D&D 5E Crossbows and loading

[Pickaxe]

Can someone clarify how loading works with crossbows? The description says you can fire only one piece of ammunition from a weapon with the loading characteristic on "an action, bonus action, or reaction", no matter how many attacks you have. Does that mean a) if you use your action to fire a crossbow, you can't fire it again until the next round, or b) you could theoretically fire it up to three times in one round: once with your action, once with your bonus action (if you had some kind of ability that allowed it), and once with your reaction (again, if you had an ability that allowed it)? The only real restriction, in the latter case, would be that you could not use the extra attack ability to fire a crossbow more than once with your action.

 

[GainVanquish]

You could only fire it multiple times on your round with a feat crossbow expert that negates the loading property I believe. I'm still fairly new to d&d 5e so happy to be corrected

 

[BoldItalic]

The loading restriction means that you can only load and fire a crossbow once when you take the Attack Action on your turn, even if you have a class feature that would normally give you extra attacks.

You can still load and fire the crossbow as a bonus action or reaction regardless, so yes, you could potentially fire it three times per round (not sure I can think of a bonus action that grants you an extra attack, but supposing there is one, it would be okay).

The Crossbow expert feat allows you to ignore the loading restriction, so you can fire it as many times as you have attacks. For example, a 5th level Fighter can make two attacks on his turn using the Attack action instead of the usual one, so he could potentially fire his crossbow 4 times per round if he had that feat.

Hand crossbows get tricky because although they are one-handed weapons you need a free hand to reload them. There is a bit about this in the Sage Advice column.

 

[Eltab]

Derro / Duergar - forget which - get a special crossbow in Out of the Abyss, which ignores the Loading property but takes a number of disadvantages (including shorter range) in exchange.

I rather doubt they would sell any to a foreign merchant who placed an order, but they might give one to a hero who saved their city...

 

[Phineas Q. Conundrum]

The loading property is what separates bows from crossbows. With extra attack, a bow will be more profitable in terms of damage, but the higher damage dice of crossbows and their inability to attack more than once per turn means that they are best used with a class that lacks extra attack. That is, without the feat that ignores loading.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Derro / Duergar - forget which - get a special crossbow in Out of the Abyss, which ignores the Loading property but takes a number of disadvantages (including shorter range) in exchange.

I rather doubt they would sell any to a foreign merchant who placed an order, but they might give one to a hero who saved their city...

Yep, Derro have the repeating crossbow, with a cartridge that has 6 bolts. If I recall I think they originated way back in Oriental Adventures. It's been a while, so I may be mistaken...

I still don't get why people have a problem with hand crossbows. It still requires you to draw the weapon and load it, thus the need for two hands. Once it's loaded it's entirely one-handed. Although I'm also not sure I quite agree with carrying a couple of loaded ones on your hip. I think the bolt would just fall off.

Ilbranteloth

 

[Eltab]

I still don't get why people have a problem with hand crossbows. It still requires you to draw the weapon and load it, thus the need for two hands. Once it's loaded it's entirely one-handed. Although I'm also not sure I quite agree with carrying a couple of loaded ones on your hip. I think the bolt would just fall off.

I think that people read "Hand Crossbow" but think "6-Shooter Pistol" and are surprised when it doesn't work the way they thought it would.

If I was going to carry perma-loaded hand crossbows around, I would modify it a bit: flimsy ammo cover to keep the bolt in, while it's holstered. The cover snaps off or is held in by just a short peg (plus gravity), so it doesn't get in the way of reloading.