So alot of DMs rule ranged attacks on prone creatures wrong and ranged attacks in general wrong, this is the logic most DMs follow: is the creature prone? if yes ranged attacks get disadvantage, is the creature is within 5 feet? then the ranged attacks get disadvantage. Before anything else let me copy paste some rules from from the Players Hand Book and the pages they are found on! Ranged Attacks in Close Combat (page 195)
Aiming a ranged attack is more difficult when a foe is next to you. When you make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn't incapacitated.
Prone (page 292)
A prone creature's only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition. The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls. An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
so now they we got that out of the way, notice the prone condition does not mention range attacks at all? this means any attacks (not just melee attacks) on the prone creature that are within 5 feet get a instance of "advantage" and any attacks made further away from this get disadvantage! so any of you guys that use a weapon with reach and think your going to get advantage with your attack roll on a prone creature, you have to be within 5 feet! now that is not too much of a problem but that leaves us with the second part of this: making a ranged attack on a prone hostile creature within 5 feet is made as normal. The creatures prone condition grants one instance of advantage and the creature being hostile grants one instance of disadvantage, so the two cancel each other out. FURTHERMORE if that creature is paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or suffering from any other stuff or effect that rendered it incapacitated this removes your disadvantage from attacks made from 5 feet. so in short if your using crossbow expert and you attack a prone creature, congrats you get advantage! using a bow or casting a ranged spell and want that sweet auto crit on a paralyzed creature? run in there and shove it in there stupid paralyzed face! this drastically changed the way I ran my ranged fighter who had both crossbow expert and sharpshooter, I could knock the creature prone with a maneuver and then get advantage with follow up attacks! or if your playing a warlock and you use a hold person/monster spell, you can run in and get crits on all of your eldritch blast hits! I hope everyone who read this found it interesting and finds uses for it in there games!
I always thought the rules seemed pretty clear on this. Where was the part your friends were getting wrong? Were they granting advantage on reach weapon melee attacks against a prone person?
The creatures prone condition grants one instance of advantage and the creature being hostile grants one instance of disadvantage, so the two cancel each other out. FURTHERMORE if that creature is paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or suffering from any other stuff or effect that rendered it incapacitated this removes your disadvantage from attacks made from 5 feet.
so in short if your using crossbow expert and you attack a prone creature, congrats you get advantage! using a bow or casting a ranged spell and want that sweet auto crit on a paralyzed creature?
As you said they cancel out, this means any further sources of advantage or disadvantage become irrelevant, the attack will be made as normal.
The creatures prone condition grants one instance of advantage and the creature being hostile grants one instance of disadvantage, so the two cancel each other out. FURTHERMORE if that creature is paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or suffering from any other stuff or effect that rendered it incapacitated this removes your disadvantage from attacks made from 5 feet.
so in short if your using crossbow expert and you attack a prone creature, congrats you get advantage! using a bow or casting a ranged spell and want that sweet auto crit on a paralyzed creature?
As you said they cancel out, this means any further sources of advantage or disadvantage become irrelevant, the attack will be made as normal.
No. I think the point he was making was that if you have the crossbow expert feat then you DON’T have disadvantage on ranged attacks with an opponent adjacent. As a result, a ranged weapon attack by a character with the crossbow expert feat against a prone adjacent opponent has advantage.
this drastically changed the way I ran my ranged fighter who had both crossbow expert and sharpshooter, I could knock the creature prone with a maneuver and then get advantage with follow up attacks!
You may want to sit down for this one, but if you use a maneuver to knock someone prone, you're going to get advantage with follow up attacks even if you don't spend two feats in the process. You just use a melee weapon instead of your crossbow in that circumstance.
this drastically changed the way I ran my ranged fighter who had both crossbow expert and sharpshooter, I could knock the creature prone with a maneuver and then get advantage with follow up attacks!
You may want to sit down for this one, but if you use a maneuver to knock someone prone, you're going to get advantage with follow up attacks even if you don't spend two feats in the process. You just use a melee weapon instead of your crossbow in that circumstance.
I'm not sure if you know this but if you going to switch from a range weapon to melee, you have to waste a turn, because most ranged weapons you would use for a ranged fighter (or any other ranged combat class) is two handed meaning you either have to drop your ranged weapon or spend next turn stowing and taking out a weapon, further more if you are a ranged fighter there is a 100% chance you have sharpshooter, so your going to trade your +10 damage on hit for a much lower damage rate? Because a normal 1d8 finesse weapon is way better than a weapon that deals 1d8/1d10+10 damage lol. Just saying I know many people who use the crossbow set up because of how strong it is, a fighter at level 1 with a ranged weapon (using point buy assuming they have 16-17 dex) will have +7 to hit, now let's assume some levels pass and they now have both feats and at least 18-19 DeX, that will be +9 to hit so +4 to hit on sharpshooter is still a good chance to hit, in one of my games my fighter has a crazy +13 to hit normally and +8 with sharpshooter (I have a +2 weapon) with 3 attacks the bonus damage alone is +17 so the lowest i can hit for is 18. So yeah most ranged attacker don't want to use melee because it is alot weaker than there melee
I'm not saying you're wrong on a technical level. I'm just unsure about the practicalities of this situation. You have done a wonderful job explaining the benefits of a ranged specialist and you're right. Someone who invests two feats in specializing in ranged attacks is going to be pretty good at ranged attacks. I'm struggling with the part where you describe the situation of closing the distance to the enemy, use a maneuver to knock the enemy prone, and then shooting them from close range with advantage. Wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier to shoot the enemy from range and not deal with moving into melee range and the "knocking them prone" aspect of combat? You may miss out on advantage, but they also likely won't get to attack you in return. It seems like the opposite of what your character is built for.
And for what it's worth, I disagree with the statement about losing out on the attack action while drawing your sword. Why not let go of your 2h crossbow with one hand and draw a 1h sword then attack with the sword? Certainly you can't use your 2h crossbow one-handed, but you're just carrying it at that point. Then you can stow whichever weapon you prefer at the beginning of your next round and use the attack action as normal. But that is purely academic for me since I still can't wrap my head around why you would charge into melee as a ranged fighter.
Well you forget that both longbows and heavy crossbows (typically what ranged fighters/rangers end up using) have the heavy trait, so it would be like trying to make a attack with a secondary weapon while holding a greatsword or maul. Most of the time the DM would give you disadvantage on this, I seen people cast spells while using a two handed weapon but that is mostly due to the fact your just waving the empty hand or a spell focus/component around.
Also its alot faster and easier just to run up, shoot with your really good weapon rather than your crummy back up weapon
Fighters get a ASI every 2 levels (almost) after level 4, is there a reason not to pick up sharp shooter? Even if you don't use it for the +10 damage it let's you ignore all but full cover
Fighters get a ASI every 2 levels (almost) after level 4, is there a reason not to pick up sharp shooter? Even if you don't use it for the +10 damage it let's you ignore all but full cover
It's closer to 3 levels than 2. Anyways, less than half of all characters use feats. Most characters are also tier 1 or 2 (i.e. levels 1-10), which means only 1-3 ASIs for fighters, 2-4 if they're variant humans.
Some of those characters are going to prioritize maxing out DEX. The highest you can get on any ability score using point buy or standard array (which are mandatory for Adventurer's League) is 17, so it's going to take at least 2 ASIs to max DEX out. So already we know some characters won't pick Sharpshooter for their first 2 ASIs.
Then there's the fact that Sharpshooter isn't even the clear winner among the feat options for ranged builds. Crossbow Expert is arguably a stronger choice if you can use hand crossbows and Lucky is also a popular pick.
Fighters get a ASI every 2 levels (almost) after level 4, is there a reason not to pick up sharp shooter? Even if you don't use it for the +10 damage it let's you ignore all but full cover
It's closer to 3 levels than 2. Anyways, less than half of all characters use feats. Most characters are also tier 1 or 2 (i.e. levels 1-10), which means only 1-3 ASIs for fighters, 2-4 if they're variant humans.
Some of those characters are going to prioritize maxing out DEX. The highest you can get on any ability score using point buy or standard array (which are mandatory for Adventurer's League) is 17, so it's going to take at least 2 ASIs to max DEX out. So already we know some characters won't pick Sharpshooter for their first 2 ASIs.
Then there's the fact that Sharpshooter isn't even the clear winner among the feat options for ranged builds. Crossbow Expert is arguably a stronger choice if you can use hand crossbows and Lucky is also a popular pick.
4, 6 and 8 then 12 14,16 and 19 if I am not mistaken, that is almost every 2 levels after level 4, that is a 7 ASIs!!!! no one needs 14 ability points, most fighters I know (using the point buy) use there second ASI to grab a feat because there is no real rush to a stat being 20, by that point in the game the highest stat any other class will have is 18 so the game is built for +6-8 to hit for players, getting a +1 to hit and damage nets you nothing at that point in the game minus +1 to hit and damage. the whole reason they have that many ASIs is so they can take feats and buff the way they fight! using a greatsword? great weapon master! two two weapon fighting? dual wielder! want more battle master stuff? Martial adept! like polearms? polearm master! like ranged combat? sharpshooter! the fighters main features leveling up are there feats making them the most versatile class in the game, you can have pretty good magic, great ranged, great melee, stupid high AC, tons of HP and so on, and with action surge you can deal tons of damage, late game if your using crossbow master and sharpshooter with 20 dex and a +3 weapon you still have a +11 to hit, each hit will deal at least 16 damage so each turn you can do 64-128 damage, you may not be able to do alot of things but you hit like a truck just being you along with your feats,
4, 6 and 8 then 12 14,16 and 19 if I am not mistaken, that is almost every 2 levels after level 4, that is a 7 ASIs!!!!
Yeah. 20/7 = 2.85. Much closer to three than to two. For Level 10: 10/3 = 3.33.
[REDACTED]
Can't really let bad math just sit here unanswered.
Roughly every 2 level "after" 4 was the claim. How does that stand up? Well, not great,
So we're looking at 5th+. That is 16 levels. In this range that is 6,8,12,14,16,19. So, 6 feats. Averages to every 2.67. Verdict: Closer to every 3 than every 2, for sure.
But what if we did what they were trying to do, and say roughly ever 2 levels after 3rd? Because they did seem to wanna include that 4th level feat. Well, that's 17 levels and 7 feats, so averages to every 2.43.
And that brings us juuuust under the wire, closer to every 2 levels, than every 3.
But is that meaningful? Does this shifting of numbers around really mean anything? No. But at least they fit the word problem as proposed!
It is still a waste of an entire action in order to change weapons.
You get a free "use an object action" on your turn. Also the description of "use and object" also says you can draw a weapon as part of the attack action you use to attack with it.
Also would like to point out for the Heavy property
Heavy. Creatures that are Small or Tiny have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small or Tiny creature to use effectively.
A normal PC could hold that in one hand and pull out another weapon with the other hand. Only tiny and small creatures have issues with them.
Even the two handed property says only when attacking.
Two-Handed. This weapon requires two hands when you attack with it. This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it.
So nothing saying I couldn't shoot drop the crossbow then free action draw a weapon. Or just drop the crossbow and then draw the sword and attack with the sword.
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.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So alot of DMs rule ranged attacks on prone creatures wrong and ranged attacks in general wrong, this is the logic most DMs follow: is the creature prone? if yes ranged attacks get disadvantage, is the creature is within 5 feet? then the ranged attacks get disadvantage. Before anything else let me copy paste some rules from from the Players Hand Book and the pages they are found on!
Ranged Attacks in Close Combat (page 195)
Aiming a ranged attack is more difficult when a foe is next to you. When you make a ranged attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn't incapacitated.
Prone (page 292)
A prone creature's only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls.
An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
so now they we got that out of the way, notice the prone condition does not mention range attacks at all? this means any attacks (not just melee attacks) on the prone creature that are within 5 feet get a instance of "advantage" and any attacks made further away from this get disadvantage! so any of you guys that use a weapon with reach and think your going to get advantage with your attack roll on a prone creature, you have to be within 5 feet! now that is not too much of a problem but that leaves us with the second part of this: making a ranged attack on a prone hostile creature within 5 feet is made as normal. The creatures prone condition grants one instance of advantage and the creature being hostile grants one instance of disadvantage, so the two cancel each other out. FURTHERMORE if that creature is paralyzed, stunned, unconscious or suffering from any other stuff or effect that rendered it incapacitated this removes your disadvantage from attacks made from 5 feet.
so in short if your using crossbow expert and you attack a prone creature, congrats you get advantage! using a bow or casting a ranged spell and want that sweet auto crit on a paralyzed creature? run in there and shove it in there stupid paralyzed face! this drastically changed the way I ran my ranged fighter who had both crossbow expert and sharpshooter, I could knock the creature prone with a maneuver and then get advantage with follow up attacks! or if your playing a warlock and you use a hold person/monster spell, you can run in and get crits on all of your eldritch blast hits! I hope everyone who read this found it interesting and finds uses for it in there games!
I always thought the rules seemed pretty clear on this. Where was the part your friends were getting wrong? Were they granting advantage on reach weapon melee attacks against a prone person?
"Not all those who wander are lost"
As you said they cancel out, this means any further sources of advantage or disadvantage become irrelevant, the attack will be made as normal.
No. I think the point he was making was that if you have the crossbow expert feat then you DON’T have disadvantage on ranged attacks with an opponent adjacent. As a result, a ranged weapon attack by a character with the crossbow expert feat against a prone adjacent opponent has advantage.
You may want to sit down for this one, but if you use a maneuver to knock someone prone, you're going to get advantage with follow up attacks even if you don't spend two feats in the process. You just use a melee weapon instead of your crossbow in that circumstance.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm not sure if you know this but if you going to switch from a range weapon to melee, you have to waste a turn, because most ranged weapons you would use for a ranged fighter (or any other ranged combat class) is two handed meaning you either have to drop your ranged weapon or spend next turn stowing and taking out a weapon, further more if you are a ranged fighter there is a 100% chance you have sharpshooter, so your going to trade your +10 damage on hit for a much lower damage rate? Because a normal 1d8 finesse weapon is way better than a weapon that deals 1d8/1d10+10 damage lol. Just saying I know many people who use the crossbow set up because of how strong it is, a fighter at level 1 with a ranged weapon (using point buy assuming they have 16-17 dex) will have +7 to hit, now let's assume some levels pass and they now have both feats and at least 18-19 DeX, that will be +9 to hit so +4 to hit on sharpshooter is still a good chance to hit, in one of my games my fighter has a crazy +13 to hit normally and +8 with sharpshooter (I have a +2 weapon) with 3 attacks the bonus damage alone is +17 so the lowest i can hit for is 18. So yeah most ranged attacker don't want to use melee because it is alot weaker than there melee
I'm not saying you're wrong on a technical level. I'm just unsure about the practicalities of this situation. You have done a wonderful job explaining the benefits of a ranged specialist and you're right. Someone who invests two feats in specializing in ranged attacks is going to be pretty good at ranged attacks. I'm struggling with the part where you describe the situation of closing the distance to the enemy, use a maneuver to knock the enemy prone, and then shooting them from close range with advantage. Wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier to shoot the enemy from range and not deal with moving into melee range and the "knocking them prone" aspect of combat? You may miss out on advantage, but they also likely won't get to attack you in return. It seems like the opposite of what your character is built for.
And for what it's worth, I disagree with the statement about losing out on the attack action while drawing your sword. Why not let go of your 2h crossbow with one hand and draw a 1h sword then attack with the sword? Certainly you can't use your 2h crossbow one-handed, but you're just carrying it at that point. Then you can stow whichever weapon you prefer at the beginning of your next round and use the attack action as normal. But that is purely academic for me since I still can't wrap my head around why you would charge into melee as a ranged fighter.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Well you forget that both longbows and heavy crossbows (typically what ranged fighters/rangers end up using) have the heavy trait, so it would be like trying to make a attack with a secondary weapon while holding a greatsword or maul. Most of the time the DM would give you disadvantage on this, I seen people cast spells while using a two handed weapon but that is mostly due to the fact your just waving the empty hand or a spell focus/component around.
Also its alot faster and easier just to run up, shoot with your really good weapon rather than your crummy back up weapon
Right on. I disagree with your assessment, but it's a reasonable one. I'm satisfied to leave it at that.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I houserule that crossbows may be fired from the prone position without disadvantage.
I beg to differ.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Fighters get a ASI every 2 levels (almost) after level 4, is there a reason not to pick up sharp shooter? Even if you don't use it for the +10 damage it let's you ignore all but full cover
If your GM doesn't allow Feats, then it's 100% you will not have Sharpshooter =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It's closer to 3 levels than 2. Anyways, less than half of all characters use feats. Most characters are also tier 1 or 2 (i.e. levels 1-10), which means only 1-3 ASIs for fighters, 2-4 if they're variant humans.
Some of those characters are going to prioritize maxing out DEX. The highest you can get on any ability score using point buy or standard array (which are mandatory for Adventurer's League) is 17, so it's going to take at least 2 ASIs to max DEX out. So already we know some characters won't pick Sharpshooter for their first 2 ASIs.
Then there's the fact that Sharpshooter isn't even the clear winner among the feat options for ranged builds. Crossbow Expert is arguably a stronger choice if you can use hand crossbows and Lucky is also a popular pick.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
4, 6 and 8 then 12 14,16 and 19 if I am not mistaken, that is almost every 2 levels after level 4, that is a 7 ASIs!!!! no one needs 14 ability points, most fighters I know (using the point buy) use there second ASI to grab a feat because there is no real rush to a stat being 20, by that point in the game the highest stat any other class will have is 18 so the game is built for +6-8 to hit for players, getting a +1 to hit and damage nets you nothing at that point in the game minus +1 to hit and damage.
the whole reason they have that many ASIs is so they can take feats and buff the way they fight! using a greatsword? great weapon master! two two weapon fighting? dual wielder! want more battle master stuff? Martial adept! like polearms? polearm master! like ranged combat? sharpshooter!
the fighters main features leveling up are there feats making them the most versatile class in the game, you can have pretty good magic, great ranged, great melee, stupid high AC, tons of HP and so on, and with action surge you can deal tons of damage, late game if your using crossbow master and sharpshooter with 20 dex and a +3 weapon you still have a +11 to hit, each hit will deal at least 16 damage so each turn you can do 64-128 damage, you may not be able to do alot of things but you hit like a truck just being you along with your feats,
Yeah. 20/7 = 2.85. Much closer to three than to two. For Level 10: 10/3 = 3.33.
[REDACTED]
It is still a waste of an entire action in order to change weapons.
Can't really let bad math just sit here unanswered.
Roughly every 2 level "after" 4 was the claim. How does that stand up? Well, not great,
So we're looking at 5th+. That is 16 levels. In this range that is 6,8,12,14,16,19. So, 6 feats. Averages to every 2.67. Verdict: Closer to every 3 than every 2, for sure.
But what if we did what they were trying to do, and say roughly ever 2 levels after 3rd? Because they did seem to wanna include that 4th level feat. Well, that's 17 levels and 7 feats, so averages to every 2.43.
And that brings us juuuust under the wire, closer to every 2 levels, than every 3.
But is that meaningful? Does this shifting of numbers around really mean anything? No. But at least they fit the word problem as proposed!
I got quotes!
You get a free "use an object action" on your turn. Also the description of "use and object" also says you can draw a weapon as part of the attack action you use to attack with it.
Also would like to point out for the Heavy property
Heavy. Creatures that are Small or Tiny have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small or Tiny creature to use effectively.
A normal PC could hold that in one hand and pull out another weapon with the other hand. Only tiny and small creatures have issues with them.
Even the two handed property says only when attacking.
Two-Handed. This weapon requires two hands when you attack with it. This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it.
So nothing saying I couldn't shoot drop the crossbow then free action draw a weapon. Or just drop the crossbow and then draw the sword and attack with the sword.
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.