As a lightfoot halfling rogue - is it worth it to take crossbow expert to use hand crossbows, or should I use the feat elsewhere and just toss a dagger from each hand and stab things when in melee?
thank you
Napolean_Warlord wrote:
Crossbow Expertise + Sharpshooter gives you some respectable range. (120ft)
Hand crossbows start with a 30ft short range as opposed to daggers 20ft range.
If you are a dagger rogue and the DM blesses you with a magical dagger that could impact how you play the rogue.
If you are a hand crossbow rogue and the DM blesses you with a magical hand cross bow you don't have to change your play style at all.
Dagger rogues that throw 2 daggers each round may find it difficult to justify to the DM how they have that many easily accessible daggers on them... and how they find them all after the fight.
Daggers are cooler. Especially when your clothes have to be FULL of them to last through a combat. 
I believe you can only draw and stow one weapon each turn. Two weapon fighting feats lets you draw two. That means you can't consistently throw more than two daggers a turn even if you have more (even with a feat).
My table also ruled that I could only throw a magic dagger once each round. It came back at the end of the round.
Dual wielding crossbows only takes one feat and allows all your attacks. It doesn't allow oppportunity attacks, though.
Thanks guys! Seems like the benefit of crossbow expert is modest, unless you have a fighter's archery style and get trapped in melee? I expect my DM will require use of a crossbow in each hand, which wouldn't be much of an advantage over carrying half a dozen daggers and then entering melee... We do very few encounters at range, so I don't mind the short range limitation.
I really wanted to do the John Woo "bullet time" moves with a halfling with two hand crossbows. Rolling across the room and firing into combat. Rolling across the room and lobbing daggers isnt bad either.
After level five you want dual crossbow as far as I understand the rules. You can't do multiattack with daggers since you can't draw enough of them.
Jerich wrote:
My biggest concern would be only finding Half my daggers per combat. Dm may rule thrown daggers can be lost just like shot arrows...
As such it may be hard to carry enough daggers around all the time. It's also not like you can claim to pull them all from your backpack as needed during combat.
basically what I'm sayin is how a dagger throwing character works is largely dependent on your dm.
Daggers designed to be thrown are usually quiite different than those designed to be held. As a DM, I would allow you to have special sheathes made to hold X number of daggers, which could be drawn more easily.
I would either allow them to be used like Ammo ('free' pull) or perhaps cost a bonus action.....or just allow you to pull 2 instead of 1... not sure. But talk to your DM about it. Of course, once you went through all 'X' daggers, you would need to pull them normally.
Jerich wrote:
So I can draw an arrow from my quiver, nock, draw, and then fire 4 times in 6 seconds, but I can't draw a dagger from my bandoleer and fling my arm out the same number of times? Sounds fun...
FrogReaver wrote:
Clutch bone, a rogue that dual wields daggers can make 2 melee attacks or 2 thrown attacks with them
Right now I'm contemplating a straight rogue, but if mc matters please say so. For the DPR king analysis I think the primary benefit is 1 point per attack from the higher die and + stat damage to the second attack. That's universally good, but I wonder if Mage Slayer or another feat might be better.
Jerich wrote:
WIthout getting too far into a rules discussion... talk with your DM. Being able to use handbows as some here are advocating is not universally accepted....
FrogReaver wrote:
So there is no way to get a ranged bonus action consistently without a feat if you are playing with RAW weapon draw rules unless you have at least one magic dagger? Thanks for the rules clarification.
FrogReaver wrote:
one thing that kind of sucks is that rogues are not proficient with shields by default.
Plaguescarred wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Mistwell wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
A semi-relevant side note: yesterday in my FLGS I played through an episode of HotDG: there was a guard in a ~200 foot tower who beat a party stealth check with an active perception check and my variant-human level 2 ranger with Sharpshooter killed him with 1 shot at long range with cover.
It was really awesome 
but probably the only time in 28 years of gaming where I've ever made a long range shot that really mattered much.
Napolean_Warlord wrote: