Edit: A lot of people say, that GWM needs a melee weapon attack, but they miss Jesses point: While GWM requires a melee attack with a heavy weapon, Sharpshooters only criteria is an attack with a ranged weapon (not a ranged weapon attack). Jesse bases his claim on the fact, that a crossbow is still a ranged weapon, even if used as an improvised weapon for melee combat. That’s why it deals 1d4(!)+20 damage. (It works with any ranged, heavy weapon btw., so Longbow qualifies too.) Of course Jesse is playing the devils advocate here and of course, no somewhat sane Walter will allow this in any campaign ever, as it’s obviously not the intention behind these feats. But you could read it that way and that’s Jesses (paperthin) point. Besides: he finds the image of a barbarian running around recklessly smashing a crossbow over everyone’s head to just be hilarious.
PHB says “attack with a ranged weapon” which is not necessarily a ranged attack.
This is one of those situations where the context is clear but they switched the wording to be about the weapon in the context of proficiency for the third bullet point. Ranged attack description, ranged attack for first two bullet points, and then ranged weapon for the third.
So if you ignore all the context and expect them to repeat “ranged weapon making a ranged attack” in every single sentence then yes, it literally says ranged weapon in the third bullet and not ranged attack.
Of course. It is a joke, but also a valid commentary on the weakness of WotC’s meta rules system. This is an area Paizo excels at.
I have to say that so many of the complaints about WotC rules writing come down to willfully ignoring context and similar phrasing. Yes, they should be more consistent and clear and mot name general ranged feats with weapon specific names or contradict themselves in their rules “clarifications.”
A sentence out of context is not the gotcha that people seem to think it is though, and that joke is old and played out.
It just feels like rules lawyering and focusing on semantics, when the intent is clear.
Also I get why it is a meme but I stand by my pedantry.
