Action Required to use Acid Flasks and Such

[User3]

One of the things people here have mentioned that rogues have going for them is using splash weapons to deal ranged touch sneak attack damage. However, I've always been under the impression this isn't actually useful at higher levels, because of some text in the 3.5 PHB: on p. 141, there's a chart describing what's required to perform various actions, and it lists, "Prepare to throw splash weapon (page 158)" as a full-round action that provokes AoOs. Unfortunately, p. 158 just goes into a discussion of how a splash weapon works (ranged touch, splash damage, targeting grid intersections, etc.), and nowhere expands on the action required to use one, leaving us with only that one phrase.

What does "prepare to throw a splash weapon" mean? The interpretation I've been using is that it works sort of like a ranged touch spell: you spend the full-round action preparing the splash weapon, then you get to make the ranged attack roll "free." This means splash weapons are great at low levels, before characters start getting multiple attacks, but after 5th- to 8th- or so rogues want to switch over to using TWF. I can see an argument based on the literal wording for a splash weapon requiring a full round to "prepare" it and then an additional attack action next round to throw it, but my intuition based on the balance and the behavior of the rest of the rules suggests this is probably not what the authors intended. I can also see an argument that "preparing" the weapon can take place long beforehand, but I have two issues with that: it seems to me that the model the authors had of the preparation process was something like lighting a Molotov cocktail, which can't be done far in advance; and if you could just prepare them like that, why would the authors list "prepare to throw a splash weapon" in the combat section when anyone with a pulse would realize that it's much better to just prepare them all ahead of time.

Is there some additional rule or clarification somewhere else that I'm missing?

[User3]

I don't know if you're missing anything, but I'm pretty sure that 'prepare to throw a splash weapon' is really 'light something the fuck on fire.'

Items like flasks of acid don't need to be "prepared" to be thrown unless they're in shatterproof containers.

And I have know idea how long something will 'burn' after being prepared.

[Username17]

The only splash weapon that needs preparation in the PHB is the flask of oil.

-Username17