D&D 5E Does the new ammunition rule screw up dual hand crossbow?

[Sunseeker]

And? I don't see how this is a problem.
The alternative is just letting the argument go on and on without any resolution. Which causes problems at tables, makes the game less fun, and leads to issues during organized play. Sage Advice is all about giving the DM more tools to decide how they want to rule.

How would you feel if WOTC weighed in on which edition they thought was really "true" D&D?

I suspect I might find you on my side of the aisle on that one.

There was no problem with the rules before. So people could do somewhat unrealistic things. The next time I see a Wizard I'll tell him he can't do that because you can't really shoot fireballs IRL. The "new" ruling allows for exactly the same mechanical outcome, it only changes the way people play.

How is that a good rule? It's fun-policing. WOTC should not be the fun-police.

 

[CrusaderX]

One man's fun is another man's cheese. I've seen several posts stating the the idea of going pew-pew-pew with dual hand crossbows violates the so-called "rule of cool". To many, dual-wielding hand crossbows isn't cool at all, its just silly and cheesy.

 

[Jester David]

How would you feel if WOTC weighed in on which edition they thought was really "true" D&D?

I suspect I might find you on my side of the aisle on that one.

*shrug* I suspect the answer to that will always be "the current one". But they can say what they want, it won't change how I feel about my games and what I prefer.
I already disagree with a Sage Advice ruling and plan on ignoring it. And I accept that a lot of my preferences in gaming a fringe (slow healing for one) and I'll have to hous rule them, so I expect the rulings not to favour my desires.

But while I'm fully capable of making the game my own, I always appreciate it when silly things get fixed. There are a lot of ridiculous things in D&D, odd rules that -when removed from context- are ridonculous. I'm always happy to see silly things fixed. Even if it makes my Webcomic this coming Tuesday less relevant...

There was no problem with the rules before. So people could do somewhat unrealistic things. The next time I see a Wizard I'll tell him he can't do that because you can't really shoot fireballs IRL. The "new" ruling allows for exactly the same mechanical outcome, it only changes the way people play.

Magic is not the same. Magic is unrealistic. A fighter is meant to be realistic, they're grounded in reality.
When Thor does something inhuman it's fine, but when Hawkeye does something outright impossible even for the best archer imaginable it's problematic. Because he's defined as being mundane.

How is that a good rule? It's fun-policing. WOTC should not be the fun-police.

Sorry, but that's a ridiculous argument. You could say that about any errata that limits power, including ones that correct broken options. You could say that about half the rules. (Dying isn't fun, who are WotC to tell me when my character should die with their death rules?)
It's not WotC job to ensure that everyone has fun at all times.

They're not saying it's impossible to have someone dual wielding hand crossbows. Just that you can't load them.
If your fun is dependant on having that one character and no other there's lots of other valid options. You can carry a dozen loaded handcrossbows. You can persuade your DM for automatic crossbows (ala VanHellsing) or to allow repeating hand crossbows from 3e. You can have magic crossbows. Or take the noble background and have your helpers continually loading and throwing you new loaded weapons.
Arguing that "because the rules explicitly don't say X" is not a particularly valid method. It's robbing the bank in Monopoly. And complaining when that loophole is closed isn't useful either. That's time that could be spent stating up a Gatling crossbow for your table.

 

[famousringo]

I still laugh at the people who want to be rid of dual handbows because they're physically impossible.

Newsflash: Everything about crossbow rules in 5th Ed is physically impossible. Even before Crossbow Expert, firing any crossbow every six seconds is impossible.

Why would DnD break physics like that? Because it makes the game more fun.

The good news is that in making the game less fun for Crossbow Experts, they (accidentally?) made it more fun for Eldritch Knights and other martial spellslingers who no longer need to pay the Warcaster feat tax unless they want to use a shield.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I still laugh at the people who want to be rid of dual handbows because they're physically impossible.

Newsflash: Everything about crossbow rules in 5th Ed is physically impossible. Even before Crossbow Expert, firing any crossbow every six seconds is impossible.

Why would DnD break physics like that? Because it makes the game more fun.

The good news is that in making the game less fun for Crossbow Experts, they (accidentally?) made it more fun for Eldritch Knights and other martial spellslingers who no longer need to pay the Warcaster feat tax unless they want to use a shield.

Except if everything they designed was meant for what makes the game "more fun"... they'd allow more classes to help recover people's hit points-- including warrior-types using their words to inspire their comrades to keep fighting so that you could have fully non-magical groups. And everyone would be SO HAPPY and not a single person would ever say anything bad about that design!

Is that how it works?

 

[spinozajack]

Yes.

The designers, in their finite wisdom, decided to tell you "you're playing the game wrong".

"Instead of using two cool hand crossbows, you can and should use only one hand crossbow instead."

Their decision was both wise and necessary. How can you load a crossbow without a free hand? Unless it's fully automatic. You're free as a DM to create such a "load free" variant, but you can't play with the default crossbow and fire with it every round with anything in your other hand, a fork, a knife, a spoon, another crossbow.

Humanoid PCs have two arms, and two hands. This ruling is just common sense. Make up a fully automatic hand crossbow for your game, then dual wield those. Nobody's stopping you.

But if you are letting halflings use greatswords, or anyone ignore the loading property, then no, you are in fact playing the game not by the rules, which is by definition, "wrong" in some sense. It's not a big deal, either way, but I do think not playing by the basic rules is playing the game wrong. And that applies to every game, D&D or not.

You can call them your house rules, which then makes them valid again. But in their wisdom, they decided that fully automatic weapons didn't belong in basic D&D in the default setting. You're free to play with firearms, plasma rifles, blasters, reloading crossbows, anything you want. You just aren't free to use those in the default D&D and expect the rules to follow. Sometimes rules have to be strict, to avoid absurd things like shooting weapons that have bolts but no way to imagine how those bolts are getting loaded.

They did the right thing. In this case, your fun (dual wielding non-automatic crossbows and firing each round) is not more important than mine, which requires a free hand to imagine how those bolts are loaded into the weapon in order to be fired. They sided with rules that make sense, for which they should be congratulated and not denigrated.

Verisimilitude matters, and is one of the reasons 5th edition has, and continues to, sell so well. In my opinion.

What people who want the game to cater to their own desires will find, is that, one person's houserule is another person's trash, and you can't expect everyone to enjoy what you enjoy. So the default should be what's least offensive and most logical to the most amount of people. It seems a core rule just forced people to use a house rule, in order to make D&D seem more like a John Wu movie. And I'm perfectly fine with that. Play that way, you're not playing wrong, so long as you acknowledge that you are in fact not playing by the rules and allowing it via a house rule.

And yes, Wizards does get to define what the rules are, and you don't. Maybe John Wu is more popular than John Wayne these days, but I definitely see a magic crossbow in people's future that loads itself or spawns bolts already loaded.

If they don't think that reloading two weapons at the same time without a free hand doesn't make sense (as anyone with any ounce of common sense should), and they change the rules to enforce that, all it means for your game is that to John-Wu ify your D&D game you need to use a house rule to either make a fully automatic crossbow or make it so that every PC has some kind of incredible dexterity to do things that stretch the limits of acceptability.

I for one am glad this type of gameplay that ignores common sense is further relegated to house rule territory, and out of the default. Because it means my own bias for verisimilitude is being taken seriously, and they earned my investment in their product, and will likely continue to. In this case, if they have to choose between your game style and mine, as the default for D&D, I'm glad they picked mine. I'd prefer letting a PC seek out some tinker gnomes to make this kind of weapon for them, than have it be available at every corner Ye Olde Weapon Shoppe for 5gp.

If I'd have one in my game, it would cost 500gp and be a masterwork weapon. Which could then be enchanted for another 500gp if you're willing to free the gnome's kidnapped kin.

 

[Sunseeker]

They did the right thing. In this case, your fun (dual wielding non-automatic crossbows and firing each round) is not more important than mine, which requires a free hand to imagine how those bolts are loaded into the weapon in order to be fired. They sided with rules that make sense, for which they should be congratulated and not denigrated.

It isn't and never was a matter of your fun v. my fun. I'm getting sick of every one of your posts prjorativly disregarding the playstyles of people who enjoy different things than you.

 

[cmad1977]

Objectively: dual wielding hand crossbows that magically reload is silly.

Do whatever you want.

 

[aramis erak]

Yes.

The designers, in their finite wisdom, decided to tell you "you're playing the game wrong".

"Instead of using two cool hand crossbows, you can and should use only one hand crossbow instead."

"We've clarified our rules to allow you to shoot as many times with the single crossbow as you did with two, to make it pointless to use two. But, to ensure nobody plays our game wrong, we have also added errata specifically telling you you're breaking the rules if you use dual hand crossbows."

That's the take I'm getting out of that nasty discussion.

Why on earth they decided it was a good idea to put a thumb in the eye of all you who love Hong Kong action flicks, and want to play a fantasy John Woo character, I will probably never know.

How does one pull the string on any bow 1 handed? One doesn't unless it's got a stirrup. And most with one need two hands to pull anyway.

It's a rules change in favor of realism - shocking for D&D. And, you could, in theory, do just like many a scotsman did in the border reaver period - one shot each from a weapoin in each hand, then draw steel and targe while charging. Looks very manly. Tain't all that effective (SCA experience using RBG's and Rapiers) - just charging into melee is good enough.

 

[spinozajack]

I still laugh at the people who want to be rid of dual handbows because they're physically impossible.

Newsflash: Everything about crossbow rules in 5th Ed is physically impossible. Even before Crossbow Expert, firing any crossbow every six seconds is impossible.

Why would DnD break physics like that? Because it makes the game more fun.

As Umbran likes to say "don't let perfect be the enemy of good".

Perfect verisimilitude in D&D is not obtainable, but there are limits to what's acceptable. Reloading a small crossbow several times a round quickly might stretch believability, but doing it with something in both hands definitely crosses a line that both the designers and substantial portions of people didn't want crossed.

Again, "more fun" to you. But not to everyone. And not to me. I don't want people playing a John Wu game with fully automatic crossbows that cost only a couple gold.

Your fun ends where mine begins. I don't find it fun even playing at the same table as another PC using objectionable or highly unbelievable mechanics. This is why I chose to play 5th edition.

Verisimilitude matters. It's why battlemasters have to roll a check to pull off their hijinx or stunts, it's also why you can't slide enemies more than one size category above yours. If you think it's fun for a halfling to slide or trip a colossal dragon with four legs with an at-will ability and without even a strength check, because that's "fun", good for you.

It's not fun to me, and the designers agreed that player abilities should not make people go what? That's why they designed the game this way. People didn't want powers that work without any realism support or explanation as to how it might actually work.

I do agree there's a point at which verisimilitude starts becoming not fun, but 5th edition is far from that line. I enjoy simple rules that try to make some kind of sense. But if rules are too relaxed as to allow just about anything to happen, then people will stop being immersed in the story. John Wu action movies are pretty over the top, and might be fun once in a while, it's not what a lot of people are after when they play D&D. Especially not at low levels.