Hi Forum, I'm hoping you can weigh in on a subject.
I was DMing a session last night and the players were in combat in a dimly-lit room. One of the PCs caused an NPC to drop his sword. The next PC took his turn. He was in melee with the NPC, and used his attack action, and then wanted to use a free action to kick away the sword that the NPC had dropped.
There is some wiggle-room around what constitutes a free action, such as picking up a weapon from the floor.
In my opinion, locating the sword on the floor of a dimly-lit room in the heat of combat, and then putting enough strength into kicking the object to move it more than 5 feet away from the NPC (so they couldn't pick it up without moving out of melee), would be equivalent to using another full action.
But this ruling wasn't entirely satisfactory, so I thought I'd ask if you have any opinions?
p.s. Thinking about it now, if the PC wanted to deprive the NPC of using the weapon, he could have picked up the NPC's dropped sword himself... but what about kicking it?
p.p.s. if the sword was dropped in the NPC's five-foot-cube-space, would the PC trigger a reaction attack by trying to reach in and pick it up?
Well, you can also combine kicking a stone with a normal action. And while a stone is much lighter and smaller, that might also be the problem here, because while fighting, hitting a small stone with a kick can be much harder then hitting a weapon on the ground with your foot.
i don't see how kicking a weapon out of the way is unreasonable when they can bend over and pick it up in the heat of battle. Once you bend over you have taken your eyes off the enemy kicking the object does not require that,
I think it comes down to where the weapon is dropped. If the PC drops the weapon in their own five-foot-space, then there isn't a problem with the PC bending down to pick it up (as a free action), even in the heat of combat.
The problem arises when it is the NPC who drops the weapon in their own five-foot-space (i.e. at their feet), and the PC wants to reach into the NPC's space to retrieve the weapon.
The PC cannot occupy the space where the weapon is dropped because the NPC is there, so they will have to reach across into another character's occupied space.
I am leaning towards being able to use an action (similar to dodge) to reach into the other player's space to interact with the object (pick it up or kick it away), but that would cost an action. If the PC has already spent their action attacking into the NPC's space, then returning to that space to retrieve an object would be too much.
But please keep the ideas coming, I want as many opinions as possible.
I’m of the opinion that free actions are mostly inconsequential, if requires an action to disarm a creature, it should require an action to keep them disarmed.
I would allow a short kick of maybe 5 ft, 10ft max, but for anything important I would likely treat it like throwing and require a roll because *drama*.
Regardless of the official rules I’d allow it cuz it encourages creative play when combat can sometimes become boring, restrictive, and repetitive. It’s not like they’re asking to do something game breaking. I’d personally label this as “interacting with an object” and just have them make some sort of check with an appropriate DC based on the circumstances.
Under combat, the rules say you get one free object interaction:
You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack.
But it's also clearly the DM's call based on the difficulty of the task:
The DM might require you to use an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. For instance, the DM could reasonably expect you to use an action to open a stuck door or turn a crank to lower a drawbridge.
So, is "kicking away a weapon" more similar in difficulty to "opening a stuck door" or to "opening a door with your foot"? DM call.
The things I'd probably consider here are:
1) How easily can the character see the dropped weapon? If it's a big weapon and the room is just dimly lit by some torches, then it's probably easy to see. If it's a small dagger and the room is actually in complete darkness except for one candle far away, then maybe not.
2) How easy is the weapon to kick away? If it's a huge giant's club, er, probably no. If it's a goblin's shortbow, sure.
3) Where'd the weapon get dropped? If the enemy dropped it literally in front of them, it's probably challenging to grab it out from under them! If it's dropped in the PC's space, then it's easier.
I'd probably allow it, but with a check based on a DC set by those things. So maybe DC10 if everything's going the player's way (easy to reach and see light weapon), up to 20 if it's something really tough (hard to see, enemy is right on top of the weapon, weapon is hard to kick). Probably Dexterity - Sleight of hand or acrobatics?
Under combat, the rules say you get one free object interaction:
You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack.
But it's also clearly the DM's call based on the difficulty of the task:
The DM might require you to use an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. For instance, the DM could reasonably expect you to use an action to open a stuck door or turn a crank to lower a drawbridge.
So, is "kicking away a weapon" more similar in difficulty to "opening a stuck door" or to "opening a door with your foot"? DM call.
The things I'd probably consider here are:
1) How easily can the character see the dropped weapon? If it's a big weapon and the room is just dimly lit by some torches, then it's probably easy to see. If it's a small dagger and the room is actually in complete darkness except for one candle far away, then maybe not.
2) How easy is the weapon to kick away? If it's a huge giant's club, er, probably no. If it's a goblin's shortbow, sure.
3) Where'd the weapon get dropped? If the enemy dropped it literally in front of them, it's probably challenging to grab it out from under them! If it's dropped in the PC's space, then it's easier.
I'd probably allow it, but with a check based on a DC set by those things. So maybe DC10 if everything's going the player's way (easy to reach and see light weapon), up to 20 if it's something really tough (hard to see, enemy is right on top of the weapon, weapon is hard to kick). Probably Dexterity - Sleight of hand or acrobatics?
I couldn't agree more, I think you definitely need to set a DC according to the size of the weapon, maybe you could say it isn't a free action if the weapon is too big or lower the DC if you spend an actual action dedicated kicking that weapon away.
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Thank you very much for your opinions, guys. They are all welcome.
It's good to discuss the generalities of these situations, so we can have a framework for ruling in case it comes up again.
A bit more info on the specific situation from my session: the weapon was a battleaxe (Izek Strazni's battleaxe from Curse of Strahd). The combat took place in the Burgomeister of Vallaki's attic, and it was very dimly lit. The only light in the space was coming from the flames in Izek's palm (which only really appear when he casts a range spell, so it wouldn't have been apparent in melee) and an oil lamp light coming through the open door to Victor's workshop about 25 feet away. The PC who wanted to kick the battleaxe away didn't have darkvision.
The weapon was dropped in the NPC's space, so stepping on it, and keeping a foot on it, might have been difficult. Maybe a contested strength check. Although I think anything that requires a check roll in combat (i.e. perception to see the axe) requires an action (or bonus action), so it couldn't be done with a free action.
As to whether kicking away a weapon is more difficult than opening a stuck door, that might come down to whether the weapon in the PC's space or the NPC's space.
I am all in favour of encouraging creativity in combat, and if the PC said they wanted to do it as their action, that would be no problem. However, the PC wanted to use their action to attack (two attacks at 5th level), use a bonus action to shield shove, and use a free action to kick the axe away. My gut feeling was that the free action on top of the rest was a bit too much for a single round of combat. We discussed it as a group, and had a quick look through the reference books, but couldn't come up with a definitive answer.
I would think about player expectations here. Someone rolled a crit and you have a homebrew crit table, which implies you all want crits to be awesome.
Then they rolled a crit effect that disarms. Against a lot of enemies this would be useless, so getting an effect that actually changes the battle is another bit of luck on top of critting.
But then you basically wanted the overall effect to be that on its next turn, the NPC just uses a free action to pick its weapon back up? That doesn't feel awesome, it just feels like a wasted crit effect. Your player was trying to avoid that to make sure the crit effect actually had an impact on the battle.
If I were playing and we were bending the rules to make crits cooler, but then when a crit resulted in something cool and another player wanted to roll with it you fall back to poring over the rules, it feels like you're moving the goalposts. If you want crits to be awesome, embrace it and let them be awesome. If you find yourself repeatedly trying to scale back the impact of these extra effects on your game, maybe you shouldn't use the crit table in the first place.
I realize this isn't really what you were asking about, but context is important when you're in the grey area of the rules. Disarming is a very messy mechanic in 5e and it can be really good or it can be worthless. If it happens very rarely, it should probably be really good.
You both make valid points. It definitely would have been very cool to have a PC kick the weapon away, and it is a shame that it didn't get to happen.
Although, after the discussion we had during the session, and my ruling that it would require an action to kick away the weapon as it fell too close to the NPC, the next player to take their turn in combat was another PC, 10 feet away from the melee.
My ruling was made with the understanding that this next player would be able to kick the weapon away as they had expressed an interest in doing that during the discussion.
That player joined the melee and decided not to use their action to kick the weapon away (which would have meant that if the NPC wanted to retrieve their weapon on their next turn it would trigger two opportunity attacks, one for each PC in melee) but to use their attack instead, with advantage for flanking. So, as a group, they decided it wasn't cool enough to spend an action on.
But maybe also I should just loosen up and let them have done it anyway?
Hi Forum, I'm hoping you can weigh in on a subject.
I was DMing a session last night and the players were in combat in a dimly-lit room. One of the PCs caused an NPC to drop his sword. The next PC took his turn. He was in melee with the NPC, and used his attack action, and then wanted to use a free action to kick away the sword that the NPC had dropped.
There is some wiggle-room around what constitutes a free action, such as picking up a weapon from the floor.
In my opinion, locating the sword on the floor of a dimly-lit room in the heat of combat, and then putting enough strength into kicking the object to move it more than 5 feet away from the NPC (so they couldn't pick it up without moving out of melee), would be equivalent to using another full action.
But this ruling wasn't entirely satisfactory, so I thought I'd ask if you have any opinions?
p.s. Thinking about it now, if the PC wanted to deprive the NPC of using the weapon, he could have picked up the NPC's dropped sword himself... but what about kicking it?
p.p.s. if the sword was dropped in the NPC's five-foot-cube-space, would the PC trigger a reaction attack by trying to reach in and pick it up?
From the PHB:
A free action you can combine with a move action can be e.g.
kick a small stone
I would say, kicking a weapon on the ground during your move action is fine.
Thanks for your reply.
I can see kicking a small stone in your own five-foot-space during a move action as being acceptable.
But what if the weapon is a battleaxe (4 lbs), and is dropped in the NPC's five-foot-space? The PC would have to reach into the NPC's space to do it.
And would this trigger a reaction attack?
Well, you can also combine kicking a stone with a normal action. And while a stone is much lighter and smaller, that might also be the problem here, because while fighting, hitting a small stone with a kick can be much harder then hitting a weapon on the ground with your foot.
i don't see how kicking a weapon out of the way is unreasonable when they can bend over and pick it up in the heat of battle. Once you bend over you have taken your eyes off the enemy kicking the object does not require that,
Thanks for your input.
I think it comes down to where the weapon is dropped. If the PC drops the weapon in their own five-foot-space, then there isn't a problem with the PC bending down to pick it up (as a free action), even in the heat of combat.
The problem arises when it is the NPC who drops the weapon in their own five-foot-space (i.e. at their feet), and the PC wants to reach into the NPC's space to retrieve the weapon.
The PC cannot occupy the space where the weapon is dropped because the NPC is there, so they will have to reach across into another character's occupied space.
I am leaning towards being able to use an action (similar to dodge) to reach into the other player's space to interact with the object (pick it up or kick it away), but that would cost an action. If the PC has already spent their action attacking into the NPC's space, then returning to that space to retrieve an object would be too much.
But please keep the ideas coming, I want as many opinions as possible.
Keep in mind, the 5 ft. grid is just a combat helper. There is much room to maneuver. Be reasonable and let the players be creative.
I’m of the opinion that free actions are mostly inconsequential, if requires an action to disarm a creature, it should require an action to keep them disarmed.
I would allow a short kick of maybe 5 ft, 10ft max, but for anything important I would likely treat it like throwing and require a roll because *drama*.
Regardless of the official rules I’d allow it cuz it encourages creative play when combat can sometimes become boring, restrictive, and repetitive. It’s not like they’re asking to do something game breaking. I’d personally label this as “interacting with an object” and just have them make some sort of check with an appropriate DC based on the circumstances.
Under combat, the rules say you get one free object interaction:
But it's also clearly the DM's call based on the difficulty of the task:
So, is "kicking away a weapon" more similar in difficulty to "opening a stuck door" or to "opening a door with your foot"? DM call.
The things I'd probably consider here are:
1) How easily can the character see the dropped weapon? If it's a big weapon and the room is just dimly lit by some torches, then it's probably easy to see. If it's a small dagger and the room is actually in complete darkness except for one candle far away, then maybe not.
2) How easy is the weapon to kick away? If it's a huge giant's club, er, probably no. If it's a goblin's shortbow, sure.
3) Where'd the weapon get dropped? If the enemy dropped it literally in front of them, it's probably challenging to grab it out from under them! If it's dropped in the PC's space, then it's easier.
I'd probably allow it, but with a check based on a DC set by those things. So maybe DC10 if everything's going the player's way (easy to reach and see light weapon), up to 20 if it's something really tough (hard to see, enemy is right on top of the weapon, weapon is hard to kick). Probably Dexterity - Sleight of hand or acrobatics?
I couldn't agree more, I think you definitely need to set a DC according to the size of the weapon, maybe you could say it isn't a free action if the weapon is too big or lower the DC if you spend an actual action dedicated kicking that weapon away.
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
what about instead of kicking it they step on the weapon the enemy dropped when they were disarmed?
How did this happen?
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Probably Command or Heat Metal.
Homebrew. The previous player rolled a natural 20 with his crossbow shot and so we rolled n
Homebrew. The previous player rolled a natural 20 with his crossbow shot and so we rolled on a fumble table with a D100.
As a result, the NPC took extra damage and dropped their weapon.
Thank you very much for your opinions, guys. They are all welcome.
It's good to discuss the generalities of these situations, so we can have a framework for ruling in case it comes up again.
A bit more info on the specific situation from my session: the weapon was a battleaxe (Izek Strazni's battleaxe from Curse of Strahd). The combat took place in the Burgomeister of Vallaki's attic, and it was very dimly lit. The only light in the space was coming from the flames in Izek's palm (which only really appear when he casts a range spell, so it wouldn't have been apparent in melee) and an oil lamp light coming through the open door to Victor's workshop about 25 feet away. The PC who wanted to kick the battleaxe away didn't have darkvision.
The weapon was dropped in the NPC's space, so stepping on it, and keeping a foot on it, might have been difficult. Maybe a contested strength check. Although I think anything that requires a check roll in combat (i.e. perception to see the axe) requires an action (or bonus action), so it couldn't be done with a free action.
As to whether kicking away a weapon is more difficult than opening a stuck door, that might come down to whether the weapon in the PC's space or the NPC's space.
I am all in favour of encouraging creativity in combat, and if the PC said they wanted to do it as their action, that would be no problem. However, the PC wanted to use their action to attack (two attacks at 5th level), use a bonus action to shield shove, and use a free action to kick the axe away. My gut feeling was that the free action on top of the rest was a bit too much for a single round of combat. We discussed it as a group, and had a quick look through the reference books, but couldn't come up with a definitive answer.
This is all very helpful, so thanks.
I would think about player expectations here. Someone rolled a crit and you have a homebrew crit table, which implies you all want crits to be awesome.
Then they rolled a crit effect that disarms. Against a lot of enemies this would be useless, so getting an effect that actually changes the battle is another bit of luck on top of critting.
But then you basically wanted the overall effect to be that on its next turn, the NPC just uses a free action to pick its weapon back up? That doesn't feel awesome, it just feels like a wasted crit effect. Your player was trying to avoid that to make sure the crit effect actually had an impact on the battle.
If I were playing and we were bending the rules to make crits cooler, but then when a crit resulted in something cool and another player wanted to roll with it you fall back to poring over the rules, it feels like you're moving the goalposts. If you want crits to be awesome, embrace it and let them be awesome. If you find yourself repeatedly trying to scale back the impact of these extra effects on your game, maybe you shouldn't use the crit table in the first place.
I realize this isn't really what you were asking about, but context is important when you're in the grey area of the rules. Disarming is a very messy mechanic in 5e and it can be really good or it can be worthless. If it happens very rarely, it should probably be really good.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Given those circumstances, you diminish the "coolness" of it all by not hand waving (and allowing it for free) the subsequent kicking of the weapon.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
You both make valid points. It definitely would have been very cool to have a PC kick the weapon away, and it is a shame that it didn't get to happen.
Although, after the discussion we had during the session, and my ruling that it would require an action to kick away the weapon as it fell too close to the NPC, the next player to take their turn in combat was another PC, 10 feet away from the melee.
My ruling was made with the understanding that this next player would be able to kick the weapon away as they had expressed an interest in doing that during the discussion.
That player joined the melee and decided not to use their action to kick the weapon away (which would have meant that if the NPC wanted to retrieve their weapon on their next turn it would trigger two opportunity attacks, one for each PC in melee) but to use their attack instead, with advantage for flanking. So, as a group, they decided it wasn't cool enough to spend an action on.
But maybe also I should just loosen up and let them have done it anyway?