Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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There are several melee weapons with the Thrown property. The Thrown property tells you when those weapons can be drawn: “you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack, and you can draw that weapon as part of the attack”. It seems that you can freely draw these weapons even when the attack isn’t part of the Attack action, such as the granted Reaction attack from a Battle Master’s Commander’s Strike or a Bonus Action attack from the Light weapon property. But is the easily drawn aspect of the property dependent on the weapon being used to make a ranged attack or does it still function for melee attacks? Could you, for instance, draw a dagger as part of an Opportunity Attack? Opportunity Attacks must be melee attacks, but there’s nothing about them being restricted to a weapon you’re already holding.
I can see someone reading “you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack” and “you can draw that weapon as part of the attack” as two independent clauses. But other people might see “the attack” as referring to “a ranged attack”. Is there a community consensus or a semi-official ruling on this?
Just based on the normal rules of English, one would assume that the second part of that sentence refers to the thing being described in the first part of the sentence, and is not intended to be read as a whole separate thing.
pronouns: he/she/they
To me you can't draw a Thrown weapon as part of an attack unless it's a ranged attack with which you throw it.
You otherwise generally draw such weapon as part of the Attack action or with Time-Limited Object Interactions.
If they had written "that attack" or "it", you would certainly be correct. As it's written I think there's still ambiguity, although switching articles from "a ranged attack" to "the attack" does favor your reading. If instead the rule had been written as, "If a weapon has the Thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged attack, and you can draw that weapon as part of an attack" then the common reading would point in the other direction.
I'm not sure how much logical sense it makes for the effort to draw the same weapon to change based on whether you're attacking in melee or ranged, but that's a separate discussion.
It could have been ambiguous if it instead said ''as part of an attack'' but ''as part of the attack'' refers a ranged attack mentioned previously so.
It's a game design decision (not a realism thing). They wanted you to always be able to serially draw thrown weapons for throwing, but not allow extra weapon juggling in Bonus Actions, Reactions, etc.
@MoribundEidolon, if it's useful for you, I'd like to share this summary I posted in a related thread:
Also, I remember asking a similar question to yours:
I think it’s fair to say the community has weighed in and the consensus is decisively on the side of the Thrown property having no impact on drawing the weapon for a melee attack. The way Thrown works does lead to some odd interactions, like the aforementioned Commander’s Strike letting you draw a weapon but only if you throw it afterwards and having additional opportunities to equip or unequip weapons during the Attack action while you draw and attack with a Thrown weapon, but that’s par for the course I suppose.
Thank you for your input, but I am a little sad that Thrown wouldn’t make an empty-handed Rogue with a sheathed dagger more of a threat with Opportunity Attacks. Apart from Thrown, as far as I’m aware, there isn’t any game mechanic that would let you draw a weapon when it’s not your turn.
Huh. It just occurred to me that somebody with the Dual Wielder feat could draw two weapons when they draw a weapon to throw.
I don't think it's meaningfully useful, but you can do it.
That is an interesting rules interaction. If you were empty-handed, you could draw two Daggers at the same time and throw one as part of your Opportunity Attack. I can't really think of any time that would be particularly useful, since you could just draw then second one on your turn, but you could do it if you wanted.