Helping the helpless?

[Archade]

Hey all,

This has come up in our games a few times: a character is thwacked by a bad guy, and goes to negative hit points, falling prone and dropping all his stuff. As soon as possible, a friendly ally attempts to feed them a potion or cast cure light wounds on them to stabilize them.

Do they need to be in the same square, or an adjacent square to heal them? I would think that a prone ally would have to be in the same square as someone feeding them a potion, and that someone casting a cure spell could be in an adjacent square. Do any of the rules support or refute this?

 

[diaglo]

you have reach from 5' adjacent squares if you are small or larger.

 

[frankthedm]

you have reach from 5' adjacent squares if you are small or larger.

That is melee reach. The rules are quite quiet on the subject of how close one has to be to administer a potion. I'd say they have to be in the same square since that is fairly precise work for 6 seconds. Afterward I say the person applying the potion is then moved to thier last legal position.

Otherwise an attacker could drop someone, remain right next to the victim, and then the victim's ally could somehow "carefully administer a potion" without drawing an AoO.

A character can carefully administer a potion to an unconscious creature as a full-round action, trickling the liquid down the creature’s throat. Likewise, it takes a full-round action to apply an oil to an unconscious creature.

Manipulate an Item
In most cases, moving or manipulating an item is a move action.

This includes retrieving or putting away a stored item, picking up an item, moving a heavy object, and opening a door. Examples of this kind of action, along with whether they incur an attack of opportunity, are given in Table: Move Actions.

Melee Attacks
With a normal melee weapon, you can strike any opponent within 5 feet. (Opponents within 5 feet are considered adjacent to you.) Some melee weapons have reach, as indicated in their descriptions. With a typical reach weapon, you can strike opponents 10 feet away, but you can’t strike adjacent foes (those within 5 feet).

Threatened Squares
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your action. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you’re unarmed, you don’t normally threaten any squares and thus can’t make attacks of opportunity.

 

[Bonzi]

Seems to me if you can do a touch attack from an adjacent square you could administer a potion.

 

[Darmanicus]

Always have an Unseen Servant to administer healing potions.

 

[diaglo]

That is melee reach.

i think this is only going to come up during melee, isn't it? for just the reasons you state. pour a potion sans the AoO.

kinda like the rules for the time it takes to put on armor.

do you make the victim of the potion make a save? poor helpless guy saving against that cure potion.

 

[diaglo]

Seems to me if you can do a touch attack from an adjacent square you could administer a potion.

or is it a grapple?
edit: in which case Frank is correct.