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

[Flatulus]

Hi, I am hoping someone can confirm I can, or perhaps should, be able to do the following?

Warlock Drow at level 5.

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

-Has pact of the chain with an Imp familiar.

-Take the poison from the Imp, or have the Imp apply it for me, to three bolts, early in battle or just before.

-I have dex 18.


If I hit twice, each hit should be:

1d6 bolt damage
+4 dexdamage
3d6 poison damage with dc11 con save for half
1d6 necrotic damage from hex.

Same for the second bolt.

Have I missed anything or does that work? What parts of it don't? Thanks.

 

[kerbarian]

The main issues I see are:

There's no way to apply the imp's poison to a crossbow bolt -- it has to be delivered directly via the imp's attack. Your DM could choose to allow you to apply it to a weapon, though.

Casting Hex (or applying it to a new target) uses your bonus action, and the extra hand crossbow attack from Crossbow Expert also uses your bonus action. So you can't do both of those on the same turn. You could get the Hex damage on two attacks if you had cast Hex on the target in an earlier round, though.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Feat may take the Load feature off the crossbow, but you still need to put bolts in the crossbows, they are not automatic weapons.

 

[Flatulus]

The main issues I see are:

There's no way to apply the imp's poison to a crossbow bolt -- it has to be delivered directly via the imp's attack. Your DM could choose to allow you to apply it to a weapon, though.

Casting Hex (or applying it to a new target) uses your bonus action, and the extra hand crossbow attack from Crossbow Expert also uses your bonus action. So you can't do both of those on the same turn. You could get the Hex damage on two attacks if you had cast Hex on the target in an earlier round, though.

You think Imp poison can't be used? I figured most poisons last a while. When looking at the poison rules, the basic poison lasts 1 minute after you take it out of the jar. Venom from most creatures is dangerous for a while.

Certainly it is something a Dm needs to judge, but I think players need to have SOME natural sources of poison.

Regarding the Hex, it would need to be done on a previous round.

 

[Pickles JG]

It's not natural it's off an infernal beasty. Gettong a couple of doses of wyvern venom after killing and skillfully praparing a wyvern yeah. On tap milking a diabolical little beast to double your damage seems a tad distorting.

 

[Paraxis]

RAW

You can use your hand crossbow(s) to fire fire and then as a bonus action fire again.

Yes hex would apply to each hit if the target is hexed.

Yes each attack would apply dex modifier damage.

The not so RAW part, poison.

You should be able to milk your imp for venom, how much, how often, how long it lasts in a vial, how long it lasts once applied to a weapon, all that useful information is unknown. You are left asking your DM.

But yes taking venom from imps, quasits, pseudo dragons, giant snake animal companions, or any variety of beasts a druid can wild shape into are all viable sources for poison.

The only rule for duration of poisons is under the Basic poison listed in the PHB, and it just states it lasts for a minute. It doesn't clarify if that is a minute of use with all the attacks you can possibly make during that time or just one strike before a minute passes. Either way that is just for the poison listed in the PHB, duration in any form is not mentioned in the poison section of the DMG.

 

[Coredump]

There is also the issue of reloading the handbows. It is clear they can be fired one-handed, it isn't so clear that they can be reloaded one-handed.


Your DM will have to adjudicate if an imp is a valid source for poison, and how long it will last. At the very least I would require proficiency with a Poisoners kit, and take some time to harvest and prepare the poison; likely using the crafting rules, or some modification.

 

[Paraxis]

There is also the issue of reloading the handbows. It is clear they can be fired one-handed, it isn't so clear that they can be reloaded one-handed.

Could you point to anything that even suggests you need 2 hands to load the hand crossbow?

I can point to the facts that the hand crossbow doesn't have the 2-handed quality, and the ammunition property says reloading is a part of making an attack with the weapon which since it isn't 2-handed only takes 1 hand to attack with it.

This also applies to blowguns and slings.

 

[Ahrimon]

Could you point to anything that even suggests you need 2 hands to load the hand crossbow?

I can point to the facts that the hand crossbow doesn't have the 2-handed quality, and the ammunition property says reloading is a part of making an attack with the weapon which since it isn't 2-handed only takes 1 hand to attack with it.

This also applies to blowguns and slings.

This is one of those letter of the law vs spirit of the law issues that are half the arguments around here.

 

[Coredump]

Could you point to anything that even suggests you need 2 hands to load the hand crossbow?

I can point to the facts that the hand crossbow doesn't have the 2-handed quality, and the ammunition property says reloading is a part of making an attack with the weapon which since it isn't 2-handed only takes 1 hand to attack with it.

This also applies to blowguns and slings.

Sure, because the rules call it a "hand crossbow", and I know what a hand crossbow is, how it operates, and how it is loaded. Thus when the rules tell me what the item is, it is providing a lot of other useful information.

Just like when a spell refers to a "tree" we gain all sorts of information, even though they don't bother to explicitly define every aspect of a tree, nor do they even clarify that a forest is full of trees......

The handbow is a one handed weapon, so it can be fired with one hand. Nothing in the rules says it can be loaded with only one hand. Nothing in the rules over-rides what we already know about how a handbow is loaded.


To be fair, nothing in the rules explicitly says it takes two hands. So if you want to ignore how handbows are normally loaded, you would not be breaking and RAW statements.


Oh, and because Crawford has tweeted multiple times taking the same stance I am taking.