Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6228613" data-attributes="member: 3192">I would argue that wielding a weapon while in melee is partly defensive and partly offensive. If you have no weapon, you can't parry my attacks. You are defenseless and take a -4 penalty to AC. However, you can focus your actions to be wholly defensive and get that +4 back, but you won't be able to attack in return (i.e. act offensively) as your focusing solely on not being hit. If you rushed me without a weapon, you might be able to engage me in hand-to-hand or grappling combat, something different than melee, but I would typically get a chance to attack you when in range, if I was armed.If you engage in melee with a bow, you can fire at your opponent. At least, if you're in a space where you can maneuver your bow around. Using a bow while grappling requires quite a bit more detail about who has who where, but I don't see anyone advocating for that option. The big deal however is your bow basically sucks as a defensive weapon. Engaging in melee with all the blocks and parries means your bowstring will quickly break or snap and your wooden weapon will need repair before it can be fired again. You can try and avoid getting your bow struck while in a melee, but then you are going wholly defensive again and not attacking with it.You might be thinking, "there has to be a middle ground. Some means by which I can block and parry with my bow and still knock and release aimed arrows with it." Maybe, but then we're talking about something like an armored bow or bowshield and a metal cord. Armor wears with combat and should be taken to an armorer to be kept in good shape, so too weapons and a weaponsmith. I don't know what your local bowyer will say when you tell him or her what you've been up to. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification