D&D 5E Dual hand crossbows, poison and hex warlock

Paraxis said:

The thing is a familiar summoned by the spell is not a real imp. It is a spirit in the form of an imp, and that spirit could be celestial, fey, or infernal in nature. So you could summon a celestial spirit in the form of an imp, while you have a pact with a fey lord.

But yes I guess somewhere that spirit has a boss or some creature that might care how you treat it but unlikely or else the spirit wouldn't be so lowly as to be summoned by pesky low level mortals in the first place.

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So where are the real imp familiars?

You know, the classic fantasy tempters?

Just an FYI - the PHB errata added this to the Ammunition property: https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/PH-Errata-V1.pdf

Ammunition (p. 146). Loading a onehanded weapon requires a free hand.

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Since the errata applies to the Ammunition property and not the Loading property, Crossbow Expert doesn't change the fact that you still need a free hand to load it.

The idea of Dual Hand Crossbows is pretty cool, but apparently you are more Gunslinger cinematic than John Wu cinematic with the Crossbow Expert feat.

SkidAce said:

So where are the real imp familiars?

You know, the classic fantasy tempters?

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In the Monster Manual. It's an option in their entry. You don't summon them via the spell, you meet them while adventuring and they agree to enter into a familiar pact with you.

Flatulus said:

-A hand crossbow in each hand, attacking twice in a round, using Crossbow expert feat.

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While this looks very cool, and I would love to allow it, for some reason it is not legal by RAW.

This is due to fiddly interaction between the ammunition weapon keyword. You can attack twice, just that you can only do so with a *single* hand crossbow.



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They fixed it in errata

Equipment
Ammunition (p. 146). Loading a onehanded
weapon requires a free hand.

Yes you can Dual Wield intitialy if the Hand crossbow is already loaded but you need a free hand by Raw.

Now if the DM allows it who cares you get the same number of attaks. Allowing DW hand crossbows does not really change anything; A one handed with an extra shot that uses your bonus action or dw with an extra shot that uses your bonuses action.

Celtavian said:

Loading two hand crossbows is heroic? How does that have anything to do with heroism? It's a power gamer exploit.

Anyone reading Crossbow Expert can see it was intended for a rapier wielding player or single sword user to fire a hand crossbow along with his weapon in melee. It's another example of a small clarification slipping by that gets exploited by power gamers looking for any advantage as they try to force RAW onto DMs to exploit rules.

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I would not call it even an exploit, as it hasn't proved to be overpowered, at least in the games I DM. What I don't like about it is that I feel this was supposed to be something to emulate those drow fighting tropes, where the drow warrior opens with a shot from his pre-loaded hand crossbow then charges to melee, or even that assassin coming from the shadows and unloading their two hand crossbows simultaneously and hoping for an instant kill. But instead, what I see is dedicated archers going crossbow expert + SS, and favoring the hand crossbow. Suddenly, bows become the lowly inexperienced fighting-man weapon while the crossbow is the experienced specialist weapon. This emulates the opposite kind of fantasy than what I would prefer.

Oh, and I do feel like it lacks consistency that there is a group of slower weapons, restricted to one attack per action and a group of faster weapons, that can be fired more often if the attacker has the extra attack feature, but by the grace of one feat, while the slower group becomes as fast as the fast group, one select member of this slower group actually jumps all the way to become the fastest weapon in the whole game. I would prefer if the feat just gave proficiency in some exotic weapon, such as a chinese-style repeating crossbow, gnomish-trinket-bolt-spiller, demon-hunter-auto-shooter or something. I would like it even better if the feat would instead just increase the damage dice of crossbows, maybe according to the number of extra attacks the attacker might have, maybe using some other metric. This would keep the characteristic slowness of the weapon while giving it the distinctive benefit of hitting hard.

Celtavian said:

Loading two hand crossbows is heroic? How does that have anything to do with heroism? It's a power gamer exploit.

Anyone reading Crossbow Expert can see it was intended for a rapier wielding player or single sword user to fire a hand crossbow along with his weapon in melee. It's another example of a small clarification slipping by that gets exploited by power gamers looking for any advantage as they try to force RAW onto DMs to exploit rules.

Look at that, Crawford did clarify. I knew they never intended Hand Crossbows to be used like automatic pistols. Crawford agrees that you need at least one hand free to load the bolt. Like the new WotC says, your table, your rules. But it was never intended for you to use two hand crossbows and fire at will with the bonus action. It was always supposed to be one shot, enter battle, reload maybe every other round. Like a pirate or musketeer with sword and pistol.

@RSIxidor [MENTION=6678217]piz[/MENTION]zystrizzyDo you need two hands to load a hand crossbow? IE, could I have a shield or rapier in the other hand? I'd say you need at least one hand free to load the bolt. — Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) November 5, 2014

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Problem with your theory is that the rules don't support scimitar+crossbow EITHER.

The ONLY supported weapon configuration (that allows you to use the bonus action reliably every round) is the one where you use a single hand crossbow and nothing else.

(Of course I've long advocated the complete scrapping of Crossbow Expert - all three benefits)

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Barolo said:

I would not call it even an exploit, as it hasn't proved to be overpowered, at least in the games I DM. What I don't like about it is that I feel this was supposed to be something to emulate those drow fighting tropes, where the drow warrior opens with a shot from his pre-loaded hand crossbow then charges to melee, or even that assassin coming from the shadows and unloading their two hand crossbows simultaneously and hoping for an instant kill. But instead, what I see is dedicated archers going crossbow expert + SS, and favoring the hand crossbow. Suddenly, bows become the lowly inexperienced fighting-man weapon while the crossbow is the experienced specialist weapon. This emulates the opposite kind of fantasy than what I would prefer.

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The feat can't even do that. Any time you take a shot and then charge 30 ft is a time where you shoot with disadvantage - the hand crossbow range simply is very short.

The reason dedicated archers go for this feat combo is of course it is the only way to effectively gain "two weapon fighting" with ranged weaponry.

That CE effectively grants you a BETTER version of two weapon fighting than the dedicated fighting style and feat combined(!) is of course just another black mark against it.

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Celtavian said:

Look at that, Crawford did clarify. I knew they never intended Hand Crossbows to be used like automatic pistols.

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I read that Sage Advice, and that "clarification" is complete bogus.

If there is one thing the rules accomplish, it is to turn the hand crossbow into an (semi-)automatic weapon!

At least that's how I look at the situation where the high level fighter attacks nine (9!) times in sex seconds with his sole hand crossbow...

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Celtavian said:

The fact that the current edition of D&D is intuitive. If you can clearly show it takes two hands to load a crossbow, hand or otherwise, it takes two hands. You would have to prove at the table you could load a hand crossbow with a hand crossbow in your hand to get that one by me as a DM. No DM should allow two-hand crossbows with Crossbow Expert bonus action save perhaps every other round according to drawing action. They have to clear a hand to load the hand crossbow.

It shouldn't have to be written down same as they don't have to write down you need legs to walk as a humanoid.

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Loading takes two hands. This invalidates all the intended scenarios. The only remaining scenario is the one where you use a single hand crossbow.

Perhaps unrelated, this is all the powergamer needs to gain the game's best kind of "two weapon fighting" and at range, no less.

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