![]() ![]() ![]() Main focus was on two short swords, which rocked pretty good because i had good flanking partners and oportunities. ![]() I played a drow rogue with TWF a long time. Ranged combat is more of a hobby thing for barbarians anyhow. unless like many drow she uses poison on it. To the barbarian, no it's not particularly useful. It's basically a holdover from the Drow's original Fiend Folion writeup which brought hand crossbows into the game. It's an example of a weapon whose main damage comes from it's carriers, and it's precision damage, not it's core dice. And they're excellent light tools for rogues who get sneak attack off of them. Requires an exotic or racial proficiency.ġ) Is there something I'm missing here? What's the point of being able to fire one-handed if it takes two hands to load it? To use it with her heavy shield, wouldn't she have to stow the shield, load it, then pull the shield back out?Ģ) If she wants to keep the shield for tanking purposes in a ranged situation, wouldn't she be better off with javelins?ĭrow hand crossbows mainly serve as carriers for drow Poison. Less than half the range (30 ft vs 80 ft). 3 times as expensive (100 GP instead of 35 GP). + Can fire it one-handed, but it takes two hands to load. She really wants to use one, probably because it's unique to her character, but I'm having a hard time understanding their usefulness relative to light crossbows. One of my players is a Drow barbarian (abducted during childhood by human barbarians), so she's racially proficient with the hand crossbow. So I'm a new GM with a group of new players. She should engaging in some real killing action atleast by the 2nd round. That should be enough, a barbarian just isn't made for that kind of play style. With 5 bolts, she can use it in the surprise round and the next round without reloading. If as a barbarian, she wants a minor focus on the weapon (a main is just not going to work), consider giving her a reason to pursuit the legendary repeating hand crossbow (either by crafting one herself or through some sort of adventure) and give her free proficiency. Note however that a dagger is quite similar in functionality. If you use it with a shield, you can use it as a ranged alternative in the surprise round, switch to main melee weapon on your charge or full attack next round. Assuming you preload one, you can use them when you only have one hand available, for instance when climbing (IIRC, you can stop climbing and attack as a standard action though only one handed, or I would house rule that atleast). You can forinstance hide them on your body using sleight of hands. Unless you are using them in their niche situation, they are going to be outperformed by more conventional weapons. These advantages apply to all types of crossbows, of course.īesides flavor, one advantage of hand crossbows that may or may not be important is the ability to conceal it using sleight of hand.Ī hand crossbow (as are many exotic weapons) are niche weapons. You can also get some silver bolts, some cold iron bolts, some good bolts, some lawful bolts, some adamantine bolts, etc. In general, the advantage of a crossbow over a javelin is the lower cost of ammunition, and that you can get 50 enchanted bolts for the same cost as a single enchanted javelin. Beast Lord or Skirmisher are also sound choices. Deep Walker might suit a drow if she is going to be descending into the underworld again. If she really likes the idea of a primitive warrior who uses crossbows, one of the ranger archetypes would be best. Sword and board works best for fighters and rangers who can use the shield as a weapon for two-handed fighting when they want to, with shield spikes for example. You lose the damage that a two-handed weapon gives you, and the decrease in AC can be compensated for by better armor or a feat such as Toughness. If she doesn't plan on charging in, why is she a barbarian to begin with? She can be from a barbarian society but not be a barbarian, class-wise.Ī sword and board (one handed weapon and shield) barbarian isn't the best idea anyway. One way to solve that is to have the crossbow loaded before combat begins, fire it at the beginning of combat, drop it or holster it and draw a melee weapon to charge in. A light shield would be the way to go if she plans to use either a hand or light crossbow. If she has a heavy shield, then yes she would have difficulty reloading the crossbow. The cost of the hand crossbow makes it difficult to start with, but by 2nd level will be pretty easy to afford.
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