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Do flasks like oil and alchemist's fire benefit from the Archery fighting style?

Archery: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

Oil (flask): Make a ranged attack against a target creature or object, treating the oil as an improvised Weapon. [The wording for alchemist's fire is similar.]

I suppose my question could be interpreted as: Are improvised weapons that could only be thrown considered melee or ranged improvised weapons?

Thanks in advance!

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    \$\begingroup\$ Related and possible duplicate: Are Improvised Weapons used in melee actually melee weapons?. The title of the question is about melee weapons, but the answers directly address your issue, and I think that any answer to this question would replicate answers on the other question. Can you let us know if the answers to the other question do/don't solve your problem? \$\endgroup\$ Mar 17, 2019 at 13:16

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You do not get the bonus

Archery applies to

attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

Ranged weapons those weapons that are listed as Ranged Simple/Martial Weapon in the weapons table, PHB p. 149. Having the Range property is not sufficient to make a weapon a ranged weapon. Note that not even thrown javelins and daggers are included in this section.

The section about improvised weapons does not describe the object changing it's weapon category except for objects resembling weapons. Therefore in general the bonus does not apply.

There may be exceptions when an object you attack with is close enough to a ranged weapon for the DM to treat the object as such (e.g. dart-like or net-like objects).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ what if you shoot the Alchemist's Fire with a sling? Though I suspect allowing that would be homebrew already. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 18, 2019 at 11:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PixelMaster in that case the DM needs to decide, if (s)he wants to allow this. If yes, the bonus should apply, otherwise not. I wouldn't allow it, since Alchemist's fire differs in size quite significantly from sling projectiles... \$\endgroup\$
    – fabian
    Mar 18, 2019 at 17:31

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