Crossbow Bayonets

[Noxangelo]

Crossbow bayonets (and their little brother, the hand crossbow blade)

How effective are they? What cool tricks or ways to use them are there?

All the threads I've found all ended up being arguments on how unrealistic they are, which is remarkably unhelpful.

[sleepyphoenixx]

As a weapon they suck. Bards don't exactly have the best attack bonus anyway - especially not one build for using crossbows - so the -2 to hit hurts.
And it's not like you don't have other options. If you need to threaten the area around you you can just get a spiked gauntlet and do it without the penalty.

Bayonets are great as extra enchantment holders for a crossbow user though.
Spellstrike, Defending, Warning and so on don't care if you actually use the weapon, just that you hold it.
For Spellstrike and Defending you want to not use them anyway since you're trading the enhancement bonus to something else.
And scattering them over several different targets like bayonets and armor spikes is cheaper than putting them all on the same weapon.

The other option is putting Spell-Storing and/or Bloodstone on it and using it as a trump card - ideally with something like the Spot the Weak Point skill trick to target touch AC.

[AnonJr]

Like many things, it depends on your goal - do you want to have a close-up melee option? If Dragon Magazine material is allowed, and this is certainly one of the more reasonable and useful articles, Dragon 349 has a variety of options for crossbows and bows. Of interest is the bladed crossbow and the steel crossbow.

The bladed does about as much damage as a dagger, and the steel lets you strike with the frame like a light mace (or heavy mace - corresponding to if it's a light crossbow or heavy crossbow). The nice part is both allow for melee options without the penalty to attack. For both you can interchange melee and ranged without penalty too. Melee enchantments need to be added separately, natch.

Same tricks as sleepyphoenixx mentioned apply. As much as I like the idea of having melee and ranged in one piece of equipment, it also means you lose both if sundered/broken/stolen/etc. And, dagger/mace damage isn't exactly much to write home about. Hope this is one of those "If I have to resort to this, things have gone sideways" type options.

[Noxangelo]

Like many things, it depends on your goal - do you want to have a close-up melee option? If Dragon Magazine material is allowed, and this is certainly one of the more reasonable and useful articles, Dragon 349 has a variety of options for crossbows and bows. Of interest is the bladed crossbow and the steel crossbow.

The bladed does about as much damage as a dagger, and the steel lets you strike with the frame like a light mace (or heavy mace - corresponding to if it's a light crossbow or heavy crossbow). The nice part is both allow for melee options without the penalty to attack. For both you can interchange melee and ranged without penalty too. Melee enchantments need to be added separately, natch.

Same tricks as sleepyphoenixx mentioned apply. As much as I like the idea of having melee and ranged in one piece of equipment, it also means you lose both if sundered/broken/stolen/etc. And, dagger/mace damage isn't exactly much to write home about. Hope this is one of those "If I have to resort to this, things have gone sideways" type options.


The complete scoundrel has the knife bayonet which turns a light or heavy crossbow into a shortspear and the sword bayonet which turns them into a spear.
They cannot be thrown but can be set against a charge.

Edit: I also remembered a post I saw once or twice talking about crossbow bayonets not being realistic because to be effective they were a long blade added to a long rifle or musket. This might not be correct.
Its been a while, but I remember hearing about a mounted unit armed with short carbines who were issued sword bayonets to turn the short carbine into a lance.
Can't remember if they were used in combat or were ceremonial but they were a thing.

[Fizban]

If you mean the bayonets and hidden blades from Complete Scoundrel, well they always have an irremovable -2 penalty, so they're always going to be worse than an actual weapon. But as noted, there are other versions in other books and articles that often don't have an attack penalty- though exotic weapon proficiency or say, heavily increased weight, are penalties of their own. The CSc bayonets deal d6 or d8, which might be more than the alternatives.

What is the benefit of a bayonet? Well you're now wielding a melee weapon, so you threaten, which means you can take AoOs. Not just against people moving past you, but also against people that try to disarm or grapple you without the feat (which is a lot more viable against PCs, particularly roughish ones, than people might admit) where landing the AoO stops the attempt entirely.

However, you don't need a bayonet to do that, nor do you even need silly armor spikes, because the (silly) Spiked Gauntlet has no penalties or restrictions given. Basically the only way someone is going to read it as restricting you is if they've decided this is an exploit that needs to be fixed but want to keep the weapon around for visual choice. Every character with simple weapon proficiency can already do the thing.

If you think bayonets are cool and want something to let you specialize in them so they have a use, there's this (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?224178-3-5-Surprise-Weapons-Don-t-Get-Enough-Love-(PEACH)&p=12295137) 'ol set of feats from Yuki Akuma. They're a bit too powerful for my liking, but that might be to your liking. Myself, I think I'd list bayonets as exotic weapons with a reduced non-proficiency bonus, and proficient wielders unlock the ability to stab 'n shoot (either as a -2 "flurry" or a swift action accompanying the stab).

[AnonJr]

The complete scoundrel has the knife bayonet which turns a light or heavy crossbow into a shortspear and the sword bayonet which turns them into a spear.
They cannot be thrown but can be set against a charge.

All about the trade-offs. :smallsmile:

Do you want higher damage with a -2 attack? Or do you want lower damage but no attack penalty?


I also remembered a post I saw once or twice talking about crossbow bayonets not being realistic because to be effective they were a long blade added to a long rifle or musket. This might not be correct.

Its been a while, but I remember hearing about a mounted unit armed with short carbines who were issued sword bayonets to turn the short carbine into a lance.
Can't remember if they were used in combat or were ceremonial but they were a thing.

It was my understanding of the original question that reality was a side issue. There's quite the rabbit hole that can be gone down, and it depends on what age of weapon and where it was deployed. Something the size of a Ka-Bar wouldn't be out of the question for the Dragon article's understanding of a dagger's damage and no penalty. Something bigger would fit the CS understanding of more damage with an attack penalty.

[sleepyphoenixx]

All about the trade-offs. :smallsmile:

Do you want higher damage with a -2 attack? Or do you want lower damage but no attack penalty?


It's not really a trade off, it's a trap. Most of your damage comes from your stats, feats and magical buffs anyway.
Unless you're heavily utilizing size increases the base damage of your weapon is pretty much irrelevant after the absolute lowest levels.
The -2 to attack on the other hand will be a permanent 10% lower chance to hit no matter your level. Trading 2 points to hit for ~2 points of damage is pretty much never worth it.

[Yahzi Coyote]

Crossbow bayonets (and their little brother, the hand crossbow blade)
Why not just draw a knife? You don't even have to drop the crossbow; hold it in the other hand.

If you're worried about taking a standard action to draw a knife, get Quickdraw. Or just convince your DM that you quickly drawing a knife is vastly less silly than taping a knife to the end of a crossbow and thinking you can hit anything with it.

Unless silly was your goal, like "bladed nunchuks." In which case, carry on.

[Sir Chuckles]

I feel like the only reason I'd like something like that is so I have a threatened area. Never know when that sudden AoO becomes the difference between a kill and an escape or being able to give the Rogue a sneak attack.

Buuuuut that can be done with spiked armor or just pulling out a dagger or something with or as part of a move action.

I think the various odd weapons like this exist mostly for flavor. It's good flavor and fits in with the books they released in and I love that they exist, but I think the practicality of them is nil. I think the worst of it is by far the -2 to-hit. Remove that and I think they'd be an ok but silly option.