Ranged Combat Maneuvers

[Jiggy]

I looked for a thread on this, and the most relevant one I found was really old and not very conclusive, so I wanted to ask afresh:

Do you use STR or DEX in your CMB when attempting a trip with a bolas? On the one hand, a CMB roll is considered a type of attack roll (and therefore affected by Weapon Focus and whatnot), so being a ranged attack, DEX sounds right. On the other hand, text on Combat Maneuvers states that you roll a d20 and add your CMB *instead* of your normal attack bonus, and CMB uses STR. So strictly RAW, it looks like it should be the normal STR-based CMB, but flavorwise that seems really wonky. Is there any official ruling on this?

[Asphesteros]

Str is used for the damage bonus for thrown weapons, so there is a hook to say Str could enhanse the effectivness of thrown bolas. On the other hand the CMB rules include the line "These bonuses must be applicable to the weapon or attack used to perform the maneuver" which you could interpret to mean to use Dex rather than Str for ranged combat manuvers - but I'd be more inclined to do that if there was some kind of bow or crossbow which let you do a combat manuver, rather than a thrown weapon, for the reason above.

[Jiggy]

Asphesteros wrote:

On the other hand the CMB rules include the line "These bonuses must be applicable to the weapon or attack used to perform the maneuver" which you could interpret to mean to use Dex rather than Str for ranged combat manuvers

If you look at the context, the sentence you quoted comes right after "When you attempt to perform a combat maneuver, make an attack roll and add your CMB in place of your normal attack bonus. Add any bonuses you currently have on attack rolls due to spells, feats, and other effects". Going by grammar of the English language, "these bonuses" in the line you quoted refers to the part I bolded, not to the CMB itself.

I guess that leaves us (barring further rebuttal from yourself or others) with the use of STR.

[Asphesteros]

Yea, that's why I gave it a nuanced "which you could interpret" rather than commit to a "by RAW". I think this one isn't raw-able, gotta go rai. If the process was broken down to a ranged tough attack, which on a hit let you do the combat manuver, it'd be easy, and would make more intuative sense. 3.5 did use touch attacks in a two step process, but they wanted to simplify that, which is why they created CMB/CMD. In that spirit, and as you correctly point out the grammer, rai is probably to leave CMB be, even if it is at range or whatever the circumstance.

[arthurthearcher]

Reincarnating this thread. What about the Fighter Archer archetype's ability to do ranged combat maneuvers with a bow? There's nothing that states anywhere to use DEX instead of STR to calculate the CMB for this, but that would seem to make sense. Thoughts?

[Saethori]

For shame, Animate Thread is an [evil] spell!

The closest we have at the moment is the rules regarding Weapon Finesse, and it heavily implies that the ability to use Dexterity is not exclusive to finesse weapons, but rather any weapon you would normally use Dexterity on the attack roll for.