Sage Advice (18 May 2015)

I can't believe they went that way with hand crossbows.

 

[ericphillips]

The problem isn't that you got the columns confused. The problem is that you made the statement at all, and in such a hostile manner. And in the wrong thread.

And doing it as your first post on EN World? What were you thinking?

I was upset by what I thought was a slight to Gary Gygax. I had a knee jerk reaction.

The fact is that good discussion on the internet requires a modicum of politeness and respect which you failed to observe

You called me a troll. As you knew I made a mistake you decided to use that word, one of the most derisive words on the Internet. You are very quick with pulling your gun.

Looking back on your post, I would have preferred a couple of things to be done differently.

Are you an admin? Because you have a haughty response with you "I would have preferred." Try saying "It would have been better..." because last I checked, no one owns the Interwebtubes.

And from there you start a discussion, rather than a flame-war.

Never meant it to be a flame war. You again are mis-characterizing me. Also, you and the other guy are continuing to discuss this mistake and are inadvertently thread jacking . I would suggest that maybe you should make a new post called "Shackle Dragger's Rules of Netiquette" and PM'ed me or noted that the thread should be continued there.

 

[DaveDash]

The only thing this changes is the visuals. I don't need the game to tell me how my play looks.

That's why it's silly.

It's not silly.

We play tested a lot of crossbow expert Fighters, and the ability to use a shield, attack from range AND melee like a machine gun borderer on game breaking (especially with Sharpshooter).

From a mechanical standpoint, if you enjoy the optimising game style, there's basically no point in playing a sword and board fighter at all, since the crossbow expert guy has all of your advantages and none of your weaknesses.

After seeing it in action we ruled the same as Crawford. We were lucky we play tested these kinds of things. Other DMs may not be so lucky and then have to have a talk with the player half way through the campaign, which is never a fun thing to do.

 

[Leatherhead]

From a mechanical standpoint, if you enjoy the optimising game style, there's basically no point in playing a sword and board fighter at all, since the crossbow expert guy has all of your advantages and none of your weaknesses.

This situation assumes you let hand crossbow wielders use a shield instead of requiring them to use two weapons in the first place.

For everyone who did require two weapons (which was the least powerful interpretation of the rule to begin with), this ruling is simultaneously a mechanical buff and an condemnation of the thematics.

 

[Sunseeker]

Also, shidaku, why is it so hard to simply say you were mistaken? Why do you instead respond with "it's silly"? You stated over and over that your interpretation was RAW and everybody else was wrong; and you most certainly didn't think your stance and argument then was silly. Why, when it's now contrary to your interpretation, is it suddenly so?

If you're going to be one of the "Rules Guys," one of those here that take it upon themselves to clarify rules questions that people pose here (and BTW, you do it very well, fulfilling a very important role for our discourse community), don't you also have to admit when you're wrong? If for no other reason than to maintain your credibility?

Sure, but everyone on the other side was, until now also neither right or wrong. It makes sense as far as the weapon works in real life for it to work the way it is now clarified to do so. The lack of clarity on the subject previously I felt was one of those nice "rulings not rules" places of 5th where if a table said a one-handed weapon didn't require an extra free hand to operate, that's how it worked and if another table said it did, then it did.

Now there's no choice. RAW is that a one-handed crossbow requires two hands to operate (since you cannot be using your other hand for some other activity AT ALL), which aside from making no sense, making the weapon substantially worse than its two-handed counterparts. Because somehow a one-handed weapon requires you to keep one hand free at all times, but you can still reload a two-handed weapon with...a hand that is in use for operating the weapon.

There's really no reason to use a one-handed crossbow at all now if you can't keep your other hand free. The Dueling feature never applied to it, you can't TWF with it and the Crossbow Expert feat is much less useful for it. You're better off using almost any other ranged weapon in the book.

The ruling is silly because it defies logic while attempted to enforce logic. Okay, so a few cases of ultra-optimization have been prevented, big whoop a few table rulings could have easily prevented anyone attempting to do that. We've lost creativity, flavor and fun and driven the system in a direction of "rules not rulings".

Personally I'd have been happier if they stayed silent on all but the most egregious issues (of which this is most certainly not) and simply said "While that may not have been our intention, we're happy to see people using the RAW in fun and enjoyable ways."

But yes, by RAW I am now wrong.

But, I don't really care since I won't apply this "sage advice" to my tables.

 

[DaveDash]

Now there's no choice. RAW is that a one-handed crossbow requires two hands to operate (since you cannot be using your other hand for some other activity AT ALL), which aside from making no sense, making the weapon substantially worse than its two-handed counterparts. Because somehow a one-handed weapon requires you to keep one hand free at all times, but you can still reload a two-handed weapon with...a hand that is in use for operating the weapon.

There's really no reason to use a one-handed crossbow at all now if you can't keep your other hand free. The Dueling feature never applied to it, you can't TWF with it and the Crossbow Expert feat is much less useful for it. You're better off using almost any other ranged weapon in the book.

But, I don't really care since I won't apply this "sage advice" to my tables.

It's not worse than its counterparts. You can still fire an extra bolt as a bonus action, which makes it very powerful in combination with Sharpshooter. It's just not bordering on potentially broken now.

I ran a Crossbow Expert / Sharpshooter Fighter in the same party as a Polearm Master / GWM Fighter. Both optimized, one for melee, one for ranged. Level 17, multiple encounters against Dragons, Mummies, Beholders, Demons, etc.

What ended up happening is that the actual DPR per encounter of the Crossbow Expert with a hand crossbow was double that of the melee fighter, because he can fire basically every round, ignoring cover, and not have to worry about moving/positioning. If the Balor teleported up into his face? No worries, he can tank it and fire in melee too. It's still way too powerful even with this restriction IMO, since you end up with a character with a lot of strengths and very few weaknesses.
Being able to use a shield is just way too much.

 

[Sunseeker]

It's not worse than its counterparts. You can still fire an extra bolt as a bonus action, which makes it very powerful in combination with Sharpshooter. It's just not bordering on potentially broken now.

I ran a Crossbow Expert / Sharpshooter Fighter in the same party as a Polearm Master / GWM Fighter. Both optimized, one for melee, one for ranged. Level 17, multiple encounters against Dragons, Mummies, Beholders, Demons, etc.

What ended up happening is that the actual DPR per encounter of the Crossbow Expert with a hand crossbow was double that of the melee fighter, because he can fire basically every round, ignoring cover, and not have to worry about moving/positioning. If the Balor teleported up into his face? No worries, he can tank it and fire in melee too. It's still way too powerful even with this restriction IMO, since you end up with a character with a lot of strengths and very few weaknesses.
Being able to use a shield is just way too much.

So a SINGLE, over-optimized build has been prevented.

Good job. We stopped ONE PROBLEM and in the process eliminated a slew of choice, variety and creativity.

Which again is why I will not apply this supposed "sage" advice at my table.

I can squash over-optimizers my DM might and I can optimize with the best of them if my DM refuses to do anything about it. That's how you solve these problems in an edition that promotes "rulings not rules", otherwise you're going to have a system of "rules not rulings".

 

[redrick]

Sure, but everyone on the other side was, until now also neither right or wrong. It makes sense as far as the weapon works in real life for it to work the way it is now clarified to do so. The lack of clarity on the subject previously I felt was one of those nice "rulings not rules" places of 5th where if a table said a one-handed weapon didn't require an extra free hand to operate, that's how it worked and if another table said it did, then it did.

Now there's no choice. RAW is that a one-handed crossbow requires two hands to operate (since you cannot be using your other hand for some other activity AT ALL), which aside from making no sense, making the weapon substantially worse than its two-handed counterparts. Because somehow a one-handed weapon requires you to keep one hand free at all times, but you can still reload a two-handed weapon with...a hand that is in use for operating the weapon.

There's really no reason to use a one-handed crossbow at all now if you can't keep your other hand free. The Dueling feature never applied to it, you can't TWF with it and the Crossbow Expert feat is much less useful for it. You're better off using almost any other ranged weapon in the book.

The ruling is silly because it defies logic while attempted to enforce logic. Okay, so a few cases of ultra-optimization have been prevented, big whoop a few table rulings could have easily prevented anyone attempting to do that. We've lost creativity, flavor and fun and driven the system in a direction of "rules not rulings".

Personally I'd have been happier if they stayed silent on all but the most egregious issues (of which this is most certainly not) and simply said "While that may not have been our intention, we're happy to see people using the RAW in fun and enjoyable ways."

But yes, by RAW I am now wrong.

But, I don't really care since I won't apply this "sage advice" to my tables.

I dunno, really, Sage Advice is a clarification of Rules as Intended more than Rules as Written. Not that the distinction matters over-much, because neither are the gold standard of what should fly at a gaming table.

So what Crawford clarified was that the crossbow feat didn't totally obviate the need to use two hands to load a hand crossbow, as this need is dictated by common sense, and at no point does the feat countermand that common sense.

Now, at your table, you can choose a different interpretation of common sense. Many people do. You can say, "the loading action is a minor enough action that it can be performed with a partially occupied hand, or while juggling two objects currently in your hand." For folks who don't have the Crossbow Expert feat, this will mean that, once a turn, they can reload their hand crossbow with whatever digits they can spare from whatever else their hands are doing. They cannot, however, fire the hand crossbow til the next turn (as per the loading requirement.) It would also allow slingers to load their sling in the same manner (and fire multiple shots if the character otherwise is able.) For folks with the Crossbow Expert feat, they can reload their crossbow and fire it in the same turn, while holding something else in their hands. You can rule that that something else can't be a shield if you want, to keep it to folks dual wielding with a hand crossbow and another weapon.

You can set the understanding of "general" at your table.

What you cannot do, if a DM chooses to heed this "sage advice", is take this feat and declare that its "specific" overrides the games "general" when it comes to having a free hand to load the thing.

Seriously, if you, as a DM, want to have dual-wielding hand crossbows at your table, you still can! You can do it as much as you want. It won't break the game.

 

[Celtavian]

It's not silly.

We play tested a lot of crossbow expert Fighters, and the ability to use a shield, attack from range AND melee like a machine gun borderer on game breaking (especially with Sharpshooter).

From a mechanical standpoint, if you enjoy the optimising game style, there's basically no point in playing a sword and board fighter at all, since the crossbow expert guy has all of your advantages and none of your weaknesses.

After seeing it in action we ruled the same as Crawford. We were lucky we play tested these kinds of things. Other DMs may not be so lucky and then have to have a talk with the player half way through the campaign, which is never a fun thing to do.

I'm glad I have a group that looked at that combo, said, "That makes no sense. You need a free hand to load." and did what Crawford listed from the beginning. Our group has always preferred verisimilitude in our games. If things get whacky looking in our mind's eye as far as characters doing something for purely mechanical reasons, we get rid of it. Fortunately, 5E doesn't have a lot of whacky stuff and it's fairly easy to change without hurting the game.

It is unfortunate some players have to play in antagonistic situations where rules arguments occur with regularity. It used to happen with greater regularity with our group when we were younger. Rarely happens now.

 

[Celtavian]

This situation assumes you let hand crossbow wielders use a shield instead of requiring them to use two weapons in the first place.

For everyone who did require two weapons (which was the least powerful interpretation of the rule to begin with), this ruling is simultaneously a mechanical buff and an condemnation of the thematics.

It's not a condemnation. Crawford doesn't care if you keep allowing it because it has no real effect on the game. Even using a Shield has no real effect on the game. You're still intended to win. He wrote a clarification that fit with his view of how it should be run, probably because he prefers a degree of verisimilitude in the game as well.

You're free to do as you wish. It will have a very minor effect on the game. Even using a shield will have a minor effect unless you have some player that enjoys doing the exact same thing over and over and over and over again just to optimize.

 

[Dark Kain]

The result was, "If death is on the line you might want to take disadvantage and use the ability, otherwise don't do that as you risk wasting the ability". That's an accurate result, and the same result you reached. The rest is just noise which has no meaning - it's not persuasive or informative of anything important for anyone concerned with the question. The personal attack is unnecessary. If the result can be reached through a rough shortcut estimate, then that's a fine way to reach the result. Your way is not "more right" as in this instance there is no "more right". You either reach the correct conclusion (which we both did) or you do not.

Now, because it's apparently important to you, I give you the last word.

Your inference is wrong, because as the target number rises from the median value of a d20 the chance to waste your luck point with a willing disadvantage lowers (since the chance to succed only on the first roll lowers), while the chance to waste your luck point without disadvantage rises in probabilty (because the chance of failing on 2 rolls increase faster than the one of failing on 3 rolls)