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Sorry if I am asking a question that has already been beaten (no pun intended) to death but over the weekend I ran into an issue while using my whip in combat.
While I understand that attacking with reach into melee may incur a -2 cover penalty when using a whip if my target is behind another person or has "cover" from some other means. But I was told that since I was attacking into melee with my whip that I suffered a -4 penalty for my attacks since I did not have Precise Shot feat. This made my total attack penalty -6 (-4 [attacking in melee] + -2 [cover from my ally]). I am not sure if this was changed with any errata to reach weapons in general.
Also, reading the description, I wonder if the wording of within the whip caused the confusion.
"Using a whip provokes an attack of opportunity, just as if you had used a ranged weapon".
Again, I apologies for bringing this subject up if it has been debated and discussed many moons ago. If this was a mistake on the part of my DM, where would I get an official ruling that I may keep with me if this comes up again at future games days or Cons?
Cheers,
The only way whips are like ranged weapons is that they provoke when used. In all other respects they're a melee reach weapon. Precise shot doesn't come into it.
You are adept at firing ranged attacks into melee.
Prerequisite: Point-Blank Shot.
Benefit: You can shoot or throw ranged weapons at an opponent engaged in melee without taking the standard –4 penalty on your attack roll.
Where the confusion might have come is that in 3.0 D&D and back, whips were treated in all respects as ranged weapons, but that hasn't been the case since 3.5