Just took another look at the #dnd Battle Master fighter's Feinting Attack maneuver and realized it discriminates against polearm users. Instead of "within 5 feet of you," wouldn't it be fairer if the rule were "within your melee weapon's reach"? @JeremyECrawford
— Keith Ammann (@geeniusatwrok) June 30, 2019
In D&D, a number of features used with a melee weapon work on a target within 5 feet of you. The specification of 5 feet is intentional and works with any melee weapon.
Such features aren't meant to have a variable range, which changes with different reaches. #DnD https://t.co/air3v1gOvu
— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) July 1, 2019
“Discriminates” ugh, relax. It isn’t discrimination, it’s game design.
1) The word is used perfectly accurately.
Discrimination comes in a whole spectrum of severities, and can even be considered a GOOD thing – eg, “discriminating taste”, etc.
2) Crawford’s problem is he writes rules that don’t make sense logically, which leads people to think there are oversights, and then when he gets asked about what looks like an oversight, his response is always to parrot “The rules say what they say”, and fail to justify the rationale behind the rules being so illogical.
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The way the Feinting maneuver works as written is stupid.
You use a bonus action and expend a maneuver die to “target” a creature within 5 feet, and then the next attack roll against that target that turn gets advantage.
Note, it doesn’t say “melee weapon attack roll”. Any attack roll, even without a weapon. That includes spell attacks. That includes ranged attacks. What?
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An archer, who normally suffers from disadvantage to hit enemies within 5 feet, can “feint” to cancel out the disadvantage? That’s pretty weird and seems like a stretch, but I guess you could justify it narratively, so it gets a pass…
But even weirder – they can use the bonus action, then move out of melee range, and then fire from 30 feet away and get full advantage without it being cancelled out. Wait, what? How does that make any sense?
Furthermore, there are no restrictions on your current character status. You can feint with an improvised weapon, no matter how unsuitable for combat. You can feint without any weapon at all. You can feint while prone. You can feint while restrained. You can feint while charmed. You can feint while blinded.
You can lie down in the mud, put on a blindfold, have someone tie you up in ropes and cast a magical charm on you, and you can still “feint” against your unseen adversary while wielding a stick of butter as an improvised thrown weapon! How the hell does that work? Nobody knows!
But! You can’t feint from 10 foot range while using a reach weapon. HUH?!?