Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="juggerulez" data-source="post: 6734073" data-attributes="member: 98250">it's a distinction made between the light crossbow, which is a simple weapon, and the heavy crossbow, which is a martial weapon. The difference between them is just about that (die and range are distinctive of the weapon type, not its name)they are flagged as light because they're "small and easy to handle", contradistinction of a light 1 handed weapon  you must operate a 2 handed weapons with two hands, to carry or reloading it, 1 hand will sufficeyes it is precisely so.In previous editions, heavy crossbows had 1 extra round of loading time because you would have to put them down, take out a loader, cock the string, set the bolt, lock the crossbow again and *then* you would have been ready to shoot again. This was removed because it would have made no sense whatsoever.It has nothing to do with the two weapon fighting style. "light" propriety allows you to use the weapon in TWF if it is a melee weapon. light ranged weapons are simply that: small and easy to handle.you can use and operate a hand crossbow with 1 hand, however you won't be able to reload it if you have both hands full, exception made by the shields, which are strapped on the forearm and require the "use" of the hand only for providing AC bonus (i.e. in the brief time you are loading, you don't benefit of your Shield AC bonus, thus if someone calls for a ready action against your reload, he could shoot you with increased hit chances). Mind that this is more of a RAI thing rather than a RAW thing, because the manual suggests you that the shield is carried in one hand, which is arguably not. Shields are carried strapped to the forearm and provide AC while wielded with one hand. The difference is that you don't need to sheathe the shield to do minor actions such as reloading and using an item which is ready to be used (e.g. contained in a bandoleer or a case or around your neck) to better yourself at two "melee" weapon fighting. If you are a ranged fighter, you'd best go for archery, which provides you 2 extra damage per shot. Crossbow expert doesn't equal to two weapon fighting.1) it removes the loading propriety of a crossbow, meaning you are realistically reloading at the very instant you discharge your weapon2) you can shot at point blank without penalties3) you can shoot twice with the same hand crossbow in the same turn, provided you have a free hand or a shield.As you can see, it is not meant to be used while "dual wielding" crossbows rather than while using a hand xbow and a shield (or a free hand if your DM doesn't allow that RAI). This disadvantage is such for an untrained person. Properly trained artillery will still be effective in point blank. a level 20 fighter can discharge a weapon 3 times with an action, 3 times with an Action surge, and once with crossbow expert, the second round can use another action surge, thus other extra 7 bolts, and from the 3rd round on, he can only shoot 4 times per round.but we're speaking about a bloody level 20 fighter, which is recognized as someone who you don't wanna piss off, not even by chance.a more "down to earth" example is a level 5 fighter. She can discharge her hand crossbow twice per action and once per bonus action. A polearm master fighter can swing his halberd twice per action and once per bonus action (as d4 instead of d10), so we're speaking about a 10 feet long item weighting about 6lbs swung trice per 6 seconds... so? what's the big deal you're seeing here? I'd rather ask what are *you* thinking, there <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />wait, wait. you're a bit confused here. Perhaps you're missing the point of the feats. Feats are "an array of perks" that better your performances. You are not compelled to benefit from the whole feat, but you clearly can, if you match all the criteria.If you normally couldn't shoot twice in a round due the loading propriety, now you can. You wanna shoot during a reaction? now you can. You wanna shoot during a bonus action? you can do that by yourself IF you have a hand crossbow, otherwise you must be entitled of a bonus action by other means, *but now you can* where normally you couldn't.You wanna increase your AC? hand crossbow and shield are the best way to do so! (if DM accepts RAI) the rules are solid, you're seeing them from the wrong perspective.Believe me or not, but ranged dual wield is even worse than melee dual wield. Being unable to reload your weapons prevents you do deal damage entirely, at least twf can hit for ridicolous damage :vTWF is a versatile combat style, which means that it can't compete against specialized fighting styles but can still perform properly whereas other stiles could fall short.It needs some love, yes, and perhaps it will receive it in an upcoming manual, but this has nothing to do with ranged combat, which is really awesome right now... if you can't see it, i'm sorry for you. Or perhaps you're failing to see the big picture? <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=":)" />Full plated human fighter with shield and hand crossbow, level 5, 16 DEX, Archery fighting style, Crossbow expert, Sharpshooter. No magic items, no special items.AC 20, standard attack: +5 hit, 1d6+8, bonus attack: +5 hit, 1d6+8, Power standard attack: +0 hit, 1d6+18, Powered bonus attack: +0 hit, 1d6+18One standard "full round": (3*3.5 + 24)  * (10.5+3+3)/20 = 28.47 mitigated damageAction Surged "full round": (5*3.5 + 40) * (10.5+3+3)/20 = 47.44 mitigated damageOne Power "full round": (3*3.5 + 54) * (10.5+3+3-5)/20 = 37.09 mitigated damageAction Surged Power "full round": (5*3.5 + 72) * (10.5+3+3-5)/20 = 51.46 mitigated damageAnd these are just the hand crossbow stats and without the crits. Heavy crossbows ones will be lowered by the lack of a "self proc'ed" bonus action but will be increased by the base die, which is 5.5 rather than 3.5... which ramp up further if you can consistently provide yourself with a bonus action, e.g. flanking in close quarters: since you no longer suffer from DA "by design" (it is not a condition that grants you ADV which counterbalances the DA, you *no longer* have DA from close quarters) you can benefit of ADV while flanking (implying your DM allows optional rules such as flanking).and YOU still think that ranged combat is less effective than two weapon fighting?[ATTACH]71214[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

Verification