Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why force we to have Range Weapon Slot?

Yeah you also need Crossbow Expert to bypass the loading property (or an artificer infusion). It is doable though.

Who said you only have 1 or 2 hand crossbows? I'm talking about a small bandoleer of them ^.^

A strange quirk of this is actually that you can do it more effectively with one hand crossbow - but it looks odd. You fire the hand crossbow with one hand, free action pass it into your other hand, bonus action fire it with your other hand...

I suppose (really, it's just my wild guess) that since a hand-crosbow doesn't require 2 hands to align it like other crossbows, which you're also loading every round while also carrying them with 2 hands, and it's not very powerfull, you're expected to be able to load it just with 2-3 fingers of you second hand, and that doesn't mean you need to put anything away from that hand.

Crossbow Expert is required to bypass the loading property, but you still have to abide by the Ammunition property! They're separate.

lol nice, just draw a new pre-loaded crossbow each turn! I'm certain nothing bad will ever happen from carrying around 10+ loaded Hand Crossbows at all times. xD

And huh...actually, I don't think you even have to switch hands! "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." It says nothing about "in your other hand" (5e wikidot's description might be incorrect)

I'd certainly allow it at my table! Or more accurately, forget entirely about the Ammunition property...

Not with the Artificer's Repeating Shot Infusion:

Repeating Shot
Item: A simple or martial weapon with the ammunition property (requires attunement)

This magic weapon grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it when it’s used to make a ranged attack, and it ignores the loading property if it has it.

If you load no ammunition in the weapon, it produces its own, automatically creating one piece of magic ammunition when you make a ranged attack with it. The ammunition created by the weapon vanishes the instant after it hits or misses a target.

I'm talking about 5e of course. Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't have the Artificer. But after the game is released, I'm sure someone will mod it in. We already have Paladins, Monks, and Bards. Had Druids, Sorcerers, and Barbarians; long before Larian added them. I do like the "official" versions of the classes better. Though modders have added some nice subclasses to the Druid and Sorcerer already.

Ah! If that's what you were saying Lukas, then my mistake. I've played in like one game with an artificer so am not that familiar with their abilities.

Alright, so an artificer-infused hand crossbow allows dual wielding RAW or you can have 100 pre-loaded crossbows on you.... or just use a single hand crossbow.

No, right you were – TIL the loading rules are in the Ammunition property! Thanks for that. Also good to know you don't have to dual wield for the bonus attack. These rules could definitely use a bit of work in 5.5E. I'm sure the original intent for Crossbow Expert was to do the classic rapier + crossbow combo.

Sure ^.^


You're right! I'll pay that - I was pulling from memory but I thought it said 'in your other hand' as part of that. Guess not ^.^


I think, in practical reality, that this is the situation at most game tables.

As a parallel situation, recall that by the rules, you only need two hands on a two-handed weapon when you actually attack with it - so at all other times, you are considered to have a hand free to do things that require it (this is official and confirmed); I think that most people would not consider it a stretch of acceptable rulings to re-cock a hand crossbow with two or three fingers of the other hand that's still holding your second hand crossbow. I feel that in practice, that's how it's usually played by most groups.

Don't be too optimistic about it. You should know that what we had from mods was half-way datamined. We didn't have a single class that would be made by modders from the start till the end so far.

One of this things you would think would be a standard considering weapon load outs have been a thing for over 20 years.

Didn’t DA:O also limit equipment to melee/ranged setup?

Yup ...

Honestly i believe i never played any game, that would allow you to have anything on second set of weapons ...
Maybe except Diablo II. ?

Have you never played Baldur's Gate and all other infinity engine games ? Pillars of Eternity and other Obsidian games like Tyranny ? Pathfinder ? Solasta ? Wasteland ? the recent Expedition : Rome ? Black Geyser ? Encased ?
Just a few exemples of role playing games but there are a lot of games that allow you custom weapons slots.

I can only think about Kingdom Come Deliverance and South Park : The Stick of Truth that limit you to melee + range.
But those games aren't tactical games and/or doesn't have a lot of weapon types. Maybe The Age Of Decadence too, but I'm not sure.

Ehm ... nope. :-/
None of them was ever in my spotlight.

Ha! That's explains why we don't see eye to eye.

Its possibility ... maybe i would like them, but i dont search for new games, some of my friends usualy tells me.

For example i never known about Baldur's Gate III. and since i didnt play any before, i would probably not even care ...
(Lets give the audience a moment to imagine how beautifull it would be.)

But i have seen that beautifull cynematic trailer with Mind Flayer and Nautiloid, and Giths and everything ... and i totally was like "I have no idea what that is ... but i want it!"

AH! Back from work. Can complain at length now.

I don't remember who it was who mentioned Dragon Age: Origins as Larian's main Bioware influence but it's on point - chaining characters, hotbar, or inventory design, it's all lifted from Bioware mainstream lite-RPGs. That kind of stuff is very much why I am worried if Larian realises what they are working on.

Dragon Age: Origins had very simplified designs like that, because it was a very simple game. There was little to no reason to splt or control your party members. Skills were relatively few and even in most extreme cases they tended to fit on one hotbar, and selection of skills/spells never changed. Choosing a weapon meant choosing an upgrade tree and there was no reason to switch between different types of weapons - only ugrade when stright up better weapon shows up. Outside some story choices DA:O origins was about as interactive as your average jRPG.

DnD 5e, even though it is streamlined from previous editions, doesn't work like that. Especially with additinal features Larian added microcontrol of the charactrers is required. Spell casters gain a large amount of spells that a constantly added/removed from use. Some weapons will be ineffective against certain enemies and require switching.

How Larian designed their control systems and UI suggests that they don't understood those differences when working on the game. Equiping your warrior with melee weapons that do different damage types is not only a legacy feature - it is something Larian should actively encourage, not make difficult. They claim that melee classes aren't interested to play - and yet they prohibit from easy access to more then one set of weapons...

Edit. I watched some videos, and am pretty sure DA:O allows for two loadouts but doesn’t restrict them to one melee/one ranged. So that might be Larian’s original “contribution” to the genre.


Not at all - welcome! But I do believe that you don't quite realise yet how good Baldur's Gate3 could be with some changes that you like to fight against:) I hope that you will enjoy BG3 and that it to lead to you the really good stuff out there.

There would have less smileys on this forum, for sure !

I just thought about this today ...
And i would like to say that i dont mind ranged weapon slot at all ... BUT i would like it to act like one ...

What does it mean?
Curently the slot isnt exactly "ranged" its more like "bow and crossbow" slot ... i know those weapons are ranged, but let me finish it and maybe it starts make sense a little.

What upgrade i would like to see for "ranged" slot is possibility to place there throwing weapons ... like i have 6 Javelins in my barbarian inventory ... there is little to none reason for me to use Bow, or Crossbow rather than those (mainly for immersion reasons, but w/e :P ) ...

So what i want, is option to Equip those Javelins (or hand axes, basicaly any throwable weapon) to "ranged slot" wich would determine for game that the weapon placed there is supposed to be used as Ranged one ... meaning default action (or with Ctrl) will be throw, not poke (pierce? penetrate? stab? dunno, but you get me i hope).

Then, it would be MUCH appreciated if i would also see number of remaining Javelins on the weapon slot that is on ... i dunno how to call it, its not exactly part of hotbar, but it is part of the same frame ... just next to our character head.

You may ask why bother and its a good question to be honest, unless you drag a really LOT items in your inventory and you know that when you want to throw the Javelin, they usualy tend to be at end of your hotbar. So at least this searching would be dealt with.

+1

Classic RPGs to the rescue! All that and more was possible in BG1&2 and Co.

Characters had multiple weapons slot, where you could assign any weapons you wanted with no artificial limitations. Weapons with two functions (like thrown weapons that could be used both in melee and thrown) had a toggle so you could switch between throwing and smashing with them.