Prehensile Tail & Swapping a 1-handed for a Bow as a Swift Action?

[kronovan]

I sat in on my son's campaign today and this came up with a Tiefling that had the Prehensile Tail alternate racial trait. He ruled the swapping as a swift action wasn't possible on account of a bow being a weapon that requires 2 hands and being quite long and unwieldy. I figured that was the correct ruling, but it got me thinking so I dove into the CRB and ARG to confirm it.

The ARG states this under the Tiefling alternate racial traits:

"Prehensile Tail: Many tieflings have tails, but some have long, flexible tails that can be used to carry items. While they cannot wield weapons with their tails, they can use them to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on their persons as a swift action. This racial trait replaces fiendish sorcery."

The CRB gives this text for the size of weapons:

"A weapon's size category isn't the same as its size as an object. Instead, a weapon's size category is keyed to the size of the intended wielder. In general, a light weapon is an object two size categories smaller than the wielder, a one-handed weapon is an object one size category smaller than the wielder, and a two-handed weapon is an object of the same size category as the wielder."

CRB then states the following in the description for the 2 different types of bows:

"Longbow: At almost 5 feet in height, a longbow is made up of one solid piece of carefully curved wood. You need two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size."

"Shortbow: A shortbow is made up of one piece of wood, about 3 feet in length. You need two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size."

The way I read that, bows are 2-handed and therefore aren't considered small weapons for a medium sized race like a Tiefling, which would disallow them from swapping one with a 1-handed weapon held by their tail as a swift action. That makes sense to me, especially for the longbow which is 5' long and a bit unwieldy. The player argued briefly that the bows were small weapons on account of their weight, but I don't see anything in the RAW that supports that - otherwise, wouldn't the weapon size text specifically refer to "two-handed melee" weapons? To me the rules seem to state that it's a dimension/bulkiness factor rather than weight that classifies the weapon as being medium sized.

Anyhow, just curious what other folks think about this - did my son have it right?

[graystone]

The problem you run into is that small isn't a game term by itself. You can have a small long spear and a small humanoid and neither of those are light.

In the trait, small is up to the DM to figure out. You can have small unwieldly items and large 'small' items. Myself, I wouldn't have any problem with the tiefling using the trait with a bow. it's light enough to easily hold in one hand and it weighs LESS than some light weapons. [longbow vs Maulaxe, Dwarven, 3lbs vs 5lbs]

[Kazaan]

Another consideration is that light, one-handed, and two-handed don't apply to ranged weapons (except firearms). A Greatsword stepped down one size is wielded as a one-handed weapon but a Bow (either long or short) stepped down one size still takes two hands to wield. Moreover, just because it's a 2-h weapon or a weapon that takes two hands to wield doesn't mean that it's glued to those two hands all the time. You can hold a Greatsword in one hand, maybe hefted over your shoulder, dragging on the ground, or maybe you're just a badass and you give it no additional support beyond the one hand; you just aren't "wielding" it until you grip it properly and take a swing. Likewise, it's quite plausible to hold a Longbow in one hand so holding it in a prehensile tail shouldn't be that much more of a stretch. You run into that troublesome word, 'small' but I think that's more to exclude things like a full suit of plate armor than something like a lightweight weapon that just happens to be long.