Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks One handed Crossbows

I'm unfamiliar with D&D rules but I equipped this thinking that I could use it on the off-hand like you can in other games but you can't. Why would I use it as my secondary ranged weapon when even a longbow does more damage, and by the time you find one, Heavy Crossbows are becoming ubiquitous. I'm simply curious, as to how these work in the setting.

Its not fully implemented yet but you should be able to wield one in each hand eventually. You used to be able to but it was bugged so they took that ability out until they can put it in correctly. What class/race are you using to wield it?

Just to clarify, its meant to be conceptually cool - like you are a gunslinger...with crossbows. There is a piratish vibe to it I guess.

Sorry to further Clarify, you need the Crossbow Expert Feat as well so you can fire the second one as a bonus action. Which is not in game yet.

Sounds cool, thanks for clarifying that for me.

No problem, you should jump on the discord. You can get instant answers and even join multiplayer groups. (Yes I will keep bugging you about this)


https://discord.gg/larianstudios

Thanks but until Larian address the issues with combat I won't be playing any more. The game simply isn't fun in its current state and I'm sick of going all Basil Faulty on my PC because of it.

When I first played I had the same experience. I wasn't really familiar with how different 5E was from 3.5 etc. It wasn't until I started playing with other people that I realized all the mistakes I was making.

To be honest I feel that if a game doesn't kick my butt on my first playthrough then its not worth playing. It has nothing to teach me.

Does the combat system need work? Sure, but the real problem is there are some really cheesy things you can do that are game-breaking and make encounters too easy.
Examples:

1) If you have 16 str you can throw most medium sized monsters into other monsters with no ability check and it does massive damage (you can kill all the Cambions on the ship this way)

2) You get shove as a bonus action instead of a full action which is super OP as you can shove people off cliffs and then attack.

3) You can throw potions next to people to heal them.

4) A light clerics Warding Flair has unlimited uses and makes you nearly impossible to hit.

5) Barrelmancy - you can put an explosive barrel anywhere and nobody notices. Or you can stack crates within crates to make a massive heavy object that you can throw at people for a ton of damage.

6) You can drop a candle from your inventory and use it to light your entire weapon on fire as a bonus dip action...from a candle.

yeah.... i missed the part about next to them.... I just threw it at Shadowheart while she was down and killed her..... /facepalm

Didn't they fix the 'throw potion kill ally' problem?

Nope. if you throw anything at an ally, including a potion it will damage them. You can fully kill a downed ally by throwing a potion at them. Its super funny.

The key is to throw it 'near' them but not on them. Healing potions are gaseous apparently. A holdover from DOS.

I seriously had no idea throwing potions in order to harm/heal was a thing. :O

Not only harm/heal ...
I believe you can make sleep potion into stun grenade.
I never tryed, but by this logic you should be able to create poison AoE by throwing poison vial.
Or buff your whole party against some type of damage, by smashing potion on the ground, instead drinking it. :P

That certainly sounds like it needs fixing...
And possibly, experimenting with, before fixing. For science and funsies.

(but yeah that does sound really broken, and hope it doesn't make it into the final release of the game.)

Also, going back to the subject line of this thread, I am still wondering how in the hells you would load and use a one-handed crossbow?

The hand requirement of weapons in 5e is only concerned with the business moment of the weapon's use - a two-handed weapon it doesn't mean you have to have both hands on the object all the time; you can hold a greatsword in one hand without putting it away, while you use your other hand for the somatic components of a bonus action spell, and then hit something with your two-handed sword, two-handed, without having had to sheath or draw anything... that's perfectly fine. The same is true of things like crossbows. In the case of hand-crossbows, being one-handed only means that you can aim and fire it (the important part) with one hand, while your other hand is full - it's not saying that you also load and reset it with one hand. Relatedly, loading and resetting a crossbow doesn't take up any part of your turn - it's presumed to be a part of the action you take and possibly the other minor free activity that takes place on your turn.

A big problem that it seems unlikely Larian will ever fix is that you should absolutely be able to wield a hand crossbow in one hand and a shield in the other, if you want to. Their system doesn't allow this currently because they've made a hard distinction between melee and ranged weapon sets; you can't have a one-handed ranged weapon and a shield out at the same time. Relatedly, their system also can't cope with weapons with the thrown property (javelins, hand-axes etc.).

As an aside...



I know you probably didn't intend it this way, but please don't do D&d, or 5e the extremely besmirching disservice of conflating any of this with 5e or D&D in general... This is all BG3's game-breaking homebrew, and nothing to do with 5e.

yeah I didn't at any point say anything like that. This post is about how these are broken and need to be fixed.

You wanna be an Inquisitive ?

I skipped reading the comments, I had a 1h song bow and a 1h song blade if I remember correctly in 4e. For my halfling bard, 1h crossbows is a easy duel wield weapon. Especially if you dabble in rogue and need a wp. to sneak attack.

Now in 5e, I don't know if the features to duel wield is the same. Mixing melee and ranged.

Edit* also, pretty sure there are less restrictions from 1h crossbow vs say heavy when reloading and equipping. Plus there is a repeater hand coss bow...pretty sure it's called reapter (holds more than one bolt in a cartridge).

Yeah, you can mix melee and ranged. Its still a Dex build though so you would for example have a rapier in one hand and a hand-crossbow in the off hand. You still need Crossbox Expert Feat though as well.

@blackheifer Roger, thanks for the quick response.