I don't know if this has been asked elsewhere, tried looking around but didn't see an answer.
So the Crossbow Expert Feat says "When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding."
Can't you technically do that normally? Without the Dual Wielder Fighting Style or Feat you still can as a bonus action engage in "Two-Weapon Fighting" which allows you to attack as a bonus action but without attaching any modifiers. You can dual wield weapons with a Light property. Hand crossbows have the Light property. Now without the Crossbow Expert Feat the Loading property means you can't use it more than once in a fight since having both hands occupied you cannot reload your hand crossbow so it's not even once per turn but only once per combat unless you cast aside the other weapon. Still you should technically be able to do so at least that one time right?
I'm just wondering if there is special rules for hand crossbows that means despite the Light property they do not qualify for a bonus action attack or is this rule more just clarifying that since the need to reload has been removed you can effectively dual wield with a hand crossbow? Or does it mean that even without the Dual Wielder Fighting Style that lets you add modifiers to your bonus action attack you are allowed to add your modifiers when using a hand crossbow?
The benefit from Crossbow Expert is less about dual wielding with hand crossbows and more about getting extra shots with a single hand crossbow. Hand crossbows have both the Loading and the Ammunition property. The feat lets you outright ignore the Loading property but does not ignore the Ammunition property. So- as you noted, if you are wielding two of them you can only fire them once because you can't reload without a free hand.
But if you are wielding a single hand crossbow you can fire it with both your action and bonus action per the feat.
So- Action Attack (possibly a second attack if provided by an extra attack feature)
and Bonus Action Attack (As granted by the Crossbow Expert feat).
The benefit from Crossbow Expert is less about dual wielding with hand crossbows and more about getting extra shots with a single hand crossbow. Hand crossbows have both the Loading and the Ammunition property. The feat lets you outright ignore the Loading property but does not ignore the Ammunition property. So- as you noted, if you are wielding two of them you can only fire them once because you can't reload without a free hand.
But if you are wielding a single hand crossbow you can fire it with both your action and bonus action per the feat.
So- Action Attack (possibly a second attack if provided by an extra attack feature)
and Bonus Action Attack (As granted by the Crossbow Expert feat).
I do acknowledge the validity of your point but it does not quite answer the question. The wording is specifically "a one-handed weapon" which means that this does not apply to just a hand crossbow but any one handed weapon. ... Oh maybe that's why they clarify, because it says one handed weapon rather than Light weapon so perhaps this rule allows you to ignore the Light property of your first weapon and fire with a hand crossbow anyway? But that aside the fact it says one handed weapon and not hand crossbow makes me think it is designed for dual wielding. It does not specifically rule out that the one handed weapon can be the weapon you are holding so you're point is valid.
I had not considered the Ammunition property's effects which it does state you need one free hand. So it could indeed be saying that you can reload without a free hand in a very round about way.
First off thank you so much for the link! Always good to get more resources for reference!
Second... Kinda just brainstorming as I type. If you have to have a hand free to reload it that means you cannot dual wield the hand crossbow ever other than that first shot. Which means using it to attack for a bonus action can ONLY be done with the one you are using so if you are a fifth level fighter you can attack 3 times. ... So why would they even state 'one handed weapon' when it can only be applied to hand crossbows? And why just hand crossbows? The one difference the hand crossbow has to the others is it being Light and one handed. ... Is it to try and boost it's damage considering it the weakest of the crossbows? Well my answer it technically answered ish. You can dual wield to attack with a hand crossbow normally though only once in a combat session. This feature just let's you attack again if using a hand crossbow. However it does not say whether you are allowed to add modifiers which you are not for a bonus attack action so that's DM discretion I guess.
Thank you for all your responses! It is a very oddly worded and confusing aspect of the feat.
1) Can't you just fire a hand crossbow as a bonus action already, if you're holding it as your offhand second weapon using TWF?
No. Two-Weapon Fighting only works with meleeweapons:
Two-Weapon Fighting
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different lightmeleeweapon that you're holding in the other hand.
Crossbow Expert is one of very few ways to get a bonus action ranged weapon attack.
2) Is Crossbow Expert useful for dual wielding?
Kind of. Like you've mentioned, even ignoring Loading, Ammunition still requires that you have a hand free to load each shot (unless your crossbow has the Repeating magical property, which lets it load its own ammunition). Everyone can draw or sheathe one weapon per turn for free, so by alternating sheathing your sword after melee attacks, to free up a hand to load, then taking a bonus action shot, then round 2 shooting with action and with bonus action and then drawing your sword at the end of the round to repeat the cycle... that kinda sorta works, but is awkward. A lot of people read the Dual Wielder feat to let you draw or sheathe two weapons/round, which condenses that cycle down into something you can mostly do every round without alternating mixed/ranged/mixed/ranged... but there are others that hold that Dual Wielder only lets you draw or sheathe two weapons at once, not one weapon twice, so that may not work for you. Having a brace of pre-loaded hand crossbows that you fire once and then drop is another popular approach, but not technically RAW, since you're supposed to be loading weapons with Ammunitionas part of the attack, not beforehand...
Suffice to say, open hands are fiddly, and mixed melee/crossbow styles are a bit of pain, if your DM is paying attention.
There is basically no point for hand crossbow to have the light property. It can't be used with two weapon fighting or even at all if there is a weapon in your other hand (unless you have repeating shot from artificer).
There might have been some mechanics from previous editions that didn't make it into final version of 5e and the wording of crossbow expert is left over from that. Or maybe they knew that they would print repeating shot some 6 years later.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I don't know if this has been asked elsewhere, tried looking around but didn't see an answer.
So the Crossbow Expert Feat says "When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding."
Can't you technically do that normally? Without the Dual Wielder Fighting Style or Feat you still can as a bonus action engage in "Two-Weapon Fighting" which allows you to attack as a bonus action but without attaching any modifiers. You can dual wield weapons with a Light property. Hand crossbows have the Light property. Now without the Crossbow Expert Feat the Loading property means you can't use it more than once in a fight since having both hands occupied you cannot reload your hand crossbow so it's not even once per turn but only once per combat unless you cast aside the other weapon. Still you should technically be able to do so at least that one time right?
I'm just wondering if there is special rules for hand crossbows that means despite the Light property they do not qualify for a bonus action attack or is this rule more just clarifying that since the need to reload has been removed you can effectively dual wield with a hand crossbow? Or does it mean that even without the Dual Wielder Fighting Style that lets you add modifiers to your bonus action attack you are allowed to add your modifiers when using a hand crossbow?
The benefit from Crossbow Expert is less about dual wielding with hand crossbows and more about getting extra shots with a single hand crossbow. Hand crossbows have both the Loading and the Ammunition property. The feat lets you outright ignore the Loading property but does not ignore the Ammunition property. So- as you noted, if you are wielding two of them you can only fire them once because you can't reload without a free hand.
But if you are wielding a single hand crossbow you can fire it with both your action and bonus action per the feat.
So- Action Attack (possibly a second attack if provided by an extra attack feature)
and Bonus Action Attack (As granted by the Crossbow Expert feat).
I do acknowledge the validity of your point but it does not quite answer the question. The wording is specifically "a one-handed weapon" which means that this does not apply to just a hand crossbow but any one handed weapon. ... Oh maybe that's why they clarify, because it says one handed weapon rather than Light weapon so perhaps this rule allows you to ignore the Light property of your first weapon and fire with a hand crossbow anyway? But that aside the fact it says one handed weapon and not hand crossbow makes me think it is designed for dual wielding. It does not specifically rule out that the one handed weapon can be the weapon you are holding so you're point is valid.
I had not considered the Ammunition property's effects which it does state you need one free hand. So it could indeed be saying that you can reload without a free hand in a very round about way.
I think the wording is clumsy in general, but Sage Advice indicates that it does not permit you to reload without a free hand.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats
First off thank you so much for the link! Always good to get more resources for reference!
Second... Kinda just brainstorming as I type. If you have to have a hand free to reload it that means you cannot dual wield the hand crossbow ever other than that first shot. Which means using it to attack for a bonus action can ONLY be done with the one you are using so if you are a fifth level fighter you can attack 3 times. ... So why would they even state 'one handed weapon' when it can only be applied to hand crossbows? And why just hand crossbows? The one difference the hand crossbow has to the others is it being Light and one handed. ... Is it to try and boost it's damage considering it the weakest of the crossbows? Well my answer it technically answered ish. You can dual wield to attack with a hand crossbow normally though only once in a combat session. This feature just let's you attack again if using a hand crossbow. However it does not say whether you are allowed to add modifiers which you are not for a bonus attack action so that's DM discretion I guess.
Thank you for all your responses! It is a very oddly worded and confusing aspect of the feat.
1) Can't you just fire a hand crossbow as a bonus action already, if you're holding it as your offhand second weapon using TWF?
No. Two-Weapon Fighting only works with melee weapons:
Crossbow Expert is one of very few ways to get a bonus action ranged weapon attack.
2) Is Crossbow Expert useful for dual wielding?
Kind of. Like you've mentioned, even ignoring Loading, Ammunition still requires that you have a hand free to load each shot (unless your crossbow has the Repeating magical property, which lets it load its own ammunition). Everyone can draw or sheathe one weapon per turn for free, so by alternating sheathing your sword after melee attacks, to free up a hand to load, then taking a bonus action shot, then round 2 shooting with action and with bonus action and then drawing your sword at the end of the round to repeat the cycle... that kinda sorta works, but is awkward. A lot of people read the Dual Wielder feat to let you draw or sheathe two weapons/round, which condenses that cycle down into something you can mostly do every round without alternating mixed/ranged/mixed/ranged... but there are others that hold that Dual Wielder only lets you draw or sheathe two weapons at once, not one weapon twice, so that may not work for you. Having a brace of pre-loaded hand crossbows that you fire once and then drop is another popular approach, but not technically RAW, since you're supposed to be loading weapons with Ammunition as part of the attack, not beforehand...
Suffice to say, open hands are fiddly, and mixed melee/crossbow styles are a bit of pain, if your DM is paying attention.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
There is basically no point for hand crossbow to have the light property. It can't be used with two weapon fighting or even at all if there is a weapon in your other hand (unless you have repeating shot from artificer).
There might have been some mechanics from previous editions that didn't make it into final version of 5e and the wording of crossbow expert is left over from that. Or maybe they knew that they would print repeating shot some 6 years later.