Post/Author/DateTime	Post
the all powerful hand cross bow TheBlackNight45 Jul 31, 2015 12:27:26	the all powerful hand cross bow m playing DND 3.5 and have a rouge tallfellow (halfling)  he is currently lvl 5 (i wasted my first 2 feats getting ones to up certain checks cuz it was my first char and i didnt compleatly know what i was doing but thats not important) for roleplay reasons i want to have him dual weilding hand crossbows (i currently have a dex of 18 and a +2 for a total mod of 6) and i wanted to know what i need to deal the most amout of damage. i was hopeing for both short term and long term goals. my DM has allowed pretty much any book as long as the info in there is balenced. just hopeing for feats, weapon materials good enchantments and anything else that would increse its shots per turn, damage and overall power. NOTE: yes i understand that handcrossbows are not very strong but i want to have them so i can dual weild and for rollplay reasons
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 31, 2015 13:38:08	Welcome to the game!     Hand crossbows are plenty strong, in the right hands. They're what I use in the Gun Fu build in my signature, which dual wields them and is capable of achieving a comparable rate of fire to a helicopter-mounted M134 minigun under some circumstances, and after a few critical hits, each one of those shots is a guaranteed hit dishing out hundreds or thousands of damage. There's even a variant that allows it to have a 50% critical hit rate and functionally infinite attacks (but I was deliberately not trying to get an infinite here). However, that build is what we call "theoretical", because "no sane DM would allow" it. (It can also backfire, as this fellow using a similar trick found out pretty hilariously.)   The issue with dual hand crossbows is always how to reload them both without a free hand. There are ways around this - you can get the reload time down to a free action in a number of ways (Hand Crossbow Focus in Drow of the Underdark is the preferred method, since it's basically Rapid Reload + Weapon Focus in one feat, but it isn't the only way - the Ghostly Reload spell in Races of the Dragon and the Quick Loading property in the Magic Item Compendium also reduce the loading time of a hand crossbow to a free action), but you can't get them to reload themselves without a free hand. I get around that with a Spare Hand magic item in Gun Fu, but that was theoretical; in a practical game situation you may require a bit of custom magic item creation (which is hard to do and may be complex to explain to a new player).   Assuming you can get around that somehow, what you want to look for is ways of maximizing your per-hit damage. You have a decent one right now with Sneak Attack, but that's tricky to do at range because it only reaches 30 feet and you can't rely on flankers (unless you've got a buddy to help in a specialized way - rangers with Distracting Attack (PHB2) can treat targets as flanked just by shooting them, and make perfect partners for ranged rogues), and as levels go up, the odds of finding foes immune to critical hits (and thus sneak attack) also go up. I'd look into rogue alternate features as you can - there's a couple that work just peachy for your goal. (one of them, either in the PHB2 or in Dungeonscape, lets you sacrifice your Sneak Attack damage to reduce a target's AC for a while. That, in turn, means more attacks by you and your allies hit, which results in more overall damage even though you aren't rolling any more damage.) In terms of getting your attacks up, you want the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, but you don't need more than just that feat - you can get the benefits from Improved Two-Weapon Fighting from the Gloves of the Balanced Hands in the MIC, which saves you a feat.   The hand crossbow is also unusually good for critical hits - it's no kukri, but it's the best ranged weapon for it that you can get without a feat. (The only ranged weapon with a wider threat range that I know if is the Great Crossbow in Races of Stone, and not only is it still exotic and not a rogue weapon, it's also too big to dual-wield.) Critical hit effects are thus good choices in general. (I exploit this in Gun Fu by using the Blood in the Water stance, which causes each crit to give a cumulative +1 attack and damage for a while.) My preferred critical hit effect isn't actually a damaging one - it's Dessicating Burst in the MIC. Two crits from that will exhaust a target, which makes them easy pickings for you and your allies, and that's a rather difficult condition to remove in the middle of combat.   Be advised that all of this greatly depends on your accuracy, and rogues only have 3/4 base attack. You can cheat a little bit if you have the money - buy wands or eternal wands of Wraithstrike (SPC) and you'll make all your shots as touch attacks (i.e. "armor piercing"), which dramatically improves your overall damage output even if you're not rolling sneak attacks. You can also improve the range of your sneak attack with wands of Sniper's Shot (SPC). You're a rogue, you have Use Magic Device, make good use of it.   I hope that helps.