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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7230380" data-attributes="member: 12731">Short answer: "yes" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Longer answer:My intent is for the Crossbow Expert to be able to fire one bolt with her action, then one more bolt with her bonus action. Total 2 bolts fired, sustained (=in any round).If you have found that my phrasing doesn't really support this RAI, I would be much obliged.So, yes, you can:Wield a rapier and a hand crossbow. A level 5 fighter would make two rapier attacks and one hand crossbow attack. Each round. This is comparable to two-weapon fighting. You can wield one hand crossbow. The fighter would make only two hand crossbow attacks, one with your action, a second with your bonus action. The loading of the action attack is taken care of the general rule that you load ammunition as part of your attack; the loading of the bonus action attack is (redundantly, though I know vonklaude has a differing opinion here) taken care of the phrasing of the Crossbow Expert language. You can wield two hand crossbows. This would leave you with one unloaded hand crossbow after your turn though, since you have no hand free to reload the first one. The bonus attack one is taken care of the phrasing of the feat, but not the attack one. The key is that the feat langauge voids the "hand free" part, as opposed to the "load is free as part of attack" part.You could go hand crossbow plus shield, but again, after the first round your h-X-bow would be empty. In the second round, you would be limited to firing a single bolt (the bonus action one) since you don't have one hand free to satisfy the requirements on the main attack.So as you can see, the feat language intentionally allows you to fight with a hand crossbow even though both your hands are busy, but only if you use the hand crossbow in your off hand (=for your bonus action attack). Not coincidentally, this is how the archetype is presented! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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