Question about reach and AOO

[tim01300]

So tonight in our game a question came up about picking up a weapon off the ground and provoking an attack of opportunity. A character dropped his weapon, later moved back 5 feet from his opponent. So the weapon is on the space in between them. On his next turn he wanted to reach into that square to pick up his weapon.

1) Can you pick up something that isn't in your 5 foot square?

2) Would this provoke an attack of opportunity? Our dm said yes because he is reaching into the opponents threat range, even though its only his arm reaching in.

3)The player also wanted to know if he could tumble as a move and pick up his weapon as his action while doing so. Is this doable?

[Duke of Urrel]

I would say that anyone who agrees with proposition number one must also accept number two. In other words, if you can pick up an item in an adjacent square, then I believe you can be attacked by any enemy who can reach that square, too. Fair is fair.

Number three is trickier. If we keep strictly to the Rules As Written, Tumble skill applies only to moves (and to falling damage), but not to actions. However, suppose we decided to apply Tumble skill to this particular move-equivalent action, just because it's cool. I think it is cool, so let's propose a house rule. Let's say that if you make two Tumble checks at DC 15 – one to move forward and back five feet and the other to pick up the item while you roll over it – then you manage to pick up the item without provoking any attacks of opportunity. Failing the first Tumble check would mean that you provoke attacks of opportunity normally. Failing the second check would mean that you fail to pick up the item.

[Curmudgeon]

Drop an Item

Dropping an item in your space or into an adjacent square is a free action. 1) The PC could have dropped the weapon into the target square in the first place. But yes, if you can drop a weapon into an adjacent square, you can also pick it up from an adjacent square.

2) You provoke an AoO when you pick up an item. However, all AoOs are resolved in the space the character occupies. Otherwise, you'd be provoking AoOs every time you swung a weapon to attack into an adjacent space. In the simplified model of D&D, your body parts are never considered to leave your space; instead, your "natural reach" property allows such actions without any specific body parts being elsewhere.

3) Sorry, but there's no option to do that. You can Tumble as part of movement (anything which changes your square), but not during some other action which doesn't involve movement out of your square.