessly) to be a free action.

 

[Satyrn]

Wow, no.

The worst I do as a DM is draw the dropped weapon on the battlemat. Potentially losing the weapon if they have to run away is the only drawback. And I consider myself a fiddly, hardass, old school GM. I mean, I make my players use my encumbrance rules, that's how much an ass I am!

I call monk!

 

[Henry]

Yeah, I wouldn’t penalize this, either, because (1) it’s something I could easily see happening in a matter of a second, and (2) the character is taking a risk - an enemy could in theory take an action to go steal that bow if fight turned to flight. There’s a trade-off, so I’m more than inclined to let them do it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I also allow dropping an item to the ground as free. If you choose to stow it on your person so that it comes with you wherever you move, however... that uses your Item Interaction.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I think part of the problem with some of this stuff is "previous edition memory". It seems the older the edition of D&D, the longer a combat round was. In 5E it is down to 6 seconds long, so there is not as much you can do as in past editions. I just apply common sense and let people get away with what seems reasonable based on their character's abilities. If I get picky about this, I will limit what they can do based on their initiative. If they have a really good one, they are more likely to get away with more because they are acting earlier in that 6 second span. If they have a bad initiative, then they are obviously physically or mentally slow or sluggish for that combat and will get to do less. Sure, this may be a bit of a house rule, but I feel it is a good in-game explanation for a horrible initiative where the character is going last every round in a combat.

But to answer the actual question, I would let someone drop an item without penalizing them any of their actions.

 

[Shiroiken]

Maybe his DM doesn't know what the word "doffing" means and he's too embarrassed to admit he'd have to look it up?

Seriously, I go back and forth on this myself since it penalizes the sword-and-board type for their particular style. A great weapon fighter never has to deal with it, and neither do the archers of the world. Not a big deal at lower levels but once you get to higher levels the ability to fire multiple arrows while only able to attack with only one thrown weapon per round becomes a pretty big penalty (and one I've never completely agreed with).

So I compromise - donning/doffing a shield takes an action but you can throw multiple javelins/daggers/etc per round.

I agree that the action requirement is a significant detriment to sword and board. In my last campaign I allowed it as an item interaction and it worked fairly well. The only person who found a massive benefit was the eldritch knight who could switch between archery and melee with ease (bonus action recalled the weapon to his hand), and that really wasn't a problem.

 

[Bacon Bits]

What megagaming do you see as a result?

In my experience it's where all this thinking about the action economy seems to lead. Perhaps metagaming isn't quite the right term. Perhaps "extreme gamist thinking" is more accurate. It's thinking about D&D only as though it were a game instead of thinking about D&D as a narrative adventure about your character. You do it too often, and players seem to go down the rabbit hole of pure mechanical play where all you ever consider is the mechanics. While there's nothing wrong with that style of play, it's really not the stated intent of the system. The more rules you add that make players think about the game mechanics during play, the more you pull them out of their characters' heads and into the rulebook. Again, in and of itself that isn't wrong, but it can't discourage players from trying new things.

This is why you see new players to D&D trying things like pushing over statues, doing flashy demonstrations to intimidate or awe, or copying what they saw in a movie, while experienced players just want to roll initiative and say, "I attack and hit for 12 damage." Experienced players fall into the trap where they see the rules as a box that they have to live inside. I don't want them to do that. I want them to try weird things that I didn't think of. I don't want to feel like I'm running the script of a video game where the only options are A, B, and C because that's what the adventure author said were the options and everything else is blocked by invisible walls (plot or otherwise). The more I can inject narrative thinking into my players minds and not require them to think mechanically, the better the overall game experience. Yes, it's rewarding to kill the leader of the frost giants and take his stuff. It's more rewarding to get invested in the story about the local populations that have been terrorized by the frost giants, and to learn why they've been so aggressive and hostile, and to try to find a solution other than just killing everything and taking all the loot which is likely to just escalate the problem.

And, no, I don't particularly like GNS theory or the Threefold model. I much prefer this model, and in my experience the players at my table stray off into "Powergamer" or "Thinker" even though they all want me or the even more Storyteller DM to run compared to the DMs that are strongly combat focused. I want my game to be centrist or capable of visiting each sector because I think that's where the game truly shines; it's where the different sections can compliment each other.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Can anyone make a good argument that the rules *do* treat dropping something as an object interaction?

*None* of the many given examples of object interactions involve dropping something. They all involve more care and attention than release your grip and letting something clatter to the ground.

The rules don’t mention dropping particularly, and it is both unlike and simpler than the things they do mention as examples of actions and object interactions.

 

[epithet]

In my current campaign, I have only one PC that switches weapons with any frequency, and she goes between a (short) bow and dual wielding. As a practical matter, I let her stow the bow, draw her main hand weapon, and attack. She doesn't have the Dual Wielder feat, so I don't let her attack with her offhand as a bonus action on that round.

If I were to get serious about policing object interactions, I would not rule that drawing or stowing a weapon was an action, I would make it a bonus action. I think that while it is important to put a limit on what a character can do with its action, it is also important to minimize the number of times a character is unable to do anything (interesting) with their action. Unlike Mearls, I really like the bonus action as a category in which to put quick things (cunning action, offhand attack, tumble, etc.) and thereby limit those things to one per round while leaving the action, move, and reaction intact. I've also been thinking about things which might take "half your movement," like standing up from prone does. If it came down to it, I would at least consider trading "half your movement" for an extra object interaction.

 

[corwyn77]

My current pc, a rogue, changes weapons a fair bit between shortbow, for when melee is cluttered and there are a lot of places to hide, and a dagger with a decent extra damage property for barren terrain. But then we use flanking so it also provides easy flanking/SA.

I agree with epithet that when I gm I allow a second object manipulation as a bonus action. When I care.