Reach
I love me a reach build. There’s nothing like the rush of interrupting your DM’s charge with a shouted, “I MAKE MY AOO!” Then you grin like the smug jerk you are when you trip them before they can even get close. If you’re in 3.X (and have a GM who can’t read), you can even trip lock your opponents, keeping them in the dirt while you and the squad wail away.
Needless to say, this mess is less fun when you’re on the receiving end. Methinks our pal Monk is finding this out the hard way. Honestly tough to believe that they don’t have weight classes in Handbook-World sumo.
That’s the thing about small-sized fighters. This is just one more disadvantage you have to overcome. Where a standard medium-boy can get tagged with enlarge person and get crazy-time reach, you can only look chagrinned as you say, “I’m normal sized now.”
Conversely, there’s something supremely satisfying about gaining Stretch Armstrong powers, wielding stupidly long whips, or otherwise getting your reach into “unfair” territory.
So for today’s discussion question, what do you say we talk shop about all our favorite reach builds? What’s your favorite weapon? What’s your go-to tactic? And how do you like to abuse the power of go-go-gadget arms? Tell us all about your Mr. Fantastic strats down in the comments!
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d&d 5e: bugbear(+5ft) battlemaster with lunging attack(+5ft) and a reach weapon(+5ft). 20ft reach with a melee attack. Turns out I can beat the shit out of you without getting closer.
So you’re saying Jojo was wrong!? O_O
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/488/695/589.jpg
I mean of all the Jojos:
Jonathan: Could probably Hamon Spellstrike through a reach weapon made of metal, never did.
Joseph: Melee, but had the clackers and string bullshit as ranged options. Hermit Purple gives him Reach in Part 3, but he never really had many chances to use it combatively.
Jotaro: Used his Star Finger feat once, then retrained out of it for reasons unknown.
Part 4 Josuke: Warpriest Cleric with favored weapon: Punchghost. Sadly, most punchghosts have only 5ft reach.
Giorno: Was really more of a caster 90% of the time anyway, except that time the GM let him do a 7-scene montage of punching a particularly heinous villain to death and that one ability he got from an artifact to defeat the part’s BBEG.
Jolyne: She probably has reach given her strings, but still used non-reach combat maneuvers as well. Played the most cleverly of any Jojo not named Joseph or MAYBE Johnny, still nearly lost to the final boss.
Johnny: Used ranged natural weapons until Level 19, then switched to punchghost for endgame feats.
Part 8 Josuke: Uses a ranged weapon in the form of bubbles.
Jodio: *shower Eidolon noises*
Sure, the most iconic Jojo can’t beat the shit out of you without getting closer, but a bunch of them do have ways to do that.
“This has been Minmaxing the Jojoverse with V. Tune in next week for all the most broken Dio builds.”
While she’s not really *specialized* for reach, my whip-wielding PF2e Laughing Shadow Magus definitely appreciates the extra flexibility for using Dimensional Assault (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1037) and finding good flanking spots. Being able to avoid the rare melee-range AoO herself isn’t bad either. She also has Enlarge, but we haven’t yet reached a situation where I have it prepared and it would help her.
Another member of my party is a Fighter who uses a meteor hammer and specializes in tripping, and I’m planning to take Attack of Opportunity at 6. It has been fun so far.
As an aside: PF2e Enlarge grows the target to Large (Huge at 4th+) regardless of starting size, with no effect on Large+/Huge+ targets. Definitely a nice quality of life change.
I guess the meme about “PF2e fixed literally everything” isn’t just a meme. That’s impressive attention to detail with the enlarge change.
I had a pathfinder character I never got to play that was a reach based bloodrager with an aberrant bloodline. He would have had stretchy arms, ability to enlarge himself, a reach weapon, and a tumor familiar (that was just for fun. Probably the character I most regret never getting to try from a mechanics perspective.
I had a PC do that exact build, actually. We called them the “Blender of Death” for all their AoO’s. I’ve killed that character three times, though.
The bloodrager in my megadungeon loves he crap out of long arm
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/l/long-arm/
I let him reflavor a fauchard as a harpoon, and there’s something quite satisfyingly about hitting a dude with a harpoon while you’re still 15′ away.
in 5e, Glaive, Polearm Master feat, Sentinel feat. PM for AOO when they step into your reach, Sentinel to stop them in their tracks, hopefully still out of their own reach, and make an AOO even if they Disengage. Can be achieved at level 4 as a Human, or at level 6 as a non-human Fighter.
Season it with Great Weapon Mastery and/or Great Weapon fighting style for extra damage.
(Also works with halberds or pikes, but I prefer glaives aesthetically.)
That’s pretty much the build for this in 5e, right? Does it stay fun throughout a campaign, or does it begin to feel a bit one-trick-pony after a few levels?
Dnd 5e: Lance, horse, shield, mounted combatant. Nothing on the battlefield is out of my reach.
*Flying kobold has entered the chat.
gotta put the requisite vitamins and minerals in the ol’ feedbag
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Potion%20of%20Flying#content
I’ve had a lot of fun playing this:
Desert arctic azurin
fighter//rogue 1
mariner//incarnate 1
crusader//monk 1
1) Combat Reflexes
azurin) Karmic Strike
rogue) Weapon Focus (dwarven warpike)
f) Combat Expertise
f) Midnight Dodge
mariner) Improved Trip
3) Expanded Soulmeld Capacity
monk) Improved Unarmed Strike
monk) Pole Fighter
flaws: Glory-Hound, Vulnerable
traits: Aggressive, Quick
(N.B. This is a gestalt build; fighter-gestalted-with-rogue is the first class level.)
It’s a build with AC 4 (or so) and heavy on counter-attacks. The only problem (okay, one of the problems) is that once enemies get within your warpike range, your counters have to be unarmed strikes, which deal less damage (1d6+4 instead of 2d6+6). All the more incentive to make that trip stick, I guess :P.
So how do I read this?
fighter//rogue 1
mariner//incarnate 1
crusader//monk 1
Your first three levels? Or are there archetypes I’m unfamiliar with?
It’s three levels, yes. I’d use a table, but in this no-table format, double slashes are used to indicate gestalt.
I don’t know the incarnate class. What does all this essentia business bring to the table?
In this particular build, DR 6/magic and +2 or +3 incoming healing (depending on how you rule on Martial Spirit). It can also grant e.g. SR, flight, attacks, etcetera. It’s generally a lot less powerful than spellcasting, but it’s a good way to get all-day effects at low levels (it’s a bit front-loaded).
There’s a writeup of all the combos in the build here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=21292714&postcount=5
The basics are:
– You have reach, so movement in a large area provokes.
– You get an AoO whenever you are hit in melee.
– Due to your low AC (of 4), most attacks hit you.
– Due to your high DR (of 6), most attacks don’t hit very hard.
– Each of your AoOs can be a trip (which starts with a melee touch attack).
– Each successful trip gets you a bonus attack.
– Each successful melee attack heals you for 4 or 5 damage.
– After being tripped, standing up provokes an AoO.
– With Decisive Strike, each of your attacks deals double damage.
The idea is that you lead with Decisive Strike, and then when you take a hit, you counter-attack with a trip and double-damage bonus attack, hitting twice for 8-10 healing. At level 3, it’s very tanky, though it doesn’t do so well against spells.
Shadowrun 2e Troll (+1 reach) with a staff and/or combat axe (+2 reach) for a total reach of +3. In melee combat, that means I have a target number of 2 for attacking an opponent with a reach of 0 or +1, and they need a 6 to hit me. Assuming we roll the same number of dice, I will generally have 5 times as many successes as my opponents, meaning I can smack them around pretty darn easily.
My Shadowrun troll was also a combat monster. And a cajun. It was a good time to RP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wuSO59OdM&t=1s
At the climax of the second Rise of the Runelords build, we had the final boss on the ropes. I gathered all of my power, triggered my few rounds of Bloodrage, two-handed my sword… and ran right into an AOO trip from the boss’s longspear. The boss then jumped off the building and feather-falled away. Later in that campaign, as everything became giants-based, the party developed a whole array of techniques to close the distance on enemies with reach, to the point that in our more recent revival of the campaign, the giants have gotten almost no AOOs.
One of my old DMs claimed to have made a PF1 stretch build with a dwarf, an aberrant bloodrager, Enlarge Person and a long weapon to get like 45 feet of reach with a series of Cleave feats to make multiple attacks per AOO. The character also had a quirk of saying “Poke” whenever it jabbed someone.
In Pathfinder 2e, I have a Monk build that mixes the Aberrant Sorcerer bloodline with the Jellyfish Stance ( https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4077 ). Using the Tentacular Limbs bloodline spell ( https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=517 ) you can get all the joy of Monk pummeling (including flurry of blows) at 15 feet. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that it stacks with the Skeleton ancestry’s Well-Armed feat ( https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=3537 ). Now if only I could get it a decent touch spell (ideally a cantrip) to let it poke people from 50 feet away…
Is it possible to get secondhand combat blue balls?
After realizing she could no longer use swords after being soundly beaten by an assassin in combat (really, I couldn’t roll to hit with swords for her after that. The guys even got her a min/max sword that she spent 10 rounds trying to hit an orc with. Finally threw it on the ground, grabbed a magic arrow out of her quiver and crit hit killed the orc in one round), my ranger started getting proficient in whips. She had a lovely mithral/red dragonhide one by the time she was retired.
In the SPI version of DragonQuest you could have a literal giant as a character. I had a hoot running around with my fire giant. Especially as my now husband had a gnome in serious plate armor who would stand in her reach radius and keep anyone from rolling under her swings. They were a literal meat grinder in 10′ corridors.
There is something so satisfying about “solving the reach problem” with a novel approach. I usually go for weird equipment like hidden switch blades in the boots. Having a dedicated PC to watch your back is much more elegant, lol.
Here’s a villainous character I made for a competition. He’s based on the Halo villain Atriox; to translate a space monkey shock-trooper into fantasy land, I made him a Half-Ogre Werewolf with levels in Warlock and Warshaper, giving him a nasty 40ft reach with an Eldritch Glaive, and a metric ton of feats to replicate his combat style of flinging opponents around with a gravity hammer. He smacks someone, bullrushes them into someone else behind them, trips them both, then grabs and throws them into someone else within his reach… then because he smacked them as part if it, starts the whole loop over again.
The Original:
https://youtu.be/4cz7PRkgH3c
D&D Villain:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23999697&postcount=95
Cool build! I’m straight up in favor of anything that actually takes advantage of positioning. Nothing more boring that a combat where everybody stands and wails away, and this is a good antidote.
Oh boy, I’ve played a few reach users in Pathfinder 1e. My first one was an Unchained Rogue with dips in Fighter and Brawler for the needed feats to make a Whip. Insanely high feat investment, but I was tripping entire crowds of folks every round between Combat Reflexes and Greater Trip (so I can smack them for Sneak Attack damage on the way down), and then Greater Serpent Lash on my turn to move in and trip their buddies that stayed back. I held the front line on my lonesome in a party that was otherwise entirely ranged.
Then there was my whip-using Magus. Rimesoul Undine Kensai archetype Magus, pumped Dex and Int (maximum dodge tank is go), and for theming instead of always going for Shocking Grasp (which was still there because it’s blatantly optimal) I went for Rime Spell metamagic’d Frostbite. One cast, five strikes that fatigue, entangle, and do some solid damage in one go, with attacks of opportunity galore still. Not very trip-focused, but it meant I could cast normally without having to do any defensive casting silliness and related checks. Or Shocking Grasp because damage and killing things fast.
(Though the most memorable thing about her build ended up being her Parrot familiar- she was very soft spoken, so she often used her familiar as a voice piece. Unfortunately for her, he had his own ideas of how conversations should go. He was inspired by the scene early in the animated Mulan where “Ping” narrowly defuses a fight in the barracks, only for Mushu to take offense to the parting shot the other guy got in and shout “Say that to my face, you limp noodle!” and it turned into a full on brawl.)
I always wanted to make combat patrol a thing in pf1e, but I never quite got past that “feat intensive” problem you referenced.
iirc that was the end goal for the character; 15 ft reach from the whip, Improved Whip Mastery letting her threaten 10 ft away, and a Spiked Gauntlet to threaten adjacent squares, pairing the Combat Patrol movement with the Scout archetype from Rogue (the 8th level ability specifically) letting her Sneak Attack on her next attack after moving 10 ft.
The build definitely suffered a bit from being one of my earlier experiences with actually playing Pathfinder 1e, though, so I’m sure there’s a smarter way to do it than what I had going, especially if you’re not trying to merge a whip build into it and using just a normal reach weapon (though starting with 15 ft reach for a threatened area is pretty dang nice in conjunction with it- maybe enough of a whip build to threaten with it, then have your actual weapon in your other hand? Hm…).
A Hunter with a whip and a bird animal companion should make an excellent reach build: Stack on the disarm feats, give the bird flyby attack and then play fetch with the dropped weapons.
That’s amusing. The dude is unarmed, so they can’t make an AoO on the bird. Nice.
the actual build was with a tiger companion with an AoO build.
Only got one disarm within reach of the tiger as I didn’t build for disarm, but it was very amusing. „there’s your weapon, go on and pick it up.“
My PF2e Fighter was designed after Dragoons, so naturally I went for polearms and reach weapons. From what the GM says, I have saved my party a lot of pain by fucking with enemy action economy thanks to (Improved) Knockdown. And then of course I have Combat Reflexes for an extra AoO, and then Lunging Stance to give my AoOs a 15ft reach.
Yeah, it’s fun keeping people well beyond arm’s reach. Especially since crit specialization with polearms lets me just push them away, further disrupting movement.
My last character was a ranged ranger, so obviously not too concerned about reach. “I’ve got reach!”. “That’s nice, I’ve got a crossbow”.
Because really, whether your enemy is a fighter with reach shenanigans, snipers on the clifftops, a mage sheltering behind their allies, or one particularly annoying beholder floating 50ft up — *someone* needs to be able to take the fight to them.
I thought of a formation for some baddies. Take 4 mooks, have them all be using reach weapons with combat reflexes, stand in a 2×2 formation. Even if someone gets in under the reach on one side, the mooks on the other side of the formation can poke past their friends at you. Vulnerable to aoes and ranged attacks, but quite annoying to melee. Sprinkle liberally around the battlefield.
While I don´t remember the exact build, I did once make a Swashbuckler in Pathfinder that had a reach of about 20 feet or so, on their turn. The plan was to get ahold of a magic item, that allowed me to send my arms through portals. Basically allowing me to send my arms into another room and kill everything in it.
Changed direction when the GM asked me to, because he already had enough stuff he had to juggle, and having someone with teleporting super-long arms would be a whole mess for him to deal with. So it was an entirely understandable request, and I move away from the ultra reach build. But sometimes I still dream, of stylish floating arms dealing death all around them…
I think I am going to make that a monster in my own game. Will have to write it down.
with some ‘the DM allows’ i had a 3.5 char that was Shaman/Warlock aiming for a prestige class thats USUALLY geared to cleric only but shaman got turns, he let me use a pet removing ranger variant, and use the druid spell list for shaman. also i got to play a Tibbet! oh right, reach. back on track. eldtritch glaive lets you make your blast into a melee weapon with reach and hold onto it so you can make iterative attacks and aoo with it. but it’s still a spell so it its TOUCH ac and you can apply essence invocations. lil kitty took combat reflexes and never looked back. sure the damage is low but im ALWAYS hitting you probably and have a -2 to some saves. plus it’s force damage which basically nothing resists and can even hit stuff like ghosts super early. good luck getting away too because i tricked out her movespeed (quick trait, celerity domain) shame we never got too high level in that game.
2 pathfinder builds come in mind.
1. a halfling swashbuckler\monk going dervish.
using the swordmaster’s flair (blue scarf) give him reach and he would dance around getting to full attack while moving. (the halfling was for full out crane style defense. it went really high).
2. a fun build of a catfolk monk (nimble guardian). at level 9+ with a ring of ki mastery he could take the from of a little kitten (cat with young template Diminutive 0 reach) or Warcat of Rull (huge 15 reach) for hours and it only cost him 1 ki. he was the most cuddled and feared cat around!
Oh man, I completely forgot about my Highly Endangered Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus build!
https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23707416&postcount=73
Excerpt:
“Remember when I rhetorically asked what could be scarier than Hank in the last level bracket? That was a trick question. The real answer is a ninja flying octopus man who is on fire and also screeching like a banshee.”
I’m playing a rogue in a current campaign with a Strength score of 4. When I was setting up her build, I knew I wanted Finesse weapons, given her dexterity of 19 (now 20). Then I noticed that whips are both Finesse and Reach… and realized that she’d probably never use a longsword proficiency…
She’s almost always one of the most mobile characters on the battlefield — she can dart in, attack, and dart out again without provoking an opportunity attack, and her opponents can’t get away (or sometimes even move past her) without provoking one themselves. If they do manage to get close… well, Cunning Action is REALLY USEFUL. Bonus Action Disengage is a great strategy, and when she doesn’t need that there’s the classic Triple Dash (move + dash action + dash bonus action. 90 feet in a round).
Given all that, plus her stealth modifier of +11, and Lanata is a REALLY fun character to play. (It would probably be even more fun if I would finish picking out all her spells and proficiencies…) Also adding to that is her status as an individual who’s… less than accustomed… to the world at large (she’s from a VERY remote and isolated village in the far north) and brazenly adventurous on occasion. (I have a board! I sled down the bridge from the floating island to the ground!) (yes, that actually happened in-game.)