Reach and ranged weapons?

[SangoProduction]

So. Imagine we have a half orc with 50ft reach by some unholy combination of size, feats, and....weirdness. He can dink someone proficently from 50 ft away. But if he whips out a spear and tries to chunk it further than 20 feet (still within range that he could simply touch), does he actually start taking range increment penalties? Can he not just hold on to it until he's up the the end of where he can normally reach, and then chuck it? Maybe to reach-5?

(Also, I find the thought of someone coiling up 30-40 feet of arms just so they can launch something from just above their head to be something of a funny image.)

[HouseRules]

Oh, another real world physics problem.

Unless those size increases say that they affect your weapons, then you have to look at the weapons with size increase.
Range increments only exist in small and medium sizes, so range increments for other sizes requires DM Fiat.

[Lapak]

So. Imagine we have a half orc with 50ft reach by some unholy combination of size, feats, and....weirdness. He can dink someone proficently from 50 ft away. But if he whips out a spear and tries to chunk it further than 20 feet (still within range that he could simply touch), does he actually start taking range increment penalties? Can he not just hold on to it until he's up the the end of where he can normally reach, and then chuck it? Maybe to reach-5?

(Also, I find the thought of someone coiling up 30-40 feet of arms just so they can launch something from just above their head to be something of a funny image.)This is a pretty interesting question. I can see the argument that the reach should be a benefit for thrown weapon, but I can also see an argument that range penalties have something to do with distance from your sensory organs at least in part, and hitting a guy with a javelin is still pretty hard (maybe even harder?) when the starting point of the launch is 50 feet away from your eyes. That's definitely true with non-thrown weapons; I can't even imagine trying to remote-fire a bow that's 20 feet away from me and hoping to hit things.

[SangoProduction]

Oh, another real world physics problem.

Unless those size increases say that they affect your weapons, then you have to look at the weapons with size increase.
Range increments only exist in small and medium sizes, so range increments for other sizes requires DM Fiat.

Wait really? It specifies a size in range increments?

[AmeVulpes]

Storm Giant (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Storm_Giant) has 180ft range increments with their bow. This might be an exception to allow them to siege toe-to-toe with other giants, but it's been on my mind for a while how exactly this range is determined, because if it's not outright fiat, then I have no idea how it is determined.
It's not stated as a racial ability or anything, just right next to their preference for SLAs.
EDIT: The range works out to 110ft (base for a composite longbow) plus 5 feet per STR rating. Composite Longbow, as far as I know, doesn't extend range per STR rating, though. Maybe a coincidence.

Food for thread.

[DrMotives]

Wait really? It specifies a size in range increments?

Nah, it doesn't, but...

So a light crossbow has an 80 foot range increment. A heavy crossbow has a 120 foot range increment. A ballista, as a huge sized crossbow, still has a range increment of 120 feet. While this isn't as explicit as it could possibly be, it looks like sizing does not affect range increment, unless you decide a ballista is an upsized light crossbow instead of an upsized heavy one.

[Seerow]

Yeah by raw it can have silly side effects. But I'd be interested in seeing Homebrew attempts to fix it. Off the cuff, range increment being multiplied by the same amount as base reach could be interesting. So example character with 50ft reach with a reach weapon has 25ft native reach, so all of his ranges are multiplied by 5. So the spear ends up with a 100ft increment. But of course this leads to longbow with 550ft base range increment, and begs the question of what you do once you have a character small enough to have 0ft reach.

[SangoProduction]

This is a pretty interesting question. I can see the argument that the reach should be a benefit for thrown weapon, but I can also see an argument that range penalties have something to do with distance from your sensory organs at least in part, and hitting a guy with a javelin is still pretty hard (maybe even harder?) when the starting point of the launch is 50 feet away from your eyes. That's definitely true with non-thrown weapons; I can't even imagine trying to remote-fire a bow that's 20 feet away from me and hoping to hit things.

To be honest, even if I had 40ft long tentacle arms, and could lunge 10ft, I doubt I'd ever be able to hit someone in "melee" with them regardless of being melee or range.

[HouseRules]

Yeah by raw it can have silly side effects. But I'd be interested in seeing Homebrew attempts to fix it. Off the cuff, range increment being multiplied by the same amount as base reach could be interesting. So example character with 50ft reach with a reach weapon has 25ft native reach, so all of his ranges are multiplied by 5. So the spear ends up with a 100ft increment. But of course this leads to longbow with 550ft base range increment, and begs the question of what you do once you have a character small enough to have 0ft reach.

Every cat would hate the rules for giving their TINY size character 0 foot reach.

Edit: The 2.5-foot square is a more realistic homebrew where tiny creatures have non-zero reach, but then fine and diminutive creatures still have problems.

[upho]

So. Imagine we have a half orc with 50ft reach by some unholy combination of size, feats, and....weirdness. He can dink someone proficently from 50 ft away. But if he whips out a spear and tries to chunk it further than 20 feet (still within range that he could simply touch), does he actually start taking range increment penalties? Can he not just hold on to it until he's up the the end of where he can normally reach, and then chuck it? Maybe to reach-5?

(Also, I find the thought of someone coiling up 30-40 feet of arms just so they can launch something from just above their head to be something of a funny image.)The rules are actually this stupid, yes. The solution I personally use in my games is:

Creatures add their natural reach to the first range increment of thrown (but not projectile) weapon attacks. So +5 for a typical Medium creature, +10 for a Large, +15 for a Huge a.s.o.
For each size category above Medium a ranged weapon is designed for, a creature able to wield the weapon without penalties due to mismatched sizes adds +5' to the first range increment of weapons with an increment x 5 max range, and +10' to the first range increment of weapons with an increment x 10 max range.
Set range limitations on abilities are also increased accordingly (so a "ranged attack within 30 ft." ability also increases according to the above).
This has no effect on ranged touch attacks or ranged attacks without range increments.

So a typical storm giant (Huge humanoid) throwing a spear would have a 35' first increment range (20' spear Medium range, +15' natural reach, +10' Huge size), and the usual 20' range for increment 2-5. The same storm giant would also have a 130' first increment range with his composite longbow (110' composite longbow Medium range, +20' Huge size), and the usual 110' range for increment 2-10. The same giant would instead have a 60' spear and 140' bow first range increment if affected by enlarge person and long arm, and a 70' spear and 150' bow first range increment if instead affected by say metamorphosis or an augmented expansion.

On its own, this of course isn't nearly enough to make thrown weapons anywhere near competitive with projectile weapons, but at least less stupid and more useful in certain situations. The increase for weapons with a 10 x increment max range could be said to be needlessly picky, and could probably safely be dropped with minimal impact on most games.


To be honest, even if I had 40ft long tentacle arms, and could lunge 10ft, I doubt I'd ever be able to hit someone in "melee" with them regardless of being melee or range.These penalties are already included in the size rules by default (the +/-0/1/2/4/8 to attack). Some reach increases also come with their own penalties, such as in the case of longarm bracers (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/longarm-bracers/).

[SangoProduction]

sounds reasonable.

[KillianHawkeye]

Every cat would hate the rules for giving their TINY size character 0 foot reach.

Have you ever actually SEEN a cat or other small animal fight? They absolutely would need to be in the same 5-foot space as whatever they're fighting.

IMO, the only place where the lack of reach of Tiny and smaller creatures breaks down is when you give a Tiny long spear to a pixie or similarly-sized creature capable of wielding weapons. My house rule would be to give that character 5-foot reach with their long spear, but that's a pretty specific edge case that doesn't come up very often.

[HouseRules]

Have you ever actually SEEN a cat or other small animal fight? They absolutely would need to be in the same 5-foot space as whatever they're fighting.

IMO, the only place where the lack of reach of Tiny and smaller creatures breaks down is when you give a Tiny long spear to a pixie or similarly-sized creature capable of wielding weapons. My house rule would be to give that character 5-foot reach with their long spear, but that's a pretty specific edge case that doesn't come up very often.

The point is that Tiny or smaller creatures cannot move into Small or Larger creature space without activating AoO even if they do a melee attack (Edit: or other exceptions to AoO that Small or Larger creatures have)!

[KillianHawkeye]

The point is that Tiny or smaller creatures cannot move into Small or Larger creature space without activating AoO even if they do a melee attack (Edit: or other exceptions to AoO that Small or Larger creatures have)!

Yes, and? I don't see the issue. :smallconfused: