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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 7236696" data-attributes="member: 12731">Hello and welcome to the Crossbow Expert discussions. This is only the first instance of a CE analysis where the designers intended one thing but ended up with another. As you yourself believe their intention was beyond a doubt to empower several character concepts, including the scimitar and hand crossbow archetype.Only problem, the rules don't allow it. The ONLY character build that lets you fire all your attacks each round of a combat is the one where you have a single hand crossbow and no other weapon. This is because as soon as both your hands are occupied, you can no longer (re)load your hand crossbow.So the scimitar + hand crossbow archetype doesn't work: after the first round your hand crossbow is useless (unless your DM allows truly detestable object interaction shenanigans I'd really don't want to go into).And twin hand crossbows doesn't work for the same reason.The ONLY archetype where the feat gives you one more attack using your bonus action throughout a fight, every round of the combat, is the build where you use a hand crossbow and no other weapon (or shield).The actual damage die has much less weight than you're led to believe. Once you apply SS you're looking at d6+15 instead of d8+15 for a bow, and you gain one more attack. This is easily better.And the fact it really IS "two-weapon-fighting with a hand crossbow" is broken in its own regard. You do get the full benefit of the two weapon fighting fighting style without having to actually take it. Instead you can (and will) pick the archery fighting style. Not only do you in effect get TWO fighting styles, you can two-weapon-fight with the +2 from Archery, easily one of the best fighting styles.Not at all. This is just a carelessly unrestricted way of implementing it.If the disadvantage-negation was limited to the bonus action attack, you would satisfy your criteria without robbing ranged combat of its last major limitation (vulnerability to melee).If the feat only allowed the bonus action attack in conjunction with a melee attack action, you would ensure the character would still be a melee character, not a ranged character.The problem isn't when the Crossbow Expert is in melee. The problem is that the Crossbow Expert will stay at range as often as possible and not be inconvenienced when forced into melee. This is the critical error made by the original feat's designers - it allows a fully ranged build to fight just as well in melee range. The Crossbow Expert won't switch to melee weapons when forced to stay in melee - he will simply keep on firing hand crossbow bolts with zero impediments!This is what I have characterized thusly: imagine if you could do two-weapon fighting with twin shortswords, each having 120 ft reach, and each counting as a greatweapon for the purposes of getting access to the coveted -5/+10 mechanism. Furthermore, you don't need to pick up two-weapon fighting fighting style, you get it as part of the package. Instead you get to pick a special +2 attack bonus to your "melee" attacks that no other melee fighter can have, never mind it's called "Archery".Sorry this is kind of a circular argument. You essentially defend the feat by saying it's in the game.Trust me, the dev team got it wrong on this one.And it remains a thoroughly bad idea <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=":)" />Remember: if they phrased the feat so it ONLY enabled close-quarter shooting, it would probably be okay. But they aren't. The feat enables a wholly ranged build to be immune to the threat of melee, which is something entirely different.Loading doesn't apply to bows.Myself I like how loading prevents crossbows from becoming indisnguishable from bows, but that's a personal opinion.More to the point: no this ability isn't necessary to make 3) work, if you consider the hand crossbow complementing a melee weapon. You could easily tweak CE to enable you to use a bonus action to shoot your hand crossbow when you spent your action to make a melee attack, without having to remove loading.In fact, vonklaude (and myself) have independently done exactly this <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=":)" />Of course we should. Trying to balance a game from its averages is folly. Only the extremes are relevant for proper balancing.If we assume the Crossbow Expert does have Archery and Sharpshooter we stand a chance of arriving at a balanced design. This is where the dev team have clearly failed.Now you're talking about something completely different, and I agree.If you believe a certain version of Crossbow Expert is useless, you should definitely speak up. But that's no argument for keeping the feat as-is. Only to keep tweaking so it isn't "constrained to near uselessness". I'm sure there is a happy medium between the RAW bonkers OP-ness and RAW-RAI mismatch on one hand, and uselessness on the other <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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