If you don’t plan ahead, then yes, it essentially takes an entire turn to swap weapons.
You get one free object interaction per turn, which you can use to draw or stow a weapon. After that, further object interactions require your Action. So, on your second turn, you used your free interaction to stow the heavy crossbow, and you’d then have had to use your Action to draw the hand crossbow, leaving you with no time to attack.
If you had put away the heavy crossbow after firing it and started your next turn empty handed, you could have drawn and fired the hand crossbow in the same turn.
Swapped the post to the appropriate section but I do appreciate the reply.
It's my first time playing and the DM knows it (he is a friend who invited me), so you are telling me if I had used my free action to stow it after shooting it originally, I would have been able to draw the 1h crossbow and use it on my second turn?
It's also usually considered a free action to just drop an item, so if you were to just drop the first weapon you could still draw and attack with a second weapon on the same turn. Your first weapon would then be on the ground and would require a separate action to pick back up (or a free object interaction if you haven't used one on that turn), and another action to stow it or attack with it.
Incorrect location. Sorry!
If you don’t plan ahead, then yes, it essentially takes an entire turn to swap weapons.
You get one free object interaction per turn, which you can use to draw or stow a weapon. After that, further object interactions require your Action. So, on your second turn, you used your free interaction to stow the heavy crossbow, and you’d then have had to use your Action to draw the hand crossbow, leaving you with no time to attack.
If you had put away the heavy crossbow after firing it and started your next turn empty handed, you could have drawn and fired the hand crossbow in the same turn.
Swapped the post to the appropriate section but I do appreciate the reply.
It's my first time playing and the DM knows it (he is a friend who invited me), so you are telling me if I had used my free action to stow it after shooting it originally, I would have been able to draw the 1h crossbow and use it on my second turn?
It's also usually considered a free action to just drop an item, so if you were to just drop the first weapon you could still draw and attack with a second weapon on the same turn. Your first weapon would then be on the ground and would require a separate action to pick back up (or a free object interaction if you haven't used one on that turn), and another action to stow it or attack with it.