Blood Hunter Ghost Buster

[Alexwellace]

Hey Guys, I’m playing around with making a back up character for if/when my current character dies and I’m quite intrigued by the prospect of a Blood Hunter...with a reallllly big crossbow. I’ve not seen anyone use the heavy crossbow before in any campaign I’ve been in but I was thinking maybe the Blood Hunter is the right class for it; having access to Archery fighting style and that extra Crimson Rite damage die could really give that monster Hunter vibe I’m looking for. But I’ve got a few questions about the rules I was hoping the forum could answer

Say I’m starting as variant human, I’m wondering if I pick up Sharpshooter or Crossbow Expert first? Sharpshooter lets me utilise that ridiculous 400ft range while Crossbow Expert means I get to shoot every turn instead of once every 2 turns (is this how loading works? The whole ammo and object interaction system confuses me). I’d probably take Ghost Hunter as my subclass, allowing me to do d10 plus dex plus crimson rite plus wisdom damage. I would also like to have a rapier and a set of 2 pre-loaded hand crossbows strapped across my chest for when people get up close (even though I *could* fire the heavy crossbow it doesn’t seem right), how do you feel about preloading? There doesn’t seem to be any rules for it but to me it makes sense. So then I could use my interaction to draw my rapier and hand bow, atttack with rapier and bonus action shoot handbow, then drop the handbow which counts as a free action?

Thanks for your time guys 😊

[Kadesh]

Sharpshooter is taken for Bonus Damage and ignoring cover.,the range is only rarely useful.

I'd take Sharpshooter if you are able to Stealth well, to give yourself advantage, so you can more freely - 5/+10 also.

Ask your DM over the preloading.

[Veldrenor]

Say I’m starting as variant human, I’m wondering if I pick up Sharpshooter or Crossbow Expert first? Sharpshooter lets me utilise that ridiculous 400ft range while Crossbow Expert means I get to shoot every turn instead of once every 2 turns (is this how loading works? The whole ammo and object interaction system confuses me).

Your DM might have a house rule handling it differently, but that's not how the loading property typically works. The loading property says:

"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."

Basically, if you have the Extra Attack feature such as from being a fighter, rogue, bloodhunter, etc, you still only get to fire 1 shot using a weapon with the loading property. If you have Extra Attack you could fire your crossbow and then smack someone with the butt end of it (as an attack with an improvised weapon), but you can't fire twice in the same attack action with the crossbow. Ammo isn't included as part of the object interaction system, it's assumed that you're drawing arrows/bolts/sling bullets as part of the attack itself. That's why a pre-loaded crossbow doesn't typically come up: loading the crossbow is part of taking your 1 shot with it.

So, due to the above and your intention to specialize with a heavy crossbow and then switch to a melee weapon when the enemy gets close, I'd recommend you take the Sharpshooter feat at 1st level and hold off on Crossbow Expert until level 4 (since the loading property won't matter to you until you get Extra Attack level 5). If you wanted to use a handbow instead of a heavy crossbow, then you should take Crossbow Expert first.


how do you feel about preloading? There doesn’t seem to be any rules for it but to me it makes sense. So then I could use my interaction to draw my rapier and hand bow, atttack with rapier and bonus action shoot handbow, then drop the handbow which counts as a free action?

You'd have to talk to your DM about pre-loading, but unless they've got a house rule regarding object interactions you can't pull off that attack chain. Your free object interaction of the turn typically only allows you to draw one weapon, drawing the second would be your action for the turn. You could draw both the rapier and handbow as part of the same object interaction if you took the Dual Wielder feat, which would be flavorful but not particularly useful mechanically.