I will be multiclassing my bard with three levels of Thief for Quick hands. Take sword bard and that gives you (with dual wield) at level 6 a bunch of spells, Two main hand attacks and two bonus off attacks. Jack of all trades. With current gear that gives extra bonus actions and momentum- my bard will be dashing in and out striking who and when she wants. Hopefully counter spell,etc can keep her from getting held, etc. Many of her spells will be used for defense and not offense.
I can already do some of this in EA…
Isn't it impossible to get counter spell with 3 levels Thief and 9 levels sword bard? Would you not need to be a lvl 10 sword bard for that, or?
What is it that makes hand crossbows so good in EA? And if that is "fixed" would a longbow then be better or would they be about the same?
In 5e, they have the loading property, and you can not dual wield them, because they have the ammunition property.
Loading:
"Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make."
Ammunition:
"You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack (you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon). At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield."
Both of these, and what makes hand crossbows so popular in 5e, can be solved with a feat called "crossbow expert"
Crossbow Expert:
"Thanks to extensive practice with the crossbow, you gain the following benefits:
- You ignore the loading property of crossbows with which you are proficient.
- Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
- 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."
So you basically get this feat, which is one of the strongest feats, for free, with the exception of the ability to attack from close range with ranged weapons (which, don't get me wrong, is still quite strong). Dual wielding and another attack with a bonus action are functionally equivalent.
In the full game, since the crossbow expert feat has been confirmed to be in the game, you will likely not be able to dual wield hand crossbows. Another sign of that is that hand crossbows get the weapon action mobile shot.
Mobile Shot:
"Make a Ranged Attack while moving.
Prerequisite: Must have Dashed or Disengaged this turn."
So basically "use your action to dash or disengage, then you can use a bonus action to attack with the hand crossbows". But as it is right now, this is completely redundant. Hand crossbows can do that anyways, without this weapon action, if you dual wield them.
