Level Up (A5E) Do you need a hand to load ammunition?

[Sword of Spirit]

I realized my question about the spear-thrower actually goes a lot further.

I can‘t find any rule saying that you need a second hand to load ammunition. O5e didn’t have such a rule in early printings, but put it into errata and later printings because it was always the intent. I’m not sure whether Level Up made the same oversight, whether it intended not to require an extra hand for loading ammunition, or whether I‘m just not seeing the rule.

In addition to spear-throwers, the weapons I can see that are clearly impacted are blowguns, slings, and hand crossbows. And since hand crossbows have the dual-wielding property, without an ammo loading rule you can dual-wield regular old hand crossbows and somehow miraculously reload them both with your hands full.

If anyone else is experiencing deja vu, that‘s because these are exactly the sorts of things that came up before the O5e errata. So I’d really like an official word on whether it‘s intention or oversight with this new system.

 

[Anselm]

O5E has the ammunition property which is where the requirement of a free hand to load a weapon comes from. When I was searching the Adventures Guide for answers to the spear-thrower question, I looked for that property or anything like it and didn't see anything.

 

[tetrasodium]

I realized my question about the spear-thrower actually goes a lot further.

I can‘t find any rule saying that you need a second hand to load ammunition. O5e didn’t have such a rule in early printings, but put it into errata and later printings because it was always the intent. I’m not sure whether Level Up made the same oversight, whether it intended not to require an extra hand for loading ammunition, or whether I‘m just not seeing the rule.

In addition to spear-throwers, the weapons I can see that are clearly impacted are blowguns, slings, and hand crossbows. And since hand crossbows have the dual-wielding property, without an ammo loading rule you can dual-wield regular old hand crossbows and somehow miraculously reload them both with your hands full.

If anyone else is experiencing deja vu, that‘s because these are exactly the sorts of things that came up before the O5e errata. So I’d really like an official word on whether it‘s intention or oversight with this new system.

I wouldn't worry too much. Yes it jumps spear from 1d6 defensive thrown versatile1d8 to 2d6 loading range 80/320, but throwing it drops the defensive & requires the user to have something like a quiver of spears. The loading property limits the user to one attack per round unless they somehow find a way to bump that like a magical/enchanted spear thrower that allows multiple uses.

I'm usually pretty skeptical & like to err on the side of caution but the spear thrower compared to something like a composite bow is just kind of an ok sidegrade with a lot of subjectivity.