Ranged Weapons and Throwing Weapons - confused with rules


Rules Questions

Liberty's Edge

Hey there!
I have a question about the definition of weapons.
In the rules, there is a table, where all weapons are listed. You can't find Daggers under "Ranged Weapons", but you can make range attacks with them.

The Combat Rules are saying: "If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a friendly character, you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll."

Is a Dagger a range weapon? If not, throwing into meele on that given situation won't let you suffer a -4 penalty, will it?

The other question relies on daggers being ranged weapons:
If you are using the Rapid Shot, could you, if your BAB is 6, make two meele attacks with a dagger and then make a 5ft. step away and throw an additional time (with all attacks at -2 of course)? What the definition of "fire an additional time"?

Thanks for your help!
Greets, Naz.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Almsot any time that you perform any "Ranged" action while the enemy is in combat, you will take a -4 penalty, unless you have the Precise Shot feat. This is to simulate the dangers of hitting your own friend, and the cover that the enemy recieves from moving about in combat. This goes for any weapon, be it a bow or an improvised weapon.. it does not matter.

As for the dagger throwing question, I know not.


It says "throw or shoot", and yes thrown weapons are ranged weapon, so when a dagger is thrown it is a thrown/ranged weapon.

To use rapid shot you have to make more than one ranged attack.

Liberty's Edge

wraithstrike wrote:

It says "throw or shoot", and yes thrown weapons are ranged weapon, so when a dagger is thrown it is a thrown/ranged weapon.

To use rapid shot you have to make more than one ranged attack.

Thats the problem I wanted to point at.

It says "throw or shoot", but it's followed by "a ranged weapon".
So it's, "throw or shoot a ranged weapon".

At this point, I was looking for a rule, that says, that a dagger is a ranged weapon.

The part with rapid shot, that you have to make more than one ranged attack is strickly wrong, if you ask me.


If it has a range increment it counts as a ranged weapon when used as such. So look down the weapons list in the range column to find melee weapons that can also be ranged weapons.


Nazrelle wrote:
The part with rapid shot, that you have to make more than one ranged attack is strickly wrong, if you ask me.
Eh?
PRD wrote:
Benefit: When making a full-attack action with a ranged weapon, you can fire one additional time this round

Emphasis mine.

Melee weapons that can be used as ranged only count as ranged when thrown not when used in melee.

Liberty's Edge

What I ment:
"To use rapid shot you have to make more than one ranged attack."
This would forbid you to use Rapid shot with less than 2 attacks. But for example. A level one fighter with Rapid Shot can attack 2 times with a bow as a full-attack. He only need one ranged attack, not more than one ranged attack to make use of Rapid Shot.

And even then, Rapid shot says, "when making a full-attack with a ranged weapon", not "making a ranged attack".


"fire one additional time" answers the points you make I think?

Liberty's Edge

Ye kinda, the problem here is "fire". You can never fire a throwing weapon I guess...

But thats the part about the definition I ment. This lets me asking myself, if Rapid Shot can be uses with Thrown Weapons in general.


You're really over complicating things. It's really as simple and straightforward as it seems, even if the words aren't all quite correct all the time.


You are ovecomplicating this. The rules are not written like a technical manual. The feats works with ranged weapons and it assumes ranged attacks.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Rapid shot works with thrown weapons, though you need to hold a good many knives (or shuriken, or darts, or whatever) or have the quickdraw feat to rapidly pull out more ammunition (depending on your GM).

Thrown weapons make good roleplaying style material, yet mechanically it tends to be better to reserve thrown weapons for rare occasions when you need to hit someone at range, and have no other options.

The problems are that the ammunition is a lot of weight (carrying 10 knives is a lot heavier than 10 arrows), opponents can usually retrieve and use the weapons you throw at them, and the range of thrown weapons is usually so short that you must worry about point blank shot penalties a lot (thrown knives have a 10 foot range increment, I believe. Point blank is 30 feet or less).

If you are confused - some thrown weapons are ranged only (shuriken, darts). Some weapons are melee if you hold it and strike with it, and ranged if you throw it (knives, spears, some axes).

I hope that clears things up.

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