D&D 5E Crossbows and dual-wielding

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, I know. They give me a headache too.

But since one of my players have selected a hand crossbow build, going for the crossbow expert and sharpshooter feats, I really need to sort this out for myself.

I have found several threads, but decided against posting in any of them, since I really am not arguing against anyone in particular.

Let's see if I got the basic facts straight:

1) The first (of many ) elephants in the room: the so-called light crossbow is not actually Light.
2) Regular crossbows (light and heavy) are two-handed while Hand Crossbows are not two-handed and instead Light.
But none of that matters:
3a) the errata on Ammunition says "you must have a free hand to reload", is there any distinction then of a weapon also having the Two-handed property?
You would think it would make regular crossbows impossible to use for serious fighters (since, being two-handed, you wouldn't have the free hand needed to reload them). But then they go ahead and errata Two-handed: "This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it." Beyond the inelegant inexactness this would indicate you could indeed hold it with one hand while the other reloads it!?
3b) the Light property of hand crossbows is also completely inexplicable, since 3b-I) the rules on two-weapon fighting specifically allows only melee light weapons! 3b-II) the crossbow expert feat allows the equivalent of two-weapon fighting for hand crossbows specifically rather than "all light crossbows"!

I can't understand it. It seems as if despite the differences in "looks" and in properties, all crossbows operate identically:
Despite the hand crossbow being light you can't actually dual wield it (rules on two-weapon fighting says "melee")?!
Despite the hand crossbow not being two-handed you can't actually dual wield it?! (You can't reload if you hold two one-handed weapons, but you can if you hold one two-handed weapon)
4) There is a fighting style available to select classes called "Two-Weapon Fighting Style" you would think is aimed for the character that want to dual wield. However, the Crossbow Expert feat provides the same benefit (being able to add your Ability modifier for the bonus attack)! So why would you ever take this fighting style?

Indeed, ranged weapons (meaning crossbows) do the same damage as melee weapons. But you can take the Archery Fighting Style without losing that second attack ability modifier since you get that from Crossbow Expert, effectively letting you "stack" two fighting styles.

But it gets even worse: the one and the same feat also voids the main disadvantage for ranged characters; getting disadvantage once you're swarmed!

Then it feels like a slap in the face when they start their sage advice with

Do the first and third benefits of Crossbow Expert turn a hand crossbow into a semiautomatic weapon? The short answer is no.

What the hell? If anything, the rules specifically and directly converge on one thing and one thing only: turning the hand crossbow into a semiautomatic weapon!! A 20th level fighter can start a combat firing nine bolts in 6 seconds, and then sustaining a rate of 5 bolts per 6 seconds thereafter!

In the end analysis: what were they thinking?!

It appears that:
* the fact that hand crossbows are light and not two-handed is actively stopped from having any game effect. Indeed, not only do you gain the exact same rate of fire with one crossbow, you are specifically forbidden from using two!
* there is absolutely no upside to melee dual-wielding? Yes, you don't need the crossbow feat, but you do need the two weapon fighting feat. Being able to stack two fighting styles easily outperforms the damage increase.

Please tell me the WotC devs have acknowledged their rules suck balls and that they are actively working to straighten out this complete and utter mess! Please!

Or at least tell me they have explained WHY ranged two-weapon fighting needs to be strictly superior to melee two-weapon fighting? (Keep in mind that I haven't even started on the fact that the perhaps most powerful feature of all in the entire PHB is denied to dual-wielders but not to this ranged build, namely Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter!)

There must be a clear reason or they wouldn't have engineered a ruleset with such counter-intuitive results, where almost every other option is better than two-weapon fighting, right?

Right?

 

[jodyjohnson]

And now back to the scheduled program...

"Light" as a thing, descriptor, and property.

"Light" as a synonym for illumination. No one seems to have an issue distinguishing this, despite it being a game term.

"Light" Crossbow - another way of saying not-heavy crossbow.

"Light" as a weapon property is primarily a means of indicating which weapons are suitable for two weapon fighting, however that is not the only possible use. It is the most common use.

I expect some scenarios where you can conceal a light weapon - without regard to whether it is melee or ranged. I expect this is why they are a rogue (especially assassin) weapon ("is that a blowgun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me").

With the errata, crossbows and bows work exactly as you would expect them to work. They take 1 or 2 hands to fire but still require a hand for ammo and a hand to hold. Because there were posters that really said that one couldn't fire a shortbow because the "rules" didn't let you have a free hand. The errata clarifies this for both bows and crossbows and slings and blowguns (and casters with 2 handed weapons). Crossbows as not singular in this regard.

A weapon you can fire quickly is not by necessity a "semi-automatic" weapon. A bolt action or pump action weapon, for example, can be fired quick enough. They just require additional movements. The hand crossbow under the ruling still requires the a loading movement (but not the 'loading' property). The speed of all crossbows is faster than "real life" by virtue of making them "not suck". A 'gamist' concession one is free to house rule out ("In my world crossbows suck.").

The "semi-automatic" element refers to self-cocking/loading which Jeremy repudiates as RAI. Speed is not a consideration since the primary (first) benefit of Crossbow Expect is to allow one to ignore the Loading property. No one else is claiming that Heavy Crossbows are now "semi-automatic" weapons because they can be fired 8 times in a round by a 20th level fighter. Why is 9 so ludicrous?

The various crossbows are quite distinct mechanically:
1. They do different damage.
2. Heavy has the heavy property and cannot be used effectively by Halflings and Gnomes.
3. Light can.
4. Hand crossbow can be fired one-handed. Which allows the third part of Crossbow Expert.

A hand crossbow and say Rapier combination allows one a bonus attack in melee the first round. Or to switch to ranged only without drawing a weapon (by sheathing the rapier). Or to shoot approaching targets two (or more) times with just the hand crossbow, and then an additional time on the first round of melee. Hardly useless considering how short fights can be.

I need more information on the Crossbow/Heavy Weapon Mastery/Sharpshooter combo because I just don't see it.

 

[Azurewraith]

Yeah, I know. They give me a headache too.

But since one of my players have selected a hand crossbow build, going for the crossbow expert and sharpshooter feats, I really need to sort this out for myself.

I have found several threads, but decided against posting in any of them, since I really am not arguing against anyone in particular.

Let's see if I got the basic facts straight:

1) The first (of many ) elephants in the room: the so-called light crossbow is not actually Light.
2) Regular crossbows (light and heavy) are two-handed while Hand Crossbows are not two-handed and instead Light.
But none of that matters:
3a) the errata on Ammunition says "you must have a free hand to reload", is there any distinction then of a weapon also having the Two-handed property?
You would think it would make regular crossbows impossible to use for serious fighters (since, being two-handed, you wouldn't have the free hand needed to reload them). But then they go ahead and errata Two-handed: "This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it." Beyond the inelegant inexactness this would indicate you could indeed hold it with one hand while the other reloads it!?
3b) the Light property of hand crossbows is also completely inexplicable, since 3b-I) the rules on two-weapon fighting specifically allows only melee light weapons! 3b-II) the crossbow expert feat allows the equivalent of two-weapon fighting for hand crossbows specifically rather than "all light crossbows"!

I can't understand it. It seems as if despite the differences in "looks" and in properties, all crossbows operate identically:
Despite the hand crossbow being light you can't actually dual wield it (rules on two-weapon fighting says "melee")?!
Despite the hand crossbow not being two-handed you can't actually dual wield it?! (You can't reload if you hold two one-handed weapons, but you can if you hold one two-handed weapon)
4) There is a fighting style available to select classes called "Two-Weapon Fighting Style" you would think is aimed for the character that want to dual wield. However, the Crossbow Expert feat provides the same benefit (being able to add your Ability modifier for the bonus attack)! So why would you ever take this fighting style?

Indeed, ranged weapons (meaning crossbows) do the same damage as melee weapons. But you can take the Archery Fighting Style without losing that second attack ability modifier since you get that from Crossbow Expert, effectively letting you "stack" two fighting styles.

But it gets even worse: the one and the same feat also voids the main disadvantage for ranged characters; getting disadvantage once you're swarmed!

Then it feels like a slap in the face when they start their sage advice with

What the hell? If anything, the rules specifically and directly converge on one thing and one thing only: turning the hand crossbow into a semiautomatic weapon!! A 20th level fighter can start a combat firing nine bolts in 6 seconds, and then sustaining a rate of 5 bolts per 6 seconds thereafter!

In the end analysis: what were they thinking?!

It appears that:
* the fact that hand crossbows are light and not two-handed is actively stopped from having any game effect. Indeed, not only do you gain the exact same rate of fire with one crossbow, you are specifically forbidden from using two!
* there is absolutely no upside to melee dual-wielding? Yes, you don't need the crossbow feat, but you do need the two weapon fighting feat. Being able to stack two fighting styles easily outperforms the damage increase.

Please tell me the WotC devs have acknowledged their rules suck balls and that they are actively working to straighten out this complete and utter mess! Please!

Or at least tell me they have explained WHY ranged two-weapon fighting needs to be strictly superior to melee two-weapon fighting? (Keep in mind that I haven't even started on the fact that the perhaps most powerful feature of all in the entire PHB is denied to dual-wielders but not to this ranged build, namely Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter!)

There must be a clear reason or they wouldn't have engineered a ruleset with such counter-intuitive results, where almost every other option is better than two-weapon fighting, right?

Right?

Now my head hurts as for loading hand crossbows a thin leather loop slipped round the wrist should allow you to reload them while holding two or the derro have those semi-auto ones... could save your self some trouble and just say thats the norm.

 

[Creamsteak]

I am uncertain on this, but if you start a round with two hand crossbows, I would assume you could fire both, drop the off hand one as your item interaction, and then use that now free off-hand to reload the other crossbow to fire your full set of attacks as a fighter or whatever.

You've put a lot of things together here and I'm not fully able to follow which topic you are wanting to address... or if all of them I'm overwhelmed.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Doesn't it simply come down to this... if you want to fire a hand crossbow twice in a round using your Action and a bonus action... you don't dual-wield two of them like you would a melee weapon, you simply take the Crossbow Expert feat and then you fire the single crossbow twice?

Now, if you are asking about dual-wielding with a melee weapon *and* the hand crossbow... then yes, the rules preclude you from doing that more than once in the combat (without later sheathing the melee weapon to give you that hand free to reload). It's assumed your first round uses an already loaded hand crossbow, so you can attack with the melee weapon with your Action and fire the hand crossbow with your Bonus action off-hand attack. Next round, you would need to sheath the melee weapon using your free "use an object", reload the hand crossbow freely as part of the rule stating that loading a ranged weapon is a part of the action used to fire it, fire the crossbow with your Action, but then not having your melee weapon out anymore to dual-wield using your Bonus action. But then in the third round, you'd load the crossbow and fire it using your Action, draw your weapon with your free "use an object" and then attack with the melee weapon using the Bonus action. Basically... when you dual wield a melee weapon and a hand crossbow, you can attack with both every-other-round.

 

[Dausuul]

Your post is all over the place, but I'll summarize the state of the hand crossbow fighter as I understand it:

• When using a crossbow, you can't reload without a free hand. Thus, wielding two crossbows at once (of any size) is not very effective. By the wording of Crossbow Expert, in order to get the bonus action attack, you have to have the hand crossbow in hand at the time you take the Attack action, which means you can't reload the main-hand crossbow while attacking, and thus can't benefit from Extra Attack.
• However, the Crossbow Expert feat allows you to get a bonus attack with the same hand crossbow you used to make your regular attack (nothing in there says the hand crossbow has to be in your off hand).
• Thus, the hand crossbow fighter uses one hand crossbow, reloading at absurd speed.
• In theory, the drawback of pulling this trick is that you can only do it with a hand crossbow, which has a lower damage die than most fighter weapons. (A dual wielding melee fighter will take the Dual Wielder feat and use rapiers or longswords.)
• However, Sharpshooter overwhelms the difference in damage dice. At that point, all that matters is getting as many attacks per turn as possible.
• Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Mastery are generally agreed to be overpowered.

Don't expect WotC to nerf Sharpshooter any time soon; they've made it clear that they intend to be very sparing with functional errata, and they're not all that interested in trying to police the game for powergaming exploits. DMs have the power to address exploits with our own players, and we are expected to use it.

So if you have an issue here, you will probably need to make some house rules to address it. My recommendation would be to reduce Sharpshooter's damage bonus to +5. (While you're at it, you might trim Great Weapon Mastery's damage bonus to +7 or +8. GWM is less broken than Sharpshooter since it can't use the Archery fighting style to offset the attack penalty.) That brings the crossbow fighter back into balance. Whether you want to also change Crossbow Expert, to require you to make the bonus attack with your off hand, is up to you.

 

[Andruin]

1) The first (of many ) elephants in the room: the so-called light crossbow is not actually Light.

Sticking with elephants, a little one might be light but you can't pick it up. A crossbow might be light, but it still takes two hands to fire it.

2) Regular crossbows (light and heavy) are two-handed while Hand Crossbows are not two-handed and instead Light.

Light and two-handed are not related. See the elephant reference above.

3a) the errata on Ammunition says "you must have a free hand to reload", is there any distinction then of a weapon also having the Two-handed property?
You would think it would make regular crossbows impossible to use for serious fighters (since, being two-handed, you wouldn't have the free hand needed to reload them). But then they go ahead and errata Two-handed: "This property is relevant only when you attack with the weapon, not when you simply hold it." Beyond the inelegant inexactness this would indicate you could indeed hold it with one hand while the other reloads it!?

Reloading is not related to the two-handed property. It takes two hands to reload either regular or hand crossbows, but you can fire a hand crossbow with one hand.

3b) the Light property of hand crossbows is also completely inexplicable, since 3b-I) the rules on two-weapon fighting specifically allows only melee light weapons! 3b-II) the crossbow expert feat allows the equivalent of two-weapon fighting for hand crossbows specifically rather than "all light crossbows"!

The Crossbow Expert feat lets you attack with a one-handed weapon and use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow. No dual-wielding of crossbows is implied and it doesn't say anything about light crossbows, because it doesn't have to. It specifically calls out hand crossbows.

I can't understand it. It seems as if despite the differences in "looks" and in properties, all crossbows operate identically:
Despite the hand crossbow being light you can't actually dual wield it (rules on two-weapon fighting says "melee")?!
Despite the hand crossbow not being two-handed you can't actually dual wield it?! (You can't reload if you hold two one-handed weapons, but you can if you hold one two-handed weapon)

According to the Player's Handbook, you can't dual-wield hand crossbows.
Two-weapon fighting style lets you add your ability modifier to the second attack. I don't see anything that says that is limited to melee weapons.

4) There is a fighting style available to select classes called "Two-Weapon Fighting Style" you would think is aimed for the character that want to dual wield. However, the Crossbow Expert feat provides the same benefit (being able to add your Ability modifier for the bonus attack)! So why would you ever take this fighting style?

Because you might be using two melee weapons. For example, you start a fight with a one-handed sword in one hand and a loaded hand crossbow in the other. You attack with your sword, use a bonus action to fire your hand crossbow, drop the crossbow then draw another one-handed sword.

 

[Jester David]

What the hell? If anything, the rules specifically and directly converge on one thing and one thing only: turning the hand crossbow into a semiautomatic weapon!! A 20th level fighter can start a combat firing nine bolts in 6 seconds, and then sustaining a rate of 5 bolts per 6 seconds thereafter!

And? Crossbows are slow. They're not meant to be semiautomatic weapons.

In the end analysis: what were they thinking?!

That they wanted people to have a weapon in one hand and be able to fire a snap shot with a hand crossbow drow style. Not dual weapon hand crossbows.

It appears that:
* the fact that hand crossbows are light and not two-handed is actively stopped from having any game effect. Indeed, not only do you gain the exact same rate of fire with one crossbow, you are specifically forbidden from using two!
* there is absolutely no upside to melee dual-wielding? Yes, you don't need the crossbow feat, but you do need the two weapon fighting feat. Being able to stack two fighting styles easily outperforms the damage increase.

Please tell me the WotC devs have acknowledged their rules suck balls and that they are actively working to straighten out this complete and utter mess! Please!

The rules seem pretty clear. They just don't let you have an automatic crossbow. That could be a magic item though.

Or at least tell me they have explained WHY ranged two-weapon fighting needs to be strictly superior to melee two-weapon fighting? (Keep in mind that I haven't even started on the fact that the perhaps most powerful feature of all in the entire PHB is denied to dual-wielders but not to this ranged build, namely Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter!)

They're humans writing for deadlines and no game is every perfect.

There must be a clear reason or they wouldn't have engineered a ruleset with such counter-intuitive results, where almost every other option is better than two-weapon fighting, right?

Two-weapon fighting suffers from the lack of a damage boosting feat for light weapons. Add that and the disparity goes away.
But TWF tends to work best when you value accuracy over extra damage. Multiple attempts to trigger that sneak attack or hunter's quarry.

 

[Mistwell]

It's noteworthy You can fire two pre-loaded hand crossbows, one in each hand, during the first round of combat. This may be relevant for those who can deal extraordinary damage in short bursts.

 

[Dausuul]

It's noteworthy You can fire two pre-loaded hand crossbows, one in each hand, during the first round of combat. This may be relevant for those who can deal extraordinary damage in short bursts.

This is ineffective past level 5. You can't reload either crossbow without a free hand; thus, you can't get your second attack from Extra Attack if you're using two crossbows. (Also, you have to have Crossbow Expert to even try it. The two-weapon fighting rules specify melee weapons.)

There really isn't a good way of dual wielding crossbows in 5E. The hand crossbow fighter build uses a single crossbow and takes advantage of a loophole in Crossbow Expert: A hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon, and Crossbow Expert doesn't specify that the hand crossbow has to be in addition to the one-handed weapon. They can be the same weapon! So you use a single hand crossbow for both the Attack action and the bonus action attack, leaving your other hand free to reload. This has the additional advantage that if you find a magic hand crossbow, you can use it for all your attacks.