As long as the crossbow and the other weapon have the light property.
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Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
Two-Weapon Fighting is specifically for melee attacks, as the Dual-wielder feat is. The only way is fire two times (action + bonus action) with hand crossbows is with the Crossbow expert feat.
As long as you have a couple spare arms so that you can reload them that could work. Hand crossbows don’t magically reload themselves and they don’t hav clips or belts feeding them like Diablo 3. You need a hand to draw it back and put a new bolt in it. Maybe you could just carry a dozen and fire and drop and draw like single-shot black powder pistols but that’s kind of weird with loaded crossbows. “Somebody bumps into you on the street. Roll 2d6. The first is how many of your cocked and loaded hand crossbows accidentally fire into your body. The second is how many hit bystanders.”
You’re far better off having a single hand crossbow and the crossbow expert feat.
Of course, since you can do the same thing with a single hand crossbow, it wouldn't break anything for the DM to allow the player to have a pair of semi-automatic or magically self-reloading crossbows, but that's up to the DM, not the player.
technically it is possible if you take a dip in artificer and infuse a crossbow with the reload? infusion but its not worth much for a two level dip in artificer
Asking for a player - Can a ranger (level 3) dual wield hand crossbows and get 2 attacks per round? Thanks!
At level 3 no, not without a feat. The weapon does not qualify for Two Weapon Fighting. You would need the crossbow expert feat to do this at 3rd level and with 2 crossbows you could do it on the first turn of combat only. Also with crossbow expert you can fire twice with just one crossbow.
At level 5 with extra attack yes, but on the 1st turn of combat only.
Crossbows have the ammunition property which means you need a free hand to reload them and this makes this impossible after the 1st turn of combat regardless of the number of feats and attacks you have.
Actually I saw a fellow player doing this - he had the hand x bows mounted on his wrists almost like webslingers with his hands free to keep reloading. Very creative work around that the DM allowed. However I probably wouldn’t allow it as a DM myself. I do have mechanical (spring powered) multi shot dart throwers that can be wielded in one hand giving you 6 shots with each hand before having to reload ( 6 rounds of 1 shot with each of two dart throwers) .
Asking for a player - Can a ranger (level 3) dual wield hand crossbows and get 2 attacks per round? Thanks!
At Level 3? Only if you had the Crossbow Expert feat somehow. The general rule for two-weapon fighting only works with melee weapons. If you have the Crossbow Expert feat or Extra Attack from your class, if both crossbows were already loaded then yes. But you still need a free hand to load another bolt before you can fire the crossbow again. The feat's property that lets you ignore the Loading property doesn't make the crossbow self-reloading, it just removes the "one shot per action/bonus/reaction" limitation.
Asking for a player - Can a ranger (level 3) dual wield hand crossbows and get 2 attacks per round? Thanks!
At level 3 no, not without a feat. The weapon does not qualify for Two Weapon Fighting. You would need the crossbow expert feat to do this at 3rd level and with 2 crossbows you could do it on the first turn of combat only. Also with crossbow expert you can fire twice with just one crossbow.
At level 5 with extra attack yes, but on the 1st turn of combat only.
Crossbows have the ammunition property which means you need a free hand to reload them and this makes this impossible after the 1st turn of combat regardless of the number of feats and attacks you have.
technically speaking, you can't do this either RAW:
[...] Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack [...]
On the first turn of combat, when you attack with any crossbow, you are drawing the string. Most DM's will (let you) say that the crossbows are already drawn before combat, but really isn't 100% for every DM.
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Asking for a player - Can a ranger (level 3) dual wield hand crossbows and get 2 attacks per round? Thanks!
As long as the crossbow and the other weapon have the light property.
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
Two-Weapon Fighting is specifically for melee attacks, as the Dual-wielder feat is. The only way is fire two times (action + bonus action) with hand crossbows is with the Crossbow expert feat.
See Sage advice.
As long as you have a couple spare arms so that you can reload them that could work. Hand crossbows don’t magically reload themselves and they don’t hav clips or belts feeding them like Diablo 3. You need a hand to draw it back and put a new bolt in it. Maybe you could just carry a dozen and fire and drop and draw like single-shot black powder pistols but that’s kind of weird with loaded crossbows. “Somebody bumps into you on the street. Roll 2d6. The first is how many of your cocked and loaded hand crossbows accidentally fire into your body. The second is how many hit bystanders.”
You’re far better off having a single hand crossbow and the crossbow expert feat.
Of course, since you can do the same thing with a single hand crossbow, it wouldn't break anything for the DM to allow the player to have a pair of semi-automatic or magically self-reloading crossbows, but that's up to the DM, not the player.
technically it is possible if you take a dip in artificer and infuse a crossbow with the reload? infusion but its not worth much for a two level dip in artificer
At level 3 no, not without a feat. The weapon does not qualify for Two Weapon Fighting. You would need the crossbow expert feat to do this at 3rd level and with 2 crossbows you could do it on the first turn of combat only. Also with crossbow expert you can fire twice with just one crossbow.
At level 5 with extra attack yes, but on the 1st turn of combat only.
Crossbows have the ammunition property which means you need a free hand to reload them and this makes this impossible after the 1st turn of combat regardless of the number of feats and attacks you have.
Actually I saw a fellow player doing this - he had the hand x bows mounted on his wrists almost like webslingers with his hands free to keep reloading. Very creative work around that the DM allowed. However I probably wouldn’t allow it as a DM myself. I do have mechanical (spring powered) multi shot dart throwers that can be wielded in one hand giving you 6 shots with each hand before having to reload ( 6 rounds of 1 shot with each of two dart throwers) .
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
At Level 3? Only if you had the Crossbow Expert feat somehow. The general rule for two-weapon fighting only works with melee weapons. If you have the Crossbow Expert feat or Extra Attack from your class, if both crossbows were already loaded then yes. But you still need a free hand to load another bolt before you can fire the crossbow again. The feat's property that lets you ignore the Loading property doesn't make the crossbow self-reloading, it just removes the "one shot per action/bonus/reaction" limitation.
technically speaking, you can't do this either RAW:
On the first turn of combat, when you attack with any crossbow, you are drawing the string. Most DM's will (let you) say that the crossbows are already drawn before combat, but really isn't 100% for every DM.