Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
A torch has a melee attack which deals 1 fire damage.
Torch: A torch burns for 1 hour, providing bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. If you make a melee attack with a burning torch and hit, it deals 1 fire damage.
Can I, a thief rogue with a shortsword in my other hand, use that attack as a bonus action in any way, perhaps with my Fast Hands feature or Two-weapon Fighting?
Fast hands would not work, but per the two weapon fighting rules:
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.
Also, per the improvised weapon rules:
Often, an improvised weapon is similar to an actual weapon and can be treated as such. For example, a table leg is akin to a club.
And a club is listed on the weapons table as a light melee weapon. However: a club is two pounds while a torch is one pound (if desired, this Q&A illuminates using a torch as an improvised weapon).
Avoiding the brilliant pun of a torch clearly being a 'light' weapon, you might instead get the bright idea to ask your DM if you could just use a lit table leg as a torch ;)
From the rules (PHB p.195):
Two- Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.
As the torch is not a light melee weapon, no.
However, the Dual Wielder feat (PHB p.165) says
You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one- handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light.
So, if you have this feat, maybe. You see, a torch isn't a "melee weapon", light or otherwise- it's an "improvised weapon". If your DM rules that it is sufficiently like a "melee weapon" that it can use those statistics then this feat would allow you to use it.
RAW - No, at least not without taking the Dual Wielder feat first mentioned by Dale M.
Fast Hands is right out, as it allows you to use your bonus action to either make a Sleight of Hand (Dex) check to disarm a trap or open a lock, or to take the Use an Object action.
The rules for Two-Weapon Fighting state:
"When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand."
Unfortunately, a torch is not classified in the rulebook as weapon, light or otherwise. It is only given a weight, a cost, and the information you have listed in your question. This would make it an improvised melee weapon, which is not light. The Dual Wielder feat provides a workaround by removing this requirement (which is a hefty price to pay for 1 point of fire damage).
If you desperately wanted to use a torch to attack without sinking a feat into your character, you may be able to ask your DM to allow it, since it weighs as much as a dagger (a light melee weapon), and less than other light melee weapons.
