Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8598901" data-attributes="member: 5948">In a complete white-room situation, or with a flying archer in a low-terrain area, range becomes a factor too.  A longbow has 600ft long range, which is far longer than almost any spell, and Sharpshooter means that you won't even be attacking with disadvantage (which is an especially big deal in a campaign like the one i play in, which uses a NASTY homebrew fumble table on natural 1s)The 5e weapon table needs a bit of an overhaul in general, to be honest (rapiers uber alles being one of the main offenders), but if I was making some houserules I'd specify that weapons with the Loading quality require two hands to use (because 1 hand has to be free to do the loading!) to put down the worst of hand crossbow shenanigans, but I'd also consider applying a minimum strength requirement of some sort to things like longbows.  Analagous to the Strength requirement on heavy armour.  Maybe if you don't meet the Str requirement with some bow weapons you don't get to add your Dex to damage?  It'd mean that as an archer you can no longer completely dump Str without penalty.Our campaign has a GWM paladin and a Sharpshooter ranger.  I play the paladin and while I've rarely felt completely overshadowed, the lack of an effective ranged option (I have javelins, but see above re homebrew fumble tables so i rarely use them at long range!) has left me feeling like I'm twiddling my thumbs in some combats.  However, our ranger almost never uses the -5/+10 ability from Sharpshooter (heaven knows why) and i think my opinion might change if he did.  We have a hand crossbow rogue too, but he's put his feats into skill-monkeying rather than Crossbow Expert/Two Weapon Fighting etc.While I haven't tested it in play, I reckon it was a mistake to make Crossbow Expert take away the disadvantages of using a crossbow, rather than simply enhancing its hitting power or something.  Using a crossbow should feel tactically different to using a bow, and after Crossbow Expert, I'm not sure it does.Edit: alternatively, Dex bonus to damage only applies at close range.  After that, it's just too far away to be precise.  Longbow close range brackets are still ludicruously long though.</blockquote>

Verification