Why does switching weapons don‘t require action?

[Zundamon at Arms]

Why does switching weapons don‘t require action? Just curious

[Dannad]

cos Larian thought that rule was dumb, so they removed it

[Ghost]

RAW says it's a free action to draw or stow, but RAI says it's fine, the point is not to abuse it and interrupt the action flow.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

It does cost an action to swap a weapon from your inventory, it's only free to swap between your equipped melee and equipped ranged weapons.

Basically, Larian wanted everyone to have either a melee or ranged option at no cost. But if you try to swap to an unequipped weapon, it still costs an action.

[dolby]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

It does cost an action to swap a weapon from your inventory, it's only free to swap between your equipped melee and equipped ranged weapons.

Basically, Larian wanted everyone to have either a melee or ranged option at no cost. But if you try to swap to an unequipped weapon, it still costs an action.

and that breaks any balance whatsoever so may as well leave it free if you don't do it right

it's just a stupid system like how we get shield AC when we use ranged weapons... half done systems with lack of effort put in that's all

[brendan_in_china]

Heh, implementing TT wielding rules is troublesome:

- There's the draw and wield action,
- the equip/stow a shield action,
- the one free item interaction (sheath a weapon, open a door, etc)
- the drop an item/drop prone free action,
- the free hand for reloading ammunition,
- and the free hand for somatic gestures or material component in spell-casting (with special caveat for worn/displayed holy symbols)

In heated TT battles, it's not uncommon to see warrior-types simply dropping redundant weapons as even the free item interaction is needed for something more important.

Solasta is very faithful to 5E but they couldn't implement this correctly, e.g. clerics couldn't equip a mace after spell casting.