Sage Advice (18 May 2015)

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

 

[Ahrimon]

My only dislike about his interpretations of the rules are with the magic initiate feat. The spirit of the MC rules has it so any caster can use any of their slots for their spells of any class they have. Taking the feat should give you access to that spell through the feat and then you can cast it as a first level spell regardless of your spell casting class. Personally I think that his interpretation is too restrictive. Other than that, it's all good in the hood.

 

[ninjayeti]

So an invisible assassin can ambush a paralyzed target and never benefit from more than two dice - but a blind, restrained, poisoned character firing at long range can take the best of three dice using Lucky?

I guess it really is better to be lucky than good.....

 

[Jester David]

I like the clarification that Crossbow Expert not only helps with spells but that this was part of the design. I always enjoy getting a glimpse behind the design of rules elements.

As for the semi-auto crossbow, it's interesting how he skirts the realism aspect of the argument and goes right into rules, in that ammunition needs to be drawn. It's an interesting way of deflecting the argument. And I like how it does leave room open for a magical self-loading crossbow and/or a gnomish invention. So if your character concept relies on this there's options to approach your DM with.

Lucky is a bit odd, since it pretty much allows you to not only negate disadvantage but turn it into advantage. You're better off using Lucky with disadvantage than with a regular roll, which is rather paradoxical. But, I suppose that's the rules.
Personally, I'll be ruling that as you picking the two dice to use for disadvantage. You still need pick the lower of the two dies, but you can roll three and drop the lowest.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I think it's silly to because the end result is exactly the same.

Agreed.

So a Hand Crossbow is a one-handed weapon that takes two hands to operate.

And by inference, so is the sling.

Personally, as a player, I enjoy the stricter interpretation. As a DM, I hate enforcing the stricter interpretation.

Lol...yes, I hear you there.

...dislike about his interpretations of the rules are with the magic initiate feat. The spirit of the MC rules has it so any caster can use any of their slots for their spells of any class they have.

Those are my thoughts too. I see little reason not to let Magic Initiate take advantage of multiclassing logic, especially if your game includes both multiclassing and feats.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Just remember folks, if you don't agree with anything from Sage Advice, you don't have to take it. Play with whatever interpretation your table has fun with.

 

[Mistwell]

So an invisible assassin can ambush a paralyzed target and never benefit from more than two dice - but a blind, restrained, poisoned character firing at long range can take the best of three dice using Lucky?

I guess it really is better to be lucky than good.....

Here's the thing - you use Lucky after you see the die roll result anyway. You'd never want to declare using a luck die before seeing the original roll(s). So it's not like you would ever benefit from having disadvantage. It just means that your luck works just as well when you have disadvantage as when you don't.

 

[redrick]

Here's the thing - you use Lucky after you see the die roll result anyway. You'd never want to declare using a luck die before seeing the original roll(s). So it's not like you would ever benefit from having disadvantage. It just means that your luck works just as well when you have disadvantage as when you don't.

Well, if you run it the way Crawford is suggesting, not exactly true.

Say you have disadvantage. You roll 16 and 7. You decide to spend one of your "luck" points to roll another d20. You roll 10. According to Crawford, you can now choose which of the three dice you like best, meaning that you can choose the 16. So a player with the lucky feat could get a bad spread on disadvantage, and use luck solely to pick up the better of the two rolls already on the table.

On the other hand, it's a limited resource that cost a feat. The invisible ninja assassin can get advantage on the paralyzed target again and again and again. And do all that juicy sneak attack damage in the meantime. (Assuming it is a paralyzed giant who needs some convincing to get in the grave.) The third die of advantage isn't a gamebreaker for an ability that you can only use 3 times a day. It just might feel a little too cheesy for my table. (We do have a luckster, so I'm sure this will come up!)

 

[Aenorgreen]

You can operate it just, aim and shoot. you just need an extra hand to load it.

Just like using a pistol in real life, you can shoot it with one hand, but you need two hands to load it.

Actually, there are lots of instructions on how to load a pistol with one hand.
Here and Here are a couple. For more heroic ways, you could check out how Hit Girl does it.
I consider it a fairly reasonable ruling. Just saying that there is possibilities, at least for high fantasy.

 

[ericphillips]

Sage Advice was Gary Gygax's column. Really, you should have come up with a new name. Shame.

 

[MerricB]

Sage Advice was Gary Gygax's column. Really, you should have come up with a new name. Shame.

ROTFL! Isn't it fun to see the troll get it wrong?

Gary Gygax never wrote Sage Advice. He wrote "From the Sorcerer's Scroll".

Jean Wells was the original Sage (Dragon #31). For the majority of Dragon's run, Skip Williams filled the role, although other people answered questions from time to time. Andy Collins was Sage the second-longest, serving during the 3.5E era.