Generating a pretty standard sword-n-board Dex Paladin, built primarily for melee combat. The only thing I'm having trouble deciding is whether to give him a longbow or a hand crossbow for those times when he needs to fight outside melee range.
Longbow, so when you get multiple attacks at level 5, you can shoot twice. Hand crossbow, you’d need a feat to do that. And wether you can walk around with a loaded hand crossbow on your belt, and not have the bolt fall out, is going to require a DM ruling. So loading it at all may require messing with your shield.
Honestly, though, pallys are often better off just taking the dash action to close in so they can smite, rather than shooting, since of course, you can’t smite at range (even your level 11 always on smite only works in melee). Leave the flying enemies for the warlock, or others with good ranged attacks.
If given the choice AND you are using a shield I would generally take a hand crossbow first but I would consider carrying both (why not?).
A longbow, or any 2-handed weapon on a shield-user is a problem because of the action it takes to don or doff a shield. That said if there is a flying dragon, you probably want to doff your shield and shoot at him.
On the other hand in most battles a hand crossbow will be more useful for a shield user, but you can only use it once and only then if your DM lets you load it out of combat. Once you use a hand crossbow, you can't use it against because of the ammunition property that requires 2 hands free.
If your strength is higher than your dex a javelin is going to generally be better than either of these.
Thanks all, this definitely is a pretty minor choice as I don't expect to be doing ranged very often. I just want to have something for when there's literally nothing to do in melee.
I think I'm gonna go with the longbow even though the action to stash my shield means I'd essentially need to spend a turn "switching loadouts," especially with both of your points on how hand crosssbows still suffer from usage issues involving reloading.
Since both of these ranged weapons require 2 hands to use it properly, including wielding it and loading ammunition, none of these would be usable until your shield is unequipped. Past that, unless your small sized, a longbow is a better ranged weapon on every points, better range, damage and rate of fire limit.
Normally, a crossbow's ammunition is loaded when firing, if the DM let you carry cocked crossbow during all your travel, all it would be good for is for a single shot before requiring to reload anyway. Longbow is more Extra Attack friendly.
Longbow, possibly with daggers available for occasional quick ranged attacks. The +1 damage and 10ft range increase from your single shot of a hand crossbow over a dagger is rarely worth the potential downsides of dropping your weapon, and that's if your DM even lets you carry a loaded one around.
Longbow, possibly with daggers available for occasional quick ranged attacks. The +1 damage and 10ft range increase from your single shot of a hand crossbow over a dagger is rarely worth the potential downsides of dropping your weapon, and that's if your DM even lets you carry a loaded one around.
Some additional throwing knives in my back pocket is a good idea, then I can still do a ranged attack while only sheathing my sword. Good idea!
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Generating a pretty standard sword-n-board Dex Paladin, built primarily for melee combat. The only thing I'm having trouble deciding is whether to give him a longbow or a hand crossbow for those times when he needs to fight outside melee range.
Advantage to hand crossbow
Advantages to longbow
Which would you take? Are there any considerations I'm not thinking of?
Longbow, so when you get multiple attacks at level 5, you can shoot twice. Hand crossbow, you’d need a feat to do that. And wether you can walk around with a loaded hand crossbow on your belt, and not have the bolt fall out, is going to require a DM ruling. So loading it at all may require messing with your shield.
Honestly, though, pallys are often better off just taking the dash action to close in so they can smite, rather than shooting, since of course, you can’t smite at range (even your level 11 always on smite only works in melee). Leave the flying enemies for the warlock, or others with good ranged attacks.
If given the choice AND you are using a shield I would generally take a hand crossbow first but I would consider carrying both (why not?).
A longbow, or any 2-handed weapon on a shield-user is a problem because of the action it takes to don or doff a shield. That said if there is a flying dragon, you probably want to doff your shield and shoot at him.
On the other hand in most battles a hand crossbow will be more useful for a shield user, but you can only use it once and only then if your DM lets you load it out of combat. Once you use a hand crossbow, you can't use it against because of the ammunition property that requires 2 hands free.
If your strength is higher than your dex a javelin is going to generally be better than either of these.
Thanks all, this definitely is a pretty minor choice as I don't expect to be doing ranged very often. I just want to have something for when there's literally nothing to do in melee.
I think I'm gonna go with the longbow even though the action to stash my shield means I'd essentially need to spend a turn "switching loadouts," especially with both of your points on how hand crosssbows still suffer from usage issues involving reloading.
Since both of these ranged weapons require 2 hands to use it properly, including wielding it and loading ammunition, none of these would be usable until your shield is unequipped. Past that, unless your small sized, a longbow is a better ranged weapon on every points, better range, damage and rate of fire limit.
Normally, a crossbow's ammunition is loaded when firing, if the DM let you carry cocked crossbow during all your travel, all it would be good for is for a single shot before requiring to reload anyway. Longbow is more Extra Attack friendly.
Longbow, possibly with daggers available for occasional quick ranged attacks. The +1 damage and 10ft range increase from your single shot of a hand crossbow over a dagger is rarely worth the potential downsides of dropping your weapon, and that's if your DM even lets you carry a loaded one around.
Some additional throwing knives in my back pocket is a good idea, then I can still do a ranged attack while only sheathing my sword. Good idea!