D&D 5E Revised Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter - now with Homebrewery attachment

[ro]

Pretty sure bows at least don't have the loading property.

Yes, but this covers the underused Blowgun as well.

What.

Shields could be worn strapped to an arm: you couldn't wield a sword with that arm, but you could use that hand to help fire a bow or add extra power to a two-handed weapon, especially a versatile one. This is the thought I was getting at.

Again, need to specify with what kind of weapon. Does it have to be a ranged attack?
This also stomps heavily on a major class feature of Rogues.

It would not have to be a ranged attack, allowing a benefit for melee fighting. But I don't want to step on the Rogue too much. What about limiting it only to Disengage? I'm also wary of stepping on Mobile.

My goal with this and the two-handed weapon + shield benefit was to give melee fighters a benefit from this feat. Do you have any suggestion for how I could do that, or if it is unnecessary?

What have you changed the Two-weapon fighting Style to in your games?

No, I haven't. This would just allow you to take a different fighting style if you took the feat. Probably not necessary, but I momentarily forgot about the fighting style.

Close Attacker
- You ignore the loading quality of ranged weapons (except firearms) with which you are proficient.
- Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attacks.
- In addition to melee weapons, you may use one-handed ranged weapons when two-weapon fighting.
- You learn to use two-handed ranged weapons (except firearms) while using a shield.
- You can perform the somatic components of spells with your shield hand.
- When you attack a creature at close range, you may use a bonus action to give that creature disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you this turn.

 

[Krachek]

Following extensive analysis in this and other threads, and experience in play, I'd like to propose a definite wording for two feat revisions. These wordings bring together ideas from many authors. Changed text is in red. In part, a goal of these revisions was to be conservative - the least rewording needed to protect melee weapons as the best choice for melee, and prevent ranged weapons from doing close to the same damage as the best melee.

Crossbow Expert
You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient. When you use the Attack action to attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to load and attack with a hand crossbow you are holding. When you use the Attack action to make a melee attack against a creature, being within 5 feet of that creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls for the rest of the turn.

The crucial impact of this change is to retain a disadvantage to ranged attacks in melee. Melee weapons continue to dominate melee.

Sharpshooter
Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls. Your ranged weapon attacks ignore half and three-quarters cover. Once per turn, before you make an attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a −5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack’s damage.

The crucial impact of this change is to prevent ranged attacks from matching Great Weapon Master for damage, but at 120'. The advantage of range becomes properly factored into the damage.

Why no similar revision for GWM? I see the role of Great Weapon Master as defining the most damage we should expect from weapons (before magic). At 11th level, a greatsword with everything focused on dealing maximum damage with it, does about 43* damage/turn (at 5') prior to magic. Revised Sharpshooter does about 32 (at up to 600').


*Green Flame Blade does about 62, but that's splatbooks for you, and besides that's adding magic. We can do more with GWM and SS too, with magic.


[Edited to broaden the relief of disadvantage in melee.]

Do you consider GWM as a must have feature to balance melee vs ranged and melee vs full caster?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Shields could be worn strapped to an arm: you couldn't wield a sword with that arm, but you could use that hand to help fire a bow or add extra power to a two-handed weapon, especially a versatile one. This is the thought I was getting at.

Even the shields that were strapped to the arm were still gripped in the hand as well. Its how you retain control and angle the shield. Trying to use anything other than a pike or spear in massed battle formation with the hand holding the shield isn't really feasible. Anything light enough to not restrict use of a swinging weapon, and small enough to not require holding to control would probably fall into the realm of a piece of heavy armour rather than a shield.

I'd forgive that however, as falling into the same realm of fantasy as crossbows that can be reloaded with one hand while fighting with the other etc. What I really had objections to was this ability allowing use of a two-handed sword and shield alongside the ability to make a full attack and then take the dodge action from further down.
- It turned the feat into a much bigger powerup for tanking-style fighting than the intended shooting style.

It would not have to be a ranged attack, allowing a benefit for melee fighting. But I don't want to step on the Rogue too much. What about limiting it only to Disengage? I'm also wary of stepping on Mobile.

Leave the mechanics behind for a second. What is this part of the feat intended to actually do?
Allow ranged weapon users to break away easier? Allow "kiting" of monsters? Simply make it much harder for someone with this feat to be hit?
Work out what you want to do. Then decide on how to word the ability to allow you to do it.

My goal with this and the two-handed weapon + shield benefit was to give melee fighters a benefit from this feat. Do you have any suggestion for how I could do that, or if it is unnecessary?

Granting use of two-handed weapons in addition to shields would be pretty good for a feat on its own. Granting ability to take Dodge action as a bonus action would probably be too powerful for a feat to give.
You're probably better off having the feat grant abilities that are universally applicable rather than inserting additional abilities to cater for each possibility.

 

[ro]

Even the shields that were strapped to the arm were still gripped in the hand as well. Its how you retain control and angle the shield. Trying to use anything other than a pike or spear in massed battle formation with the hand holding the shield isn't really feasible. Anything light enough to not restrict use of a swinging weapon, and small enough to not require holding to control would probably fall into the realm of a piece of heavy armour rather than a shield.

I'd forgive that however, as falling into the same realm of fantasy as crossbows that can be reloaded with one hand while fighting with the other etc. What I really had objections to was this ability allowing use of a two-handed sword and shield alongside the ability to make a full attack and then take the dodge action from further down.
- It turned the feat into a much bigger powerup for tanking-style fighting than the intended shooting style.

Yeah, you are right. That's not what I was going for. Limiting it only to be able to shoot a two-handed ranged weapon while holding a shield is better.

Leave the mechanics behind for a second. What is this part of the feat intended to actually do?
Allow ranged weapon users to break away easier? Allow "kiting" of monsters? Simply make it much harder for someone with this feat to be hit?
Work out what you want to do. Then decide on how to word the ability to allow you to do it.

My intention was to make it easier for a range-focused character to escape melee. My intention is definitely against improving kiting however. I think giving disadvantage on opportunity attacks for a target as a bonus action would make it emphasize the escape but not the kiting. This also leaves the Mobile feat better in comparison. What do you think?

Granting use of two-handed weapons in addition to shields would be pretty good for a feat on its own. Granting ability to take Dodge action as a bonus action would probably be too powerful for a feat to give.
You're probably better off having the feat grant abilities that are universally applicable rather than inserting additional abilities to cater for each possibility.

Good point. I think a general OA disadvantage is more broadly applicable.

Close Attacker

- You ignore the loading quality of ranged weapons (except firearms) with which you are proficient.
- Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attacks.
- In addition to melee weapons, you may use one-handed ranged weapons when two-weapon fighting.
- You learn to use two-handed ranged weapons (except firearms) while using a shield.
- You can perform the somatic components of spells with your shield hand.
- When you attack a creature at close range, you may use a bonus action to give that creature disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you this turn.

 

[Thurmas]

Frankly, I think one solution to simplifying this is make Crossbow Expert only apply to crossbows. Make Sharpshooter apply to ranged weapons in general but not in close range.

Crossbow Expert:
You ignore the loading property of crossbows you are proficient with.
If you are use the attack action to make a one handed melee attack, you may load and attack with a hand crossbow you are proficient with as a bonus action. This bonus attack does not have disadvantage when an enemy is within 5 feet of you.

Sharpshooter:
You ignore half and three quaters cover on ranged attacks made within your weapon's normal range.
Attacking at long range does not impose disadvantage on your attacks.
When you make a ranged attack with a weapon you are proficient with, you may add your proficiency bonus to the damage roll if the target is within your weapon's normal range.

This sets some limits on range and damage by limiting the abilities to being within normal weapon range. No reason to be able to make a sharpshooter attack at 600'. This could be replaced with the -5/+10 modifier if desired.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Exactly! The design intent is that most of the time, using ranged attacks while in melee isn't a great idea.

I think adding back AoOs to ranged attacks and spellcasting (and spells that grant saves instead of using attack rolls granting advantage instead of suffering disadvantage when cast in melee) would be a good place to start. Then, instead of the other OP things they do, one of these feats can allow some of those AoOs to be avoided by ranged-weapon-users, in some situations.

 

[thethain]

The important thing to remember, is that GWM requires "A melee attack with a heavy weapon" and SS requires "An attack with a ranged weapon you are proficient with"

Using the same logic behind thrown melee weapons: A thrown weapon attack is a ranged attack with a melee weapon. If you make a melee attack with your Longbow or Heavy Crossbow as an improvised attack, it is a melee attack with a ranged weapon, with the heavy property, so you can apply SS and GWM. for +20 damage.

 

[CapnZapp]

I get that you are trying to nerf ranged attacks, but I don't think that making this feat so extremely specific is the way to do it. The intent of the designers was clearly to extend these benefits to all characters, not just a very select few.

Does this feat actually make range overpowered? Let's break it down.

3) "When you use the Attack action and attack with a one handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding."

This only applies to melee and hand crossbow users.

Hello and welcome to the Crossbow Expert discussions.

This is only the first instance of a CE analysis where the designers intended one thing but ended up with another. As you yourself believe their intention was beyond a doubt to empower several character concepts, including the scimitar and hand crossbow archetype.

Only problem, the rules don't allow it. The ONLY character build that lets you fire all your attacks each round of a combat is the one where you have a single hand crossbow and no other weapon.

This is because as soon as both your hands are occupied, you can no longer (re)load your hand crossbow.

So the scimitar + hand crossbow archetype doesn't work: after the first round your hand crossbow is useless (unless your DM allows truly detestable object interaction shenanigans I'd really don't want to go into).

And twin hand crossbows doesn't work for the same reason.

The ONLY archetype where the feat gives you one more attack using your bonus action throughout a fight, every round of the combat, is the build where you use a hand crossbow and no other weapon (or shield).

It is two-weapon-fighting with a hand crossbow. Hand crossbows have the lowest damage of all crossbows. However, this does allow you to add your damage modifier to the bonus action attack.

The actual damage die has much less weight than you're led to believe. Once you apply SS you're looking at d6+15 instead of d8+15 for a bow, and you gain one more attack. This is easily better.

And the fact it really IS "two-weapon-fighting with a hand crossbow" is broken in its own regard. You do get the full benefit of the two weapon fighting fighting style without having to actually take it. Instead you can (and will) pick the archery fighting style. Not only do you in effect get TWO fighting styles, you can two-weapon-fight with the +2 from Archery, easily one of the best fighting styles.

2) "Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls."
This rule is necessary to make point 3) work. Otherwise, your bonus action attack would always have disadvantage.

Not at all. This is just a carelessly unrestricted way of implementing it.

If the disadvantage-negation was limited to the bonus action attack, you would satisfy your criteria without robbing ranged combat of its last major limitation (vulnerability to melee).

If the feat only allowed the bonus action attack in conjunction with a melee attack action, you would ensure the character would still be a melee character, not a ranged character.

The problem isn't when the Crossbow Expert is in melee. The problem is that the Crossbow Expert will stay at range as often as possible and not be inconvenienced when forced into melee. This is the critical error made by the original feat's designers - it allows a fully ranged build to fight just as well in melee range. The Crossbow Expert won't switch to melee weapons when forced to stay in melee - he will simply keep on firing hand crossbow bolts with zero impediments!

This is what I have characterized thusly: imagine if you could do two-weapon fighting with twin shortswords, each having 120 ft reach, and each counting as a greatweapon for the purposes of getting access to the coveted -5/+10 mechanism. Furthermore, you don't need to pick up two-weapon fighting fighting style, you get it as part of the package. Instead you get to pick a special +2 attack bonus to your "melee" attacks that no other melee fighter can have, never mind it's called "Archery".

This is also the part of the feat about which the designers said,

Sorry this is kind of a circular argument. You essentially defend the feat by saying it's in the game.

Trust me, the dev team got it wrong on this one.

The fact that this ability is also added to the "Close Quarters Shooter" Fighting Style further points to the designers' intent to allow ranged attackers to remove this disadvantage by taking a feat or class feature to do it.

And it remains a thoroughly bad idea

Remember: if they phrased the feat so it ONLY enabled close-quarter shooting, it would probably be okay. But they aren't. The feat enables a wholly ranged build to be immune to the threat of melee, which is something entirely different.

1) "You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient."
This ability also is necessary to make 3) work. Otherwise 3) would generally take complicated use of action economy to pull off. It might be worth considering making this available to bows as well: "You ignore the loading quality of range weapons with which you are proficient. This benefit does not apply to firearms."

Loading doesn't apply to bows.

Myself I like how loading prevents crossbows from becoming indisnguishable from bows, but that's a personal opinion.

More to the point: no this ability isn't necessary to make 3) work, if you consider the hand crossbow complementing a melee weapon.

You could easily tweak CE to enable you to use a bonus action to shoot your hand crossbow when you spent your action to make a melee attack, without having to remove loading.

In fact, vonklaude (and myself) have independently done exactly this

we should not assume that every ranged attacker has Archery, nor Sharpshooter

Of course we should. Trying to balance a game from its averages is folly. Only the extremes are relevant for proper balancing.

If we assume the Crossbow Expert does have Archery and Sharpshooter we stand a chance of arriving at a balanced design. This is where the dev team have clearly failed.

If anything Crossbow Expert should be expanded to help more character concepts rather than constrained to near uselessness.

Now you're talking about something completely different, and I agree.

If you believe a certain version of Crossbow Expert is useless, you should definitely speak up. But that's no argument for keeping the feat as-is. Only to keep tweaking so it isn't "constrained to near uselessness".

I'm sure there is a happy medium between the RAW bonkers OP-ness and RAW-RAI mismatch on one hand, and uselessness on the other

 

[CapnZapp]

Frankly, I think one solution to simplifying this is make Crossbow Expert only apply to crossbows. Make Sharpshooter apply to ranged weapons in general but not in close range.

Crossbow Expert:
You ignore the loading property of crossbows you are proficient with.
If you are use the attack action to make a one handed melee attack, you may load and attack with a hand crossbow you are proficient with as a bonus action. This bonus attack does not have disadvantage when an enemy is within 5 feet of you.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but you now apply two independent restrictions, only one of which is really necessary.

Meaning that 1) if you only get the bonus action hand crossbow attack when you wield a melee weapon in your main hand... you don't need to restrict the disadvantage-negation to only the bonus action attack...

...and 2) if you restrict the disadvantage-negation to only the bonus action attack, you don't need to specify that the bonus action attack is triggered by melee weapons only.

This is because if you use a ranged weapon in the first scenario, you don't get the bonus action attack. (This makes the feat work just like RAW from a bow-user's perspective)

And if you use the second scenario, a character is forced to do main-hand attacks with a melee weapon to avoid disadvantage in melee. (This means a ranged character remains vulnerable to melee - or rather, that she needs to switch to a melee main-hand weapon in melee. This might not sound like a big deal, but it does mean you no longer can combine CE with either Archery FS or SS feat when you can't avoid melee, a sizable penalty at least for power gamers)

Obviously I prefer wording 2

 

[ro]

Hello and welcome to the Crossbow Expert discussions.

Thanks!

This is only the first instance of a CE analysis where the designers intended one thing but ended up with another. As you yourself believe their intention was beyond a doubt to empower several character concepts, including the scimitar and hand crossbow archetype.

Only problem, the rules don't allow it. The ONLY character build that lets you fire all your attacks each round of a combat is the one where you have a single hand crossbow and no other weapon.

This is because as soon as both your hands are occupied, you can no longer (re)load your hand crossbow.

So the scimitar + hand crossbow archetype doesn't work: after the first round your hand crossbow is useless (unless your DM allows truly detestable object interaction shenanigans I'd really don't want to go into).

And twin hand crossbows doesn't work for the same reason.

The ONLY archetype where the feat gives you one more attack using your bonus action throughout a fight, every round of the combat, is the build where you use a hand crossbow and no other weapon (or shield).

Isn't that the purpose of point 1, ignoring the loading property of crossbows? All of these archetypes work just fine with that ability under this feat.

The actual damage die has much less weight than you're led to believe. Once you apply SS you're looking at d6+15 instead of d8+15 for a bow, and you gain one more attack. This is easily better.

Or d10 + 15 with a heavy crossbow. But this thread is also changing SS, which I think is the real problem in this situation.

And the fact it really IS "two-weapon-fighting with a hand crossbow" is broken in its own regard. You do get the full benefit of the two weapon fighting fighting style without having to actually take it. Instead you can (and will) pick the archery fighting style. Not only do you in effect get TWO fighting styles, you can two-weapon-fight with the +2 from Archery, easily one of the best fighting styles.

Quite effective that is! 2d6+10 for twice-used hand crossbow with +2 to attack. In comparison, taking TWF and Dual Wielder gives you 2d8+10 with two longswords and +1 to AC. So, +2 attack and range vs. +2 damage and +1 AC. Is this a fair trade? Probably not quite. Fighting with two weapons is lacking. It isn't OP compared to other builds, though. For my part, I think it would be better to get rid of that bonus action hand crossbow attack from this feat though. Just expand the general two-weapon fighting rules to allow all one-handed weapons rather than melee only: the hand crossbow could be used, but would need the TWF fighting style to get the damage bonus.

Not at all. This is just a carelessly unrestricted way of implementing it.

By "Not at all" I take you to mean, "It was addressing a need, but does so poorly."

If the disadvantage-negation was limited to the bonus action attack, you would satisfy your criteria without robbing ranged combat of its last major limitation (vulnerability to melee).

If the feat only allowed the bonus action attack in conjunction with a melee attack action, you would ensure the character would still be a melee character, not a ranged character.

That's true. But that was the designers' intent. I understand that you disagree with them.

The problem isn't when the Crossbow Expert is in melee. The problem is that the Crossbow Expert will stay at range as often as possible and not be inconvenienced when forced into melee. This is the critical error made by the original feat's designers - it allows a fully ranged build to fight just as well in melee range. The Crossbow Expert won't switch to melee weapons when forced to stay in melee - he will simply keep on firing hand crossbow bolts with zero impediments!

Yep! It's a fun feat! Otherwise they could have just included hand crossbow in normal two-weapon fighting, and this feat would be pretty much pointless.

This is what I have characterized thusly: imagine if you could do two-weapon fighting with twin shortswords, each having 120 ft reach, and each counting as a greatweapon for the purposes of getting access to the coveted -5/+10 mechanism. Furthermore, you don't need to pick up two-weapon fighting fighting style, you get it as part of the package. Instead you get to pick a special +2 attack bonus to your "melee" attacks that no other melee fighter can have, never mind it's called "Archery".

Sorry this is kind of a circular argument. You essentially defend the feat by saying it's in the game.

Trust me, the dev team got it wrong on this one.

And it remains a thoroughly bad idea

Remember: if they phrased the feat so it ONLY enabled close-quarter shooting, it would probably be okay. But they aren't. The feat enables a wholly ranged build to be immune to the threat of melee, which is something entirely different.

I see where you are coming from.

Loading doesn't apply to bows.

Myself I like how loading prevents crossbows from becoming indisnguishable from bows, but that's a personal opinion.

Oops on the bows.

More to the point: no this ability isn't necessary to make 3) work, if you consider the hand crossbow complementing a melee weapon.

You could easily tweak CE to enable you to use a bonus action to shoot your hand crossbow when you spent your action to make a melee attack, without having to remove loading.

How? Yes, it would work once, but the next turn you'd have to drop a weapon, load your crossbow, pick up a weapon, etc. This ability makes this annoyance go away. Yes, it's weird that you can ignore loading.

Of course we should. Trying to balance a game from its averages is folly. Only the extremes are relevant for proper balancing.

If we assume the Crossbow Expert does have Archery and Sharpshooter we stand a chance of arriving at a balanced design. This is where the dev team have clearly failed.

Just to reiterate, I think that the major problem is SS and that CE is more a symptom.

Now you're talking about something completely different, and I agree.

If you believe a certain version of Crossbow Expert is useless, you should definitely speak up. But that's no argument for keeping the feat as-is. Only to keep tweaking so it isn't "constrained to near uselessness".

I'm sure there is a happy medium between the RAW bonkers OP-ness and RAW-RAI mismatch on one hand, and uselessness on the other

And hopefully we will arrive at that happy medium in this thread!