The Best Ranged Weapons In DND, Ranked

Key Takeaways

• Nets are a weak-ranged weapon option in Dungeons & Dragons, causing no damage and requiring a strength check to break free. They are easily replaceable and need a serious buff.
• Blowguns have limited range and damage, but can be made viable by using special ammunition with poisons or other effects. They have the loading property, limiting attacks.
• Shortbows are a versatile ranged weapon option, with good range and damage. They are two-handed but don’t require any feats to use effectively, making them a popular choice for many classes.

When playing Dungeons & Dragons, we sometimes feel the urge to beat that horrible villain your Dungeon Master created due to how obnoxious they are. That said, they’re sometimes so far away from us that we feel too lazy to walk toward them. Luckily, you can shoot something at them instead.

There are many ways to cause ranged damage, such as using spells. However, we’re going to focus on weapons, specifically weapons for characters who wish to focus on using them constantly. We’ll also mention options that are good for melee characters looking for some backup to hit enemies they can’t reach.

All weapons here require ammunition except for darts, as they are the ammunition themselves.

Updated on October 8, 2024, by Lucas Olah: With new books come new rulesets. The 2024 version of the Player’s Handbook came with a few quality-of-life changes to some weapons, as well as adding firearms to the main weapon list instead of leaving them in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Oh, and did we mention they now have a whole new feature called weapon masteries? Because of these changes, we decided to look back on our rank and update weapons with their new tricks and see if their rank would change. We’ll evaluate them based on raw damage, properties, weapon mastery, range, and how accessible they are to all classes without the need for feats or multiclassing.

10 Blowgun

Blowguns haven’t really changed, keeping their range, damage, loading property, everything. The only thing going for it is the Vex mastery, which gives you advantage on your next attack if you hit the enemy, but there are better weapons that also have access to it.

What makes them a bit useless is the loading property, meaning you can only attack once per turn, no matter how many extra attacks you have, and it does only one piercing damage, essentially being the ranged version of an unarmed attack. Still, you and your DM can create a fun mechanic of special ammunition with poisons or other things and make this a viable secondary weapon.

9 Dart

Darts won’t go as far as the blowgun, with a range from 20 to 60 feet, but they cause more damage: a d4 piercing damage, to be more specific. They have the thrown property, meaning you can attack from afar with your strength, and the finesse property, meaning you can use dexterity instead.

Mechanically speaking, they are daggers that don’t work in melee combat. Aside from monks who can replace their damage for their martial arts die (though it’s not the only ranged option here), other classes will have better ranged weapons to choose from. Vex comes back here, which is the best mastery, but it doesn’t save the weapon.

8 Sling

Though slings use the slow mastery (it removes ten feet/three meters of movement from the person you hit), a mastery that is not as good as vex, everything else here is still better than darts, and this mastery is useful to prevent enemies from reaching you.

The range is better, and the damage is bludgeoning (there are more creatures resistant to piercing than bludgeoning), making it slightly better. Unless you need the thrown property to properly use ranged weapons, slings are a better pick than darts.

7 Hand Crossbow

Hand crossbows have the same range — 30 to 120 feet — and they cause a d6 piercing damage. What’s interesting about them is that they have the light property, so you can use them alongside your primary weapon, like a rapier. The bad part here is that the loading property returned, but the good news is that it’s manageable this time, and the superior mastery Vex is back in all its glory.

You’ll need Two-Weapon Fighting Style to cause the proper damage if you are using it as an offhand weapon. You can also combine it with Crossbow Expert, a must-have for characters who use crossbows, allowing you to ignore their loading property. It also lets you attack with a hand crossbow on your offhand with a bonus action. Overall, it is useful but dependent on particular builds, features, and feats.

6 Heavy Crossbow

The Heavy Crossbow is no longer the heaviest hitter among ranged weapons, but it still packs a punch with a d10 piercing damage. Its range is 100 to 400 feet, far more than necessary in most situations, but it comes in handy. As a martial ranged weapon, only four classes have them as default: barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rangers — technically, five, depending on how you build your cleric.

Not only is that a small group of classes, but let’s face it, some classes would take more advantage of a heavy crossbow than a Barbarian. Still, there are other ways to obtain such proficiency, such as feats like Martial Weapon Training or multiclassing. As long as you plan things well, you can still get a powerful rogue with a heavy crossbow, for example. Crossbow Expert will also help with the loading property, but you may need multiple feats to make this weapon work as intended.

Lastly, it has the Push mastery, which, if combined with Crossbow Expert, allows your squishy, ranged character to push melee enemies away from them if said enemies manage to reach you, giving you the opportunity to flee without risking opportunity attacks. Despite that, Push is a bit of a hit-or-miss; if your DM plays a lot with maps and verticality, this is the best weapon mastery. Otherwise, it’ll be situational but still decent.

5 Pistol

Firearms are now part of the main book, making them available for everyone, though they require martial weapon proficiency – a bit odd, considering that the whole point of guns is to be easier to use compared to bows and crossbows.

Regardless, the pistol is essentially a better heavy crossbow, causing the same damage, but possessing a better weapon mastery, Vex. And while the range is significantly lower, a pistol’s range covers most situations.

While its loading property can’t be removed by Crossbow Expert or Sharpshooter, the old feat Gunner takes care of that with ease. The only sad thing here is that the weapon costs 250GP.

4 Longbow

The Longbow has the strongest damage and range among bows, causing a d8 piercing damage, and has an astonishing main range of 150 feet and a maximum of 600 feet, the highest range of all ranged weapons, making it the definitive option for medieval snipers. They are two-handed, but if you’ve ever seen a bow in action, you already know that.

They suffer a similar fate to the heavy crossbows: they’re excellent weapons but with little accessibility for most classes. Still, you can use the same feat, Martial Weapon Training, to get it. Their mastery is Slow, which can be more or less useful depending on how your DM plays with maps, and the lack of loading property makes it more useful for characters with multiple attacks.

If you get Sharpshooter, you can go beyond the normal range without getting disadvantage. You never know when you need to hit someone 600 feet away from you.

While Sharpshooter no longer gives you extra damage, this is still a heavy weapon, which means it applies to the damage feature from Great Weapon Master.

3 Musket

Muskets may now have nearly as much range as the longbow, but similar to the pistol, they cover most situations – besides, Sharpshooter will let you use all your range with no disadvantages. Add it along with Gunner, and you’ll have the best martial ranged weapon at its fullest, with a d12 for its damage rolls.

Slow isn’t the best mastery out there, but it’s also the one longbow has, so it still surpasses the bow. Its biggest problem is that it’s the most expensive weapon from the table, at a staggering 500GP, meaning it’ll likely not be your starting weapon unless you convince your DM.

2 Light Crossbow

The Light Crossbow’s d8 piercing damage is quite good for a simple weapon, easily competing with the longbow. The same applies to its range, with a base of 80 feet and a maximum of 320 feet. They occupy both hands this time, though, so don’t let the ‘light’ fool you.

They suffer a similar fate to the other crossbow weapons here, where you may have to rely on Crossbow Expert to remove the loading property, but that’s an easy fix. Slow, as mentioned before, isn’t the best of masteries, but it can come in handy.

1 Shortbow

The default weapon of many ranged builds, the Shortbow has a powerful range, going from 80 feet to 320 feet, and it has a d6 piercing damage, and that’s about it. Similar to the Longbow, it’s two-handed, as you’d expect from bows. To be technical about it, some of the previous weapons are better, either in damage or range.

However, few classes obtain proficiency in longbows or heavy crossbows. In contrast, ten out of 13 classes can use short bows without relying on other methods to gain proficiency, and their range will cover most scenarios in the game.

You also don’t need to depend on any feat to make this weapon work efficiently — still, we recommend Sharpshooter. It also helps that the weapon has the best mastery, Vex. Even if it’s just a d6, someone who can attack a lot of times, like a fighter, will constantly give themselves advantage. What’s the point of having a stronger weapon if you’re not even hitting the target?

All in all, specific builds might have a better time with another weapon, but no one will go wrong with a shortbow at their disposal – unless you dumped your dexterity or magic attacks are more of your thing.