D&D General The Sharpshooter feat and multiple attacks

[Quartz]

I checked sage advice and it doesn't address it, but there is this:

Oh well. But while I think that's fine for the Archery fighting style I think that with respect to Sharpshooter it fails to mark the difference between a weapon that just happens to be thrown - think of Robin killing the Sheriff at the end of Prince of Thieves - and a weapon that's designed for throwing (i.e. has the Thrown property).

For what it's worth, I would allow it in my home game.

I think I would too: it's just a cool character concept.

How does the new D&D cover this?

 

[Oofta]

Oh well. But while I think that's fine for the Archery fighting style I think that with respect to Sharpshooter it fails to mark the difference between a weapon that just happens to be thrown - think of Robin killing the Sheriff at the end of Prince of Thieves - and a weapon that's designed for throwing (i.e. has the Thrown property).



I think I would too: it's just a cool character concept.

How does the new D&D cover this?

The playtest text

​

SHARPSHOOTER​

4th-Level Feat​

Prerequisite: Proficiency with Any Martial Weapon​

Repeatable: No​

You can make shots that others find impossible, granting you the following benefits:​

Ability Score Increase. Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.​

Bypass Cover. Your Ranged Attacks with Weapons ignore Half Cover and Three-Quarters Cover.​

Firing in Melee. Being within 5 feet of an enemy doesn’t impose Disadvantage on your ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons.​

Long Shots. Attacking at Long Range doesn’t impose Disadvantage on your ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons.​

Seems like they've cleaned up the language. It's now "ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons" which definitely makes it clearer that it's all weapons whether they're limited to ranged attacks only or not.

 

[Corinnguard]

The playtest text

​

SHARPSHOOTER​

4th-Level Feat​

Prerequisite: Proficiency with Any Martial Weapon​

Repeatable: No​

You can make shots that others find impossible, granting you the following benefits:​

Ability Score Increase. Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.​

Bypass Cover. Your Ranged Attacks with Weapons ignore Half Cover and Three-Quarters Cover.​

Firing in Melee. Being within 5 feet of an enemy doesn’t impose Disadvantage on your ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons.​

Long Shots. Attacking at Long Range doesn’t impose Disadvantage on your ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons.​

Seems like they've cleaned up the language. It's now "ranged Attack Rolls with Weapons" which definitely makes it clearer that it's all weapons whether they're limited to ranged attacks only or not.

Has anyone tried using this version of Sharpshooter in the current edition or in the playtests?

 

[Ancalagon]

It's not great for Rangers, either, because every time you can add extra damage to your attack (e.g. Hunter's Mark) it devalues Sharpshooter.

Same example: 11+ to hit normally. Ranger using Hunter's mark does 6 average damage per attack. Using sharpshooter, that becomes 5.5. So you really have to pick your moments, such as when you have advantage or you target is very soft.

Any damage added to the attack makes -5/+10 less optimal (because the -5 to hit applies to "all the damage", so if there is a lot of damage besides the +10, the penalty hurts more). People using this type of attack benefit most from a "basic plus" (+1 +3...) magical weapons the most. Damage boosting weapons should be used by people who don't use -5/+10

 

[Ancalagon]

Oh, I'm one of them. I love a good John Woo gunfight. I think it's a very fun image, which I admit is very subjective.

It's a cool fighting style absolutely. Buuuut it's very unrealistic that the handcrossbow has been essentiall turned into a glock.

And that's a fundamental tension in D&D - plausibility vs "rule of cool". With all the movies, comic books etc etc, it almost is guaranteed that out there somewhere there is a cool protagonist being supercool with a ridiculous weapons. For example, I recall a certain film where the "Blue Rajah" threw forks and one of his allies threw a haunted bowling ball. Does that mean that forks should be a viable weapon in D&D? NO! But hand crossbows were turned into a superweapon, and calls for WotC to "make whips viable" are not rare.

Where do you draw the line?

 

[Oofta]

It's a cool fighting style absolutely. Buuuut it's very unrealistic that the handcrossbow has been essentiall turned into a glock.

I would only be okay with it if it were magically reloading. I know D&D isn't only reality adjacent, but I still have limits on how far I want to stretch it.

 

[James Gasik]

I remember the old Repeating Crossbow from 3e*; could one make a one-handed version?

*EDIT: I could have sworn this thing was in AD&D, but it's not in the PHB. Maybe 2e Arms & Equipment?

 

[Rabulias]

I remember the old Repeating Crossbow from 3e*; could one make a one-handed version?

*EDIT: I could have sworn this thing was in AD&D, but it's not in the PHB. Maybe 2e Arms & Equipment?

It was in AD&D, but it's not the source you might think: the repeating light crossbow was named the chu-ko-nu in Oriental Adventures.

 

[James Gasik]

It was in AD&D, but it's not the source you might think: the repeating light crossbow was named the chu-ko-nu in Oriental Adventures.

Ah thank you, that makes sense.

 

[Bacon Bits]

It's a cool fighting style absolutely. Buuuut it's very unrealistic that the handcrossbow has been essentiall turned into a glock.

Oh, I agree it's terribly unrealistic. I also don't care.

And that's a fundamental tension in D&D - plausibility vs "rule of cool". With all the movies, comic books etc etc, it almost is guaranteed that out there somewhere there is a cool protagonist being supercool with a ridiculous weapons. For example, I recall a certain film where the "Blue Rajah" threw forks and one of his allies threw a haunted bowling ball. Does that mean that forks should be a viable weapon in D&D? NO! But hand crossbows were turned into a superweapon, and calls for WotC to "make whips viable" are not rare.

I'd have no objection to hand crossbows doing d3 or d4 damage. Although, it looks like One D&D is going to include pistols. I guess I can just take 2 levels of Artificer and be the Gnome with Gno Gname.

Where do you draw the line?

I think I'm at a point where if we have wizards hurling firebolts all day and fireballs a handful of times without sweating (quite a feat to beat the heat!) and then for the finale creating a pocket dimension for a meal or to store untold loot, that I think I'd like the option to include some minimal magical tricks for everyone else. Especially when darkvision is just a thing. Nobody's biological eyes work like that without magic, but the game seems afraid to say, "Oh, yeah, that's actually just magic."

I mean, Crossbow Expert allows a high-level Fighter, with a surge of adrenaline, to fire a heavy crossbow 8 times in 6 seconds, and we're to believe that's not magic? A heavy crossbow that requires a windlass or crow's foot to span it? When light crossbows historically had a battlefield rate of fire around 2 to 4 per minute? That's at least a 20-fold increase in firepower. It's double the specified rate of fire of the M1 Garand (40-50 shots/minute), meaning it's got a higher aimed rate of fire than the semi-automatic rifle credited as "the greatest battle implement ever devised" precisely because of how it enhanced the firepower of infantry. Nobody is that much of an expert! Like the magic is already there. We're just in denial about it.

This is the thing with D&D. We've got this heavy bold culture of "no magic unless caster! NO MAGIC UNLESS MAGICIAN! ONLY SPELLS IF MAGICIAN!" But we've also got a game with this pervasive problem that casters are a lot of fun and get really powerful and have a lot of dynamic choices, while martials... mostly decide whom to attack just like they did at level 1. And one of them scales really well, while the other struggles to stay relevant.

So we have this situation where martials have to stick to reality because they're "not magic," so when we improve them we're obliged to only let them do things you arbitrarily accomplish in 15th century Europe. Meanwhile, casters can do whatever you can imagine from fiction? Well no wonder it's broke! There's your problem.

I just... I don't find "that's not realistic" to be not only a credible defense anymore, I don't think it's a desirable defense anymore.