D&D 5E Does the new ammunition rule screw up dual hand crossbow?

[Kobold Stew]

I'm not sure what I'm missing here, but I think I'm missing something.

The default two-weapon fighting rules only apply to melee weapons (Basic PDF, p 74). So the only way dual wielding hand crossbows comes up is with the feat, isn't it? And that seems to be the whole point of the feat, to allow a hand crossbow to be fired as a bonus action (and hence for hand crossbows to be faster than shortbows). The feat frames hand crossbows as the thematic/stylistic analogues of pistols.

This is almost the right story. Problematically, and perhaps as a holdover of an earlier version f the rules, had crossbows have been given the property "light" and "light is defined exclusively in terms of using two melee weapons.

Now it could be that it was given that property so that one could use the crossbow expert feat and no one could say "hey, that character also needs the Dual Wielder feat since it's not a light weapon, but that's not clean either: if that were the case the third bullet point of Crossbow Expert would indicate "a one-handed light melee weapon" and it doesn't.

The light property of hand crossbows has not been explained, and I think it shows that there are still wrinkles in these rules. That doesn't stop the necessary implications of the erratum, though, which is the point of the thread.

 

[pemerton]

The light property of hand crossbows has not been explained

But are there people out there allowing two-weapon fighting with hand crossbows despite the fact that the rules for 2WF (absent the Crossbow Expert feat) expressly specify light melee weapons?

 

[famousringo]

People didn't argue about this one because hardly anyone used sling to begin with. I always ruled (and played) a free hand was needed for loading and readying a sling as well, so no shield.

This makes your game less realistic.

I'm not sure it's needed for game balance either, considering how much more damage longbowmen and crossbow experts can do. The distance between sling damage and longbow damage is the same as the distance between rapier and greataxe. On top of that, longbow offers much better range (again not realistic, but fine).

 

[Kobold Stew]

But are there people out there allowing two-weapon fighting with hand crossbows despite the fact that the rules for 2WF (absent the Crossbow Expert feat) expressly specify light melee weapons?

I imagine there are; regardless, the property is unexplained and makes no sense, even wit the emended rules. It requires a DM's call one way or another, since it is not interpretable as is.

 

[spinozajack]

Actually, folks have figured out that you still can! You just need to use your free interaction to constantly sheath/unsheath or drop/pick up your sword to get your free hand.

Shhhhhh. It's more realistic this way.

Unsheathing a weapon can be done as part of the attack action, as can loading ammunition (for each attack), providing you have a free hand at the beginning of your action. You can't sheathe and unsheathe, even once. And you definitely can't drop + pick up your weapon and still attack with it. Nope.

This is a meme from the people over at Wizards forum who are trying to make the word "free hand" mean anything but what it actually does. Rather sad, but completely irrelevant. There is no RAW vs RAI debate about what the natural language free hand means. It means what it says it does. Meaning you can't have something in the other hand at the start of your turn if you want to load your ammunition. You can't flip between states. People are trying to rules lawyer something that's crystal clear into something that is completely illegal and nonsensical, to get around this errata. As I said, it's sad.

 

[famousringo]

Unsheathing a weapon can be done as part of the attack action, as can loading ammunition (for each attack), providing you have a free hand at the beginning of your action. You can't sheathe and unsheathe, even once. And you definitely can't drop + pick up your weapon and still attack with it. Nope.

This is a meme from the people over at Wizards forum who are trying to make the word "free hand" mean anything but what it actually does. Rather sad, but completely irrelevant. There is no RAW vs RAI debate about what the natural language free hand means. It means what it says it does. Meaning you can't have something in the other hand at the start of your turn if you want to load your ammunition. You can't flip between states. People are trying to rules lawyer something that's crystal clear into something that is completely illegal and nonsensical, to get around this errata. As I said, it's sad.

Such certitude, but you've got the argument all wrong.

For starters, you need the free hand at the start of the action you're going to use it, not the start of the turn. If the latter were true, casters would need to put away their weapons and then wait until next turn before being allowed to cast. Nobody runs like that. "Flipping between states" is what turns are for.

So the attack pattern goes like this:

1. Attack with melee weapon as action.
2. Use free interaction to sheath/drop melee weapon.
3. Fire crossbow with bonus action, using newly freed hand to load ammo.

Aha! You're thinking, but they can't do it again next round. They would need to pickup/draw their sword and then sheath/drop it again. There are two arguments that they can.

The weaker is that the Crossbow Feat isn't perfectly clear that the bonus shot needs to happen after the action, so they can use the bonus shot, then draw for a melee attack action. That's the weaker argument, as IMO the feat does imply that the action happens before the bonus.

The stronger argument is found in the free interaction rules, which specifically outlines that you may interact with one object for free, but sets no limit on how much you can interact with it. There's no indication at all that you can't draw, attack, and sheath a blade, all as part of the same action, leaving a free hand to load ammo for your bonus action.

I hope neither of these arguments make you too sad.

 

[spinozajack]

Not sad, just correct:

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/BasicRules_Playerv3.4_PF.pdf

D&D Basic rules, p70:

"You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack."

The rules clearly state that you can only draw your weapon (singular, only one weapon can be drawn this way, you need Dual Wielder to draw two) as part of the attack action, not draw, attack, and then sheathe. The line I bolded there is a specific rule. Specific trumps general. You can't use the general rule to turn around and override the specific rule on drawing as part of the attack action, to both draw, attack, AND sheathe it. Once you finish attacking, your action is over, as is the free object interaction. You don't get a second one.

What on earth makes you think a DM would allow you to interact with your weapon twice anyway? When the actual rules text says, "you can also interact". That doesn't say "as many times as you like to, to do anything you want". Drawing and sheathing are two separate, distinct interactions, separated in time (you're attacking in between those two interactions).

Two is different than one. When you interact the first time, you are drawing the weapon. Then you "stop interacting with it freely" and attack with it, thus ending your "free interaction" for the round. You cannot then, after the attack, interact yet again, to achieve a completely different (in fact opposite) result.

If you tried to even argue that you can draw a sword, attack with it, sheathe it, and then use the same hand that already interacted with the sword twice (aside from attacking with it) to load a crossbow in the other hand before firing it, I would just love to see you mimick that frantically at the game table. It would be total comedy. That's just not going to fly every round though.

I suspect the only person who will be sad is you when you try to pull this off on a DM who will likely see it for what it clearly is, a munchkin forum exploit designed to bypass an actual explicit game rule, and shut it down.

On the very next line we see :

"The DM might require you to use an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. For instance, the DM could reasonably expect you to use an action to open a stuck door or turn a crank to lower a drawbridge."

Sheathing a weapon requires special care by any reasonable person's definition. Have you ever tried sheathing a sword that quickly? I don't recommend it. This is not going to work without the DM being on board, and with the latest errata, he or she isn't likely to.

Good luck though. I would allow you to drop your sword and score an own goal though, because the first thing a smart opponent would do is pick it up off the floor and use it against you. Or maybe he'd just run off with it, seeing that you have disarmed yourself and therefore can no longer even get an AoO.

 

[Mercule]

The rules clearly state that you can only draw your weapon (singular, only one weapon can be drawn this way, you need Dual Wielder to draw two) as part of the attack action, not draw, attack, and then sheathe. The line I bolded there is a specific rule. Specific trumps general. You can't use the general rule to turn around and override the specific rule on drawing as part of the attack action, to both draw, attack, AND sheathe it. Once you finish attacking, your action is over, as is the free object interaction. You don't get a second one.

I allow my players to draw (if not attacking) or sheathe a weapon as their one free interaction, but not both in the same round. That would require some special training, like iaijutsu (which I'd allow as per the rules for learning a new tool).

I do let my players toss stuff between hands, within reason, so they will occasionally carry two swords in their off hand or a weapon in their shield hand (which prevents them from using the shield effectively). On the occasion someone does need to fully change out weapons, dropping them is just part of the tactical play, and we mark the locations of weapons on the mat. In fairness, we've pretty much done it this way since 2E, so there's a lot of table culture in play, as well.

 

[spinozajack]

I generally allow actions that are reasonable in both scope and duration, and aren't trying to bypass either RAW or RAI. But this is both, trying to override RAW, and circumvent RAI.

I'm not sure how much clearer the rules can be. In the very passage about what you can do for free, it says you can draw a weapon as part of the attack action. It doesn't say you can also do something else with it afterwards. Then it goes on to say that the DM can tell you this requires an action.

So anyone even trying to claim that this works by RAW are kidding themselves. When there is a specific rule for a very specific circumstance written in the book, that's what you should use. Players expecting their DM to allow more than what the book expressly allows in combat, when it is used to bypass a weapon limitation, are trying to power jinx the system. It doesn't work by RAW, and only a very, extremely permissive DM would allow that even if it did.

By raw you can draw a weapon as part of your attack, not sheathe it as well. When there is an enumeration listed in possible valid PC activities in combat, written point blank in the rules, that's what you should use.

Going further than that is pure munchkinism.

 

[famousringo]

Not sad, just correct:

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/BasicRules_Playerv3.4_PF.pdf

D&D Basic rules, p70:

"You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack."

The rules clearly state that you can only draw your weapon (singular, only one weapon can be drawn this way, you need Dual Wielder to draw two) as part of the attack action, not draw, attack, and then sheathe. The line I bolded there is a specific rule. Specific trumps general. You can't use the general rule to turn around and override the specific rule on drawing as part of the attack action, to both draw, attack, AND sheathe it. Once you finish attacking, your action is over, as is the free object interaction. You don't get a second one.

What on earth makes you think a DM would allow you to interact with your weapon twice anyway? When the actual rules text says, "you can also interact". That doesn't say "as many times as you like to, to do anything you want". Drawing and sheathing are two separate, distinct interactions, separated in time (you're attacking in between those two interactions).

Two is different than one. When you interact the first time, you are drawing the weapon. Then you "stop interacting with it freely" and attack with it, thus ending your "free interaction" for the round. You cannot then, after the attack, interact yet again, to achieve a completely different (in fact opposite) result.

If you tried to even argue that you can draw a sword, attack with it, sheathe it, and then use the same hand that already interacted with the sword twice (aside from attacking with it) to load a crossbow in the other hand before firing it, I would just love to see you mimick that frantically at the game table. It would be total comedy. That's just not going to fly every round though.

I suspect the only person who will be sad is you when you try to pull this off on a DM who will likely see it for what it clearly is, a munchkin forum exploit designed to bypass an actual explicit game rule, and shut it down.

On the very next line we see :

"The DM might require you to use an action for any of these activities when it needs special care or when it presents an unusual obstacle. For instance, the DM could reasonably expect you to use an action to open a stuck door or turn a crank to lower a drawbridge."

Sheathing a weapon requires special care by any reasonable person's definition. Have you ever tried sheathing a sword that quickly? I don't recommend it. This is not going to work without the DM being on board, and with the latest errata, he or she isn't likely to.

Good luck though. I would allow you to drop your sword and score an own goal though, because the first thing a smart opponent would do is pick it up off the floor and use it against you. Or maybe he'd just run off with it, seeing that you have disarmed yourself and therefore can no longer even get an AoO.

That's not a specific rule, that's an example. The words "For example" are right there in the sentence. It doesn't exclude drawing and sheathing in the same action any more than it excludes pulling a handkerchief out of your pocket.

The rule is based on the number of objects, not the number of interactions, as implied by the following paragraph which lays out that interacting with a second object requires use of an action. Second object, not the same object a second time.

Edit: I'll add, there's really nothing munchkin about crossbow + rapier combat style. Compared to just firing your handbow like an SMG, it does an average of one point of damage more per melee attack, but it puts you in greater danger and requires more magic items to boost output. As you clued into, compared to normal dual-wielding, it deprives you of opportunity attacks.

If anything is munchkin, it's the Crossbow Expert feat. Nothing in this errata changes that.