Looks like I was dead wrong here- turns out there's another JC tweet that says: "If you use a weapon in a way that turns it into an improvised weapon—such as smacking someone with a bow—that weapon has none of its regular properties, unless the DM rules otherwise." So bonking people with a crossbow wouldn't count for GWM because the crossbow isn't heavy when you're not shooting it
That's on me, I've been playing my tavern brawler for too long and overlooked that most people don't have imrpovised weapon proficiency. It looks like using most ranged weapons in melee is maybe improvised for two reasons? Like, the ammunition property makes it improvised, but also the "ranged weapon to make a melee attack" rule makes it improvised. Which I guess lines up if you take it as Javelins being good for melee and throwing, while darts are only really good for throwing- makes sense to me, although it's weird to have the same thing said twice over (a ranged weapon is improvised, but also an ammunition traited weapon is improvised, and only ranged weapons have that trait so they're already improvised in melee)
Yeah, there's a heck of a lot of overlap between Traveller and 40k- they were developed around the same times (classic traveller was '77, Megatraveller was '86, Rogue Trader was '87 and then Traveller: The New Era was '92) so there's a lot of cross-pollination between the two
Far be it for me to advocate starting rules arguments, but RAW I think that works and for flavour I'll always support ways to play paladins as something other than the melee knight in shining armour
Good catch on the Ammunition property, I did miss that- I'm not sure if that goes for weapon traits or just proficiencies, or if it's just a reference to that particular part of the improvised weapons section which specifically calls out ranged weapons in melee.
I do want to be very nitpicky with it- that's what I'm doing here, having fun seeing what the rules technically allow rather than what they actually play like at the table XD
I kind of love the idea that the dart not having the ammunition property means it doesn't count as an improvised weapon when used in melee, because that would mean a dart is just a dagger that weighs a quarter as much and doesn't have the light property (also am I wrong to think that the dagger's thrown property does nothing, since a thrown melee weapon without the thrown property does 1d4 damage with a range of 20/60ft anyway?)
Ah, my mistake there- I thought that was another one with "attack with a melee weapon". It does make more sense that crossbow bashing would be strength based tho, surprising to see the rules as written following logic XD
Jeremy Crawford's rules are also inconsistent dog shit. That's why we're here, looking at this meme :)
The FGHP is from Traveller, it deals a shedload of damage (2d6 times ten in a system where the average person has 21 'hp'), but has the unfortunate side effect of venting radiation all over everything when you fire it. It's meant to be used in conjunction with a pretty good hazmat suit, but those can get expensive and a cheap enough hireling could run cheaper...
As far as I can see, the rule for using a ranged weapon for melee is just: "If a character uses a ranged weapon to make a melee attack, or throws a melee weapon that does not have the thrown property, it also deals 1d4 damage." That says nothing about changing the traits of the weapon, nor that the weapon is treated as an improvised weapon for the purposes of the attack- the rules for improvised weapons are a seperate clause within the same paragraph. As such, I'd argue that hitting someone with the butt of your heavy crossbow is effectively an attack with a martial weapon, damage 1d4 bludgeoning, with the traits Ammunition (range 100/400), heavy, loading and two-handed- of which ammunition doesn't apply because it's not a ranged attack, and thus loading doesn't constrain multiattack (because only being able to load 1 piece of ammo per round doesn't affect the bonks per round). Per the thrown weapon rules, I'd also argue that bonking people with a crossbow would rely on the attacker's dex, because it doesn't have the finesse property and as a ranged weapon it's dex based.
I won't- per Jeremy Crawford, a thrown melee weapon isn't an attack with a ranged weapon, so by the same logic a melee attack with a ranged weapon wouldn't become a melee weapon attack.
Sharpshooter specifies "an attack with a ranged weapon"- so the only argument I could see against using a crossbow for bonking counting for that is if using a crossbow as a melee weapon makes it not count as a ranged weapon. That's an interpretation I disagree with, though, per the sage advice on thrown weapons and sharpshooter- if throwing a dagger isn't an attack with a ranged weapon, it implies that "ranged weapon" is inherent to the item rather than how it's used. Throwing a dagger at someone is an attack with a melee weapon, ergo hitting someone in the face with a crossbow is an attack with a ranged weapon.
Cool! So if you go to a restaurant, order mac and cheese, get it in a cardboard container and when it spills you get hospitalized for a week, do you say "mac and cheese is meant to be served very hot! Of course I'll cover the medical bill myself!". What about when a few dozen people run into the same issue, because the restaurant has figured out that the occasional lawsuit from people being badly injured is cheaper than the cost of keeping the mac and cheese at an edible temperature? I mean, consider the comparison you're going for here. "If she'd heated a substance to that temperature herself, then spilled it on herself, it would be entirely her own fault! Why is it when someone else heats a substance to an unsafe temperature, then someone gets injured by it, it's not entirely on the injured party? They should know that the substance was heated far beyond what anyone would reasonably expect it to be provided at!"