Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Where to buy hand crossbows?

I was wondering where I could buy hand crossbows? I can't seem to find them on any vendors in my playthroughs, only the light and heavy ones. Is this because it's in early access?

Buy haha if you have Astorian or if you're a rogue you don't have to buy anything just still all you want! The thievery system is not well implemented yet so enjoy the free stuff.

How exactly does that answer his question? To the best of my knowledge, hand crossbows have not been added to the game at this time - and you can't steal something that isn't in the game Jolintrop.

There are crossbows.
I found one.
I'm the dungeon left the first town. But I'm Not sure.

I think the tiefling trader in the grove has a +1 crossbow on sale (or it could be the other trader). Also, I had it in some loot.

I've played through everything twice now, there are no hand crossbows(yet), there are light and heavy crossbows though, if that helps.

I just found one, on a dead drow body.

Is there even any reason to use a hand crossbow over higher damage crossbows?

Rogues have proficiency in it. Apart from them, I don't think there is.

They only take up one hand, meaning you can (hypothetically) use them with a shield.

Using them with a shield, and on tabletop the "Loading" property can be worked around by holding a hand crossbow in each hand for multiple attacks. Don't know if thats a feature that will tracked or implemented meaninfully, but hey.

Also the aesthetics of a 1h crossbow are nice.

Just checked and while the crossbow takes only one slot, there is no way to select or drag a shield in the left hand at the moment. Hope it will be added at some point. Would be really nice.



Note that it is also impossible to select the crossbow in the melee weapon slot. I think this will have to be reworked for it to happen cause it seems the game doesn't allow to have two melee sets or two range sets to select from at the moment. And as well, no combination works, dagger + hand crossbow for example.

Extremely disappointing, hope they work on that

With Crossbow Expert feat you get additional bonus attack with hand crossbow if you use action to attack with one handed weapon, which can be hand crossbow btw. Meaning at level 4 you can already have 2 attacks as opposed to one, that's 2d6, already better than heavy crossbow, especially considering that each attack gets your ranged modifier, dipping and so on. That's easy more than greatsword damage-wise.



You can then take a Hunter Ranger, combine with Sharpshooter perk at level 8 and Hunter's Mark and then if you use hand crossbow you will have 3 ranged attacks per turn, each with +10 damage bonus from Sharpshooter, additional 1d6 damage from Hunter's mark, additional 1d4 from dipping and maybe even poison on top. That is outright the best single target damage at that level or one of the top ones possible at level 10 cap intended for BG3 and it is better than Heavy Crossbow, because of Sharpshooter, Hunter's Mark, dipping and so on rolling of number of attacks and with hand xbow you get 3 compared to usual 2.

If you calculate all these bonuses 2 attacks as Hunter Ranger with Heavy Crossbow (2 attacks per turn) will net:

Heavy Crossbow: 2d10
Sharpshooter: +20
Dexterity (16 -> +3): 6
Enchant (+1): 2
Hunter's Mark: 2d6
Dipping: 2d4


Total 34-68 damage in one turn, assuming it all hits.

As Hand Crossbow (3 attacks per turn):

Hand Crossbow: 3d6
Sharpshooter: +30
Dexterity (16 -> +3): 9
Enchant (+1): 3
Hunter's Mark: 3d6
Dipping: 3d4

Total 51-90 damage in one turn, assuming it all hits.


That's a massive difference in favor of Hand Crossbow there.