Ranged weapon question

[Yqatuba]

Do ranged weapons fired straight down have unlimited range? I would think so since you have gravity on your side.

[marcryser]

Pathfinder does a pretty poor job of simulating three dimensions. There is no direct rule support (AFAIK) for the logical assumption that ammunition fired down into a pit will continue downward until it hits the bottom. As long as you continue to add range penalties as normal, I wouldn't have any issue with exceeding the 'maximum' range of thrown weapons or bows/crossbows.

[Claxon]

As far as I know there is no exception for ranged weapons to be fired beyond the 10 range increments normally allowed, even when firing straight down. Likely, after that distance the trajectory of the projectile becomes so unstable that it simply can't do anything beyond that distance (would be the "in game physics" reason I would provide).

[baggageboy]

Also, terminal velocity is a thing.

[blahpers]

No. Without getting into discussions of accuracy, let's just say that gravity's influence on range is not realistically modeled in Pathfinder--and, I'd argue, it probably shouldn't be. Let the GM make exceptions when it makes sense to do so, such as attempting to shoot an arrow down an 800' pit to hit the ground.

[Mudfoot]

Thrown weapons aren't thrown at beyond their terminal velocity, so they'd do more damage, if anything. Hopelessly inaccurate, perhaps. Projectile weapons will slow down. But RAW, there's no special allowance for shooting downwards, or indeed upwards. Yes, you can throw a javelin 150' straight upwards*.

* don't try this at home.

[Kayerloth]

Unlimited range? No, but "nuking 'it' from orbit" is quite a bit different from attacking at distance with a ranged weapon even if both are 'ranged' attacks. The rules for attacking something by bombing it are basically non-existent. The DM is on his own there.

Blahpers, you should have picked a deeper pit :P. 800ft is well out there but well within the max range of a Composite Longbow even before you get to adding feats and abilities to the equation. Biggest issue there is arguably perceiving the target at that range for a dedicated archer within the PF system. But I agree the game while very combat centric is not a military RPG or simulation where one might expect (or desire) more extensive guidelines along these lines.

[VoodistMonk]

Without focusing on extremes, I have thought about this for someone who has both Flight and Bombs.

It seems you should be able to just drop it, and gravity does the rest... like the majority of bombs being dropped from above.

[Dragonchess Player]

Note that, just as in the real world, the "maximum range" is really more of a "maximum effective range." The weapon or projectile may travel farther than that, but the chance of actually hitting a target (deliberately) is so small as to be pretty much non-existent (i.e., roll a d20 twice and the attack hits only if both rolls are natural 20s).

Bombing is notoriously inaccurate, as well (see WWII). Granted, if it's "dropping alchemist bombs into a deep pit," then that's probably a situation that doesn't need an attack roll in the first place; in an open environment, however, the scatter will almost always be much greater than the area affected.

[VoodistMonk]

I was thinking about an Alchemist with the Wings Discovery, flying directly above his enemies dropping bombs on them.

Maybe there is no reason to actually hover more than the maximum distance you can throw a bomb. There is probably little reason to hover more than one range increment unless you're fighting large enemies with reach. But this is the scenario that I thought of.

All things considered, as a GM, I would probably remove range penalties when shooting or throwing straight down, but keep the maximum effective range the same.

[Hugo Rune]

The falling object rules pretty much cover firing straight down beyond the maximum range.