Prone and Ranged Attacks - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 herbie93 Jul 16, 2015 7:17:26	Hi all, I was reading one of the class guides and it mentioned that making ranged attacks against a prone targets gives disadvantage. I can't for the life of me find where it says that in the book. If anyone could give me a page number that'd be great, or maybe it was just carry over habit from last edition. Thanks
#2 jaelis Jul 16, 2015 7:19:28	It's discussed in the definition of the prone condition in appendix A An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.
#3 herbie93 Jul 16, 2015 7:26:54	Ok that's why, I was looking specifically in the rule set not at the appendix...more organizational errors haha. Thanks!
#4 dude80525 Jul 16, 2015 9:13:44	Here's an interesting twist to this rule interpretation: We had a villian fall off a ledge and hence fell prone. Our PC rogue was going to shoot him from above while still prone. He rolled his attack at disadvantage becasue of the "rule", but this seemed silly. He obviously had a clear shot at him while he was prone. You could even argue that he should have had ADVANTAGE on his attack in that situation. I sometimes think we put too much emphasis on RAW and throw common sense out the window.
#5 Yunru Jul 16, 2015 9:23:15	If you think of prone as "parralel to the plane through which the attack travels" it makes more sense :P The disadvantage to ranged attacks from Prone comes from being a hard target to hit. Being above the target means that prone should be easier to hit than standing.
#6 LordTwig Jul 16, 2015 11:05:18	A situation I ran into with a player was he wanted his character to drop prone and fire his crossbow. The idea was to give his opponents with bows disadvantage to hit him. The rules say that if you try to make a ranged attack from prone you have disadvantage on the shot, but that doesn't make sense with a crossbow. It should be easy to fire a crossbow while prone. So I let him use his crossbow without the disadvantage. In this case following RAW didn't make sense. So I house ruled. Now I wonder, should they put an exception in for crossbows so you can shoot from prone without disadvantage? Or should they keep the rules simple even if it doesn't make sense? Personally I would add the exception. Crossbows could use a little help.
#7 jaelis Jul 16, 2015 12:20:42	LordTwig wrote:
(Reply to #7) Danny_Montanny	jaelis wrote:

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

herbie93

Jul 16, 2015 7:17:26

Hi all,

I was reading one of the class guides and it mentioned that making ranged attacks against a prone targets gives disadvantage. I can't for the life of me find where it says that in the book. If anyone could give me a page number that'd be great, or maybe it was just carry over habit from last edition.

Thanks

jaelis

Jul 16, 2015 7:19:28

It's discussed in the definition of the prone condition in appendix A

An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.

herbie93

Jul 16, 2015 7:26:54

Ok that's why, I was looking specifically in the rule set not at the appendix...more organizational errors haha.

Thanks!

dude80525

Jul 16, 2015 9:13:44

Here's an interesting twist to this rule interpretation:

We had a villian fall off a ledge and hence fell prone. Our PC rogue was going to shoot him from above while still prone. He rolled his attack at disadvantage becasue of the "rule", but this seemed silly. He obviously had a clear shot at him while he was prone. You could even argue that he should have had ADVANTAGE on his attack in that situation. I sometimes think we put too much emphasis on RAW and throw common sense out the window.

Yunru

Jul 16, 2015 9:23:15

If you think of prone as "parralel to the plane through which the attack travels" it makes more sense :P

The disadvantage to ranged attacks from Prone comes from being a hard target to hit. Being above the target means that prone should be easier to hit than standing.

LordTwig

Jul 16, 2015 11:05:18

A situation I ran into with a player was he wanted his character to drop prone and fire his crossbow. The idea was to give his opponents with bows disadvantage to hit him. The rules say that if you try to make a ranged attack from prone you have disadvantage on the shot, but that doesn't make sense with a crossbow. It should be easy to fire a crossbow while prone. So I let him use his crossbow without the disadvantage.

In this case following RAW didn't make sense. So I house ruled.

Now I wonder, should they put an exception in for crossbows so you can shoot from prone without disadvantage? Or should they keep the rules simple even if it doesn't make sense?

Personally I would add the exception. Crossbows could use a little help.

jaelis

Jul 16, 2015 12:20:42

LordTwig wrote:

(Reply to #7)

Danny_Montanny

jaelis wrote: