D&D 5E Does extra-attack work with bows and crossbows?

[loverdrive]

So... I've discovered an interesting thing that honestly makes a lot of sense.

You can also interact with one object or feature of the Environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to Attack.

Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack (you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon). At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

The character has only one free object interaction per turn, and spends it on drawing the first arrow/bolt, so they can't draw another one.

Results:

• /ss/ + XE is nerfed from being utterly broken into a ok build
• Ranged-oriented characters are not straight up better than mêlée characters, and do less damage to make up for greater survivability and more chances to attack they have
• Using a sword and a crossbow like Corvo Attano is actually viable option
• Rogues are better archers than Fighters

And all of these make a lot of sense to me. Could we all be playing wrong all these years?

EDIT: no, I've posted cringe. I guess I will retain this as a homerule, though.

 

[turnip_farmer]

So... I've discovered an interesting thing that honestly makes a lot of sense.




The character has only one free object interaction per turn, and spends it on drawing the first arrow/bolt, so they can't draw another one.

Results:

• /ss/ + XE is nerfed from being utterly broken into a ok build
• Ranged-oriented characters are not straight up better than mêlée characters, and do less damage to make up for greater survivability and more chances to attack they have
• Using a sword and a crossbow like Corvo Attano is actually viable option
• Rogues are better archers than Fighters

And all of these make a lot of sense to me. Could we all be playing wrong all these years?

This looks more like a house rule than a discovery. The rules you quoted state that drawing the arrow is part of the attack, which suggests to me it's not meant to use up any other part of your turn.

 

[loverdrive]

This looks more like a house rule than a discovery. The rules you quoted state that drawing the arrow is part of the attack, which suggests to me it's not meant to use up any other part of your turn.

And object Interaction say that drawing a sword is also a part of attack, but drawing two swords without Dual Wielder feat still requires an action.

All consequences of this reading make a bit too much sense to be a coincidence, honestly.

 

[Lycurgon]

"Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack (you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon)."

Part of the attack =/= uses your free object interaction. If it required your one free object interaction for the turn, it you have said so.

You can freely house rule as you please but it is not the correct RAW interpretation.
Your rule would also stop archers attacking in the first round of combat if they didn't already have their weapon in hand, as they couldn't draw their bow and their ammunition in the same turn.

 

[loverdrive]

"Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack (you need a free hand to load a one-handed weapon)."

Part of the attack =/= uses your free object interaction. If it required your one free object interaction for the turn, it you have said so.

Well, in this case, nothing requires free object interaction because nothing explicitly says that. "Object interaction" isn't an action category, unlike Action or Bonus Action. Drawing a weapon isn't even a rule of itself, just an example: "you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to Attack".

There's a rule: "You can also interact with one object or feature of the Environment for free" and "If you want to interact with a second object, you need to use your action". Drawing an arrow does sound like "interacting with one object".

Taking two Attack Actions for whatever reason (Action Surge, Haste, etc) doesn't allow the character to draw two swords, so granularity between Attack Action and individual Attack doesn't really matter in this case.

 

[Lycurgon]

Also, the Sage Advice Compendium makes it very clear that it does not uses your object interaction and works with Extra Attack:

" “Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack.” The sentence tells us two important things. First, you’re assumed to be drawing— that is, extracting with your hand—the ammunition from a container. Second, the act of drawing the ammunition is included in the attack and therefore doesn’t require its own action and doesn’t use up your free interaction with an object on your turn. What does that all mean for a hand crossbow? It means Crossbow Expert makes it possible to fire a hand crossbow more than once with a feature like Extra Attack, provided that you have enough ammunition and you have a hand free to load it for each shot."

 

[Mort]

So... I've discovered an interesting thing that honestly makes a lot of sense.




The character has only one free object interaction per turn, and spends it on drawing the first arrow/bolt, so they can't draw another one.

Results:

• /ss/ + XE is nerfed from being utterly broken into a ok build
• Ranged-oriented characters are not straight up better than mêlée characters, and do less damage to make up for greater survivability and more chances to attack they have
• Using a sword and a crossbow like Corvo Attano is actually viable option
• Rogues are better archers than Fighters

And all of these make a lot of sense to me. Could we all be playing wrong all these years?

5e already has a rule for this, the loading property:

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.


If you're interpretation were correct, bows would have the loading property, they don't.

Xbows have the loading property, but xbow expert, if taken, Eliminates it.

 

[Mort]

Well, in this case, nothing requires free object interaction because nothing explicitly says that. "Object interaction" isn't an action category, unlike Action or Bonus Action. Drawing a weapon isn't even a rule of itself, just an example: "you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to Attack".

There's a rule: "You can also interact with one object or feature of the Environment for free" and "If you want to interact with a second object, you need to use your action". Drawing an arrow does sound like "interacting with one object".

Taking two Attack Actions for whatever reason (Action Surge, Haste, etc) doesn't allow the character to draw two swords, so granularity between Attack Action and individual Attack doesn't really matter in this case.

Specific beats general.

The rules exempt the drawing of 1 weapon from the object interaction rules, but you run into the rule of you try to draw more than one.

The rules exempt ammunition completely from object interaction but it may be subject to the loading property, depending on weapon.

 

[loverdrive]

Specific beats general.

These rules have the same specificity. Drawing an arrow is a part of attack (and all object interaction is a part of something, it's not a separate action category), drawing a sword is a part of attack. The rules don't exempt ammunition from object interaction, as it uses the same wording as both of the examples: "part of [X]".

Now, Loading is a stronger argument, though.

 

[Bolares]

D&D is an exceptions based game. Object interaction is the general rule. Drawing ammunition is the exception to that rule. If the weapon does not have loading you can draw an arrow with each attack. If that was not the case, the loading feature would be useless