Opportunity Attack / Longbow

[Garthanos]

The military trains there folk to use the butt of rifles pretty much as effective as a club....nothing improvisational about it Some Modern crossbows would be similarly useable... others wouldn't. I would let a hero using a fantasy x bow do it as an improv just fine.. The arrow could be an effective suprise improv tool draw your blade afterwards.

That said any sort of realistic bow would be a crappy melee weapon and a waste of a good tool. (which is why I presented the idea of a fantasy "Battle Bow")

I have decided to let heros all have proficiency of +2 with unarmed and improvisational attacks... just because it seems thematically correct for the kind of stories I like.

Even the scientists and adventurer school marms are suprisingly nimble with non weapons and fiticuffs in the movies, were they all trained as brawlers or in the fine art of self defense as a kid ;-)

R the kicker in godplate boots is probably attacking a kickee in somewhat less...that said A shin kick is an imbalancing attack designed to set up for a real one ( I used that one without the follow up and my teacher said to not use it during sparring in part because I wasn't following through just using it in nasty parrying defense stance to destroy my adversaries balance in the middle of there attack - very effective.)

A groin shot is a variation of that...but its an encounter power which may give you a prone enemy (feel free to reskin sweeping attack)

 

[Regicide]

Why stop there? If you're serious about your comments here, then surely you don't think a dagger is effective against a trained swordsman. So, tell the double dagger wielding watchyamacallit-build-guy that he can no longer use daggers as melee weapons against anyone with a sword.

You're sliding down a slippery slope. Where are you going to artificially set the break point?

The slope is yours actually. Why not attack people with feathers, gently exhaled breath and casual glances across a crowded room? I use my penetrating stare as an improvised weapon! Heck, bards can already do it with harsh verbiage, why not!

 

[Obryn]

The slope is yours actually. Why not attack people with feathers, gently exhaled breath and casual glances across a crowded room? I use my penetrating stare as an improvised weapon! Heck, bards can already do it with harsh verbiage, why not!

Now you're just being silly. If you're moving from "smack with a crossbow" to "lightly breathe on," and equating the lethality between the two, you've basically stopped rationally discussing the issue. OTOH, I can see legitimate real-world concerns about how daggers or quarterstaves could hurt someone in full plate. I don't think anyone's actually arguing we shouldn't let those do damage - but it's the same sort of argument you're making.

Also, FWIW, bards - much like Wizards - cast spells. It's not the limerick that kills you, it's the arcane energy packed into it.

-O

 

[Turtlejay]

Much as I enjoy the sharp banter, I'd like to point out that an OA grants a melee basic attack. So, anything you can use for a melee basic attack, you can use for an OA. If you treat a bow as a stick, I imagine you can use it as an improvised weapon. I think that this just illustrates how vital Quick Draw and a dagger are for archers, however.

The fact that a bow as an improvised weapon does 1d4 damage to me means you probably didn't even hit your opponent. You punked him, made him misstep and stumble into his next attack, something similar to that. Since HP's don't directly mean you were smacked.

Jay

 

[Obryn]

The fact that a bow as an improvised weapon does 1d4 damage to me means you probably didn't even hit your opponent. You punked him, made him misstep and stumble into his next attack, something similar to that. Since HP's don't directly mean you were smacked.

It's worse than that, even - you don't have a proficiency bonus to your attack, and whatever enchantments are on the bow are for the bow-part, not the improvised-weapon part. At 1st level, you're only off by +2 or +3, depending. By Paragon, you're off by +5 or +6. And it only gets worse from there.

-O