Sage Advice (18 May 2015)

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

 

[Mephista]

It actually gives a buff to the crossbow/sharpshooter, now they only need one crossbow instead of two.

Huh. So it seems.

It also does this, which is arguably even worse because nobody cared enough to complain about that.

Well, it always was a pretty crappy style. Lots of investment for little pay off. I'm probably the only one who cares about it. My assassin can make due with a short sword and throwing daggers instead. Slightly less damage, but still works.

 

[Celtavian]

From the way I read it, you can duel wield hand crossbows - you just can't load them. So, start your combat with two, fire the off hand, drop the off hand, load the main hand and fire it twice. Basically, its a turn 1 extra damage.

Why would you bother? Just for style? You still get all your attacks and the bonus action attack wielding one hand crossbow.

 

[mlund]

Eh, it makes rapier + hand crossbow effectively the same thing as cutlass + black powder pistol would've been for pirates. Once you spend your shot you'll have to stop sword-fighting long enough to reload the blasted thing with both hands. It seems like Drow traditionally should be either sniping with their poisoned hand crossbows or discharging them while charging into a sword-fight.

This whole "semi-auto pistol in my left hand, sword in my right," style just smacks of Warhammer 40K or Shadowrun more than Dungeons and Dragons to me. There's nothing wrong with that, I just enjoy it in my sci-fi / urban fantasy and wouldn't miss it much in my medieval fantasy.

Marty Lund

 

[Mephista]

Why would you bother? Just for style? You still get all your attacks and the bonus action attack wielding one hand crossbow.

Well, I like the aforementioned rapier and crossbow style.

 

[kerbarian]

Doesn't Lucky deserve more attention? If you have disadvantage you can effectively turn it into advantage with Lucky? You get to choose which of the three dice to use... If you really need to hit and have Lucky, but no route to advantage - give yourself disadvantage to increase the chances you hit?

You choose which two of the three dice to use -- you still need two die rolls because you have disadvantage, and you still take the lower of the two rolls you keep. Lucky plus disadvantage is still worse than Lucky on a normal roll.

I agree the article was worded poorly, which is especially bad when attempting to give clarifying examples.

 

[Celtavian]

So with the Lucky feat I basically always have advantage. I get to pick the die I use rather than having to take the lowest die roll. I can do this even when I have Disadvantage with a Lucky point.

 

[kerbarian]

It actually gives a buff to the crossbow/sharpshooter, now they only need one crossbow instead of two.

I never interpreted it as needing two crossbows in the first place, so I don't see it as a buff. It didn't hurt the core of the combo at all, though.

In addition to hurting rapier plus hand crossbow (which I think was fine), this clarification about needing a free hand for loading does at least get rid of hand crossbow plus shield, so it weakens the crossbow sharpshooter build a little bit.

 

[Lalato]

I'm not so sure. Lucky suggests that you're actually really friggin'... uhm... Lucky. What better way to show that then to turn Disadvantage into Advantage. I'm not even sure if it's really even over powered or anything. Just an interesting artifact of rules interaction.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Doesn't Lucky deserve more attention? If you have disadvantage you can effectively turn it into advantage with Lucky? You get to choose which of the three dice to use... If you really need to hit and have Lucky, but no route to advantage - give yourself disadvantage to increase the chances you hit?

I would not rule it this way. Roll 2 dice at disadvantage. Choose the lower one. Then roll your Lucky die. Pick which of those 2 you want. Lucky is already pretty damn powerful without being an extra advantage when you have advantage.

 

[Lalato]

Close your eyes, Luke. Feel the for... LUCK!