A follow-up question to As a monk, can I use Deflect Missiles to intentionally catch a projectile?
Let's say I intentionally want to catch an enemy's projectile using the Deflect Missiles feature.
The description of the monk feature says:
Deflect Missiles
… you can use your reaction to deflect or catch the missile when you are hit by a ranged weapon Attack
Can I use my reaction to protect not myself but my ally (providing I stay exactly at the line of attack)?
Possible ways how exactly do I do that:
- Doesn't announce particular actions, assuming that Deflect Missile works passively as a reaction.
- Announce the Ready action "If the foe attacks my ally, try to protect him by all means necessary".
- Announce the Ready action "If the foe fires an arrow, try to catch it".
- Announce the Ready action "If the foe attacks my ally, step into the line of attack".
According to the rules, what could work?
Best Answer
Rules-As-Written, you can't catch an arrow that is aimed at another
Your quoted text is pretty explicit about it, you have to be the target and you have to get hit in order to use the feature, that means if the attacker misses, you can't use Deflect Missiles.
On the Readied Action question, it wouldn't work either. Two things:
"Alright, daze, but I really wanna do this cool thing!"
There are ways to kind of, sort of do this: