Sorry, I feel like this is a question I should be able to find the answer to on my own, but I'm having trouble. How does it work if you are attacking with a melee weapon from above your opponent. Say you have a reach weapon like a glaive. Can I have him stand on a table or something where he is out of reach of a standard melee attack but still able to strike down on opponents? if so how high up does he need to be?
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The rules for reach can be extrapolated for 3D. Imagine your PC taking up a five foot cube of space. You threaten all cubes that are adjacent to and above you. If your reach is ten feet, you threaten two cubes out. If you have reach, and your opponent doesn't, you need a five foot cube between you for it to work.
A mere table would probably not get the result you wanted, though it would grant you a high ground bonus. You'd want to be ten feet off the ground to do the reach weapon thing while staying out of reach.
thanks guys
To clarify further, a normal human can hit targets up to 10' off the ground. He hits his own 5x5 cube, and he hits the 5x5 cube above it too. Also, all those around him. So it's like he's in the center of an orginal Rubix Cube and can hit every bit of it, his own cube, the 8 cubes around him on the same level, the 9 cubes below his feet, and the 9 cubes, over his head - a total of 27 cubes he can reach normally.
Someone with Reach extends that (but he might also lose the closer squares adjacent to him depending on how he gets Reach).
So your "table" needs to be at least 10' tall or his enemies on the ground could still attack him. Also, if the table is less than 10' (say, 5'), then his glaive will make it so he cannot hit anyone adjacent to him, exactly as if he were standing on the floor instead.
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The confusion during conversations like this is how people define/interpret distances.
A reach weapon allows a medium-sized wielder to strike opponents 10 feet away.
But, on a grid, where the wielder already takes up a 5 foot square of his own, this isn't really true.
He can target people between 5 and 10 feet away from him, and cannot target people between 0 and 5 feet away from him.
Same goes for cubes.
I'll go with DM_Blake's thought experiment and second thinking about it like being the center piece of a rubik's cube.
As I see it the one being attacked could get partial cover from the reach weapon attack because the "table" edge is in his way.
Side view:
___R
TTTT
TTTTV
---------
R: Reach weapon wielder
T: Table or whatever
V: Victim
-: Floor
_: Nothing (needed so the image shows correctly)
I'm not sure if it's RAW. But I think the victim should get partial cover.
And I'm wondering if the victim could jump to hit R. I don't know any rule that allows it. But again, my feeling is it should work.
As I see it the one being attacked could get partial cover from the reach weapon attack because the "table" edge is in his way.
** spoiler omitted **
I'm not sure if it's RAW. But I think the victim should get partial cover.
And I'm wondering if the victim could jump to hit R. I don't know any rule that allows it. But again, my feeling is it should work.
Cover is always GM-judgment. But agreed, in many situations, that tabletop would be very much like a horizontal equivalent of the corner of intersecting corridors - if the corner of a wall can give cover, then so can the corner of a floor or tabletop.
As for jumping, I think that's already factored in. A 6'tall man can reach to about 8', yet he can punch all the way up to 10' without any penalties. Above 10' that same guy needs a reach weapon and cannot hit someone at 10'-1" even with a greatsword (which IRL could hit someone about 12 feet off the ground).
But there are no rules for jumping and swinging, so it doesn't matter if you have a greatsword or a dagger or just a fist, you can hit anyone as long as their elevation is 10' or less, and you can't hit them if they're above 10' without using a reach or ranged weapon - even if you're capable of jumping ridiculously high, such as a monk. So I assume it's factored in and that, even if you can jump that high, such a jump requires more effort (hence a move action) and leaves you off balance enough to not be practical in combat, so no rules exist to cover it - just hit what you can reach or change weapons to a reach/ranged weapon to hit what you can't normally reach.