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I've seen almost nobody use crossbows, and I've seen at least one class guide that dismissed them outright as an option. I'll admit, needing Rapid Reload is a hassle, but they do more base damage than bows and have a wider crit range, making them better with critical feats. I would think they'd at least be worth considering.
Are they really that bad? Are there circumstances under which you'd prefer a crossbow to a bow? Am I just not seeing the gaping flaws?
I would only ever choose a crossbow in one of two situations.
1) Strength below 10. Strength penalties (if you have one) are applied to all bows, but not crossbows.
2) I play a dwarf, and its for fluff reasons. Crossbows bolts don't arc as much as an arrow, which help underground.
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Um... wow eh... sorry... how to put this...
The problem with crossbows is that they exist in the game. With the need to have rapid reload and crossbow mastery for heavy crossbows and the fact that you can't add your strength to damage the crossbow is simply dead in the water.
The fact that the sling now has several options on making it faster to reload and is cheaper with the ability to add your strength modifier to damage (while being explicitly a one handed weapon even though you need two to load) it simply works better for the combatant that needs a back up ranged weapon but doesn't have access to long or short bows.
Until they alter the x-bow into having a better base ability it will never compare. It needs something like guns resolving at touch AC within a certain distance. Crossbows were created to punch plate armor where bows at the time weren't capable.
Thats somewhat incorrect. Longbows could punch through plate just as well. No one seems to argue that they need similiar mechanics.
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One big issue is Casters also getting more fire and forget spells. Specifically Wizard and Sorcerer attack abilities. Back in 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D it was worth sinking a feat just to have a ranged weapon that didn't depend on strength to do damage.
Now? Maybe a Storm Bloodline Sorcerer putting shock damage on this crossbow bolts? But honestly, with a decent dex you could do much the same with short bows and slings and still get the same result.
Until they alter the x-bow into having a better base ability it will never compare. It needs something like guns resolving at touch AC within a certain distance. Crossbows were created to punch plate armor where bows at the time weren't capable.Thats somewhat incorrect. Longbows could punch through plate just as well. No one seems to argue that they need similiar mechanics.
True. I think bows ust got "cooler" points as fantasy archtype weapons. The rate of fire for a gaming bow is far over what would normally be seen, except by people that poured their heart and soul into the bow as a primary weapon. A real world english longbow was not something you fired at great speed. In war leaders just had a few hundred archers at a time, filling the sky with arrows; they didn't need to fire more than twice a minute or so. Crossbows were superior because they were more accurate at short range; point and shoot, needing less skill, less training, and less strength. What they were not, was fast. To make the rules really reflect reality, you would have to slow down the bow, not speed up the crossbow.
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It seems weird that bows don't require Exotic Weapon Proficiency. They are renowned for how long they take to master.
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It seems weird that bows don't require Exotic Weapon Proficiency. They are renowned for how long they take to master.
Actually, it's Slings that should be exotic. They take alot more practice. In fact, that's the reason bows became more prominent in history - quicker and easier to learn. Slings actually have the same range, do more damage, and cost less, but bows are simply easier to use... historically speaking.
It seems weird that bows don't require Exotic Weapon Proficiency. They are renowned for how long they take to master.
That is why bows are martial weapons and the easier to learn crossbow is a simple weapon. Also, "mastery" is a whole different level than "proficiency."
The only character I use crossbows with is my Inquisitor, since she can get a repeating crossbow, without having to pay the feat tax.
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1E handled the problem by making bows cost double proficiency points...a nod to the fact it took years to master a longbow.
Good crossbows outranged longbows and had more penetration power. Neither was truly capable of getting through the main armor of the day. You can see demonstrations on you tube of the plate armors of the day taking straight hits from longbow and crossbow bolts and bouncing them.
The idea that crossbows could not be built for strength is ludicrous. Heavy and light crossbows are different based on size. You can certainly alter the draw strength. Crossbows are exceedingly dangerous weapons even today...if you want a silent sniping weapon, you use a modern crossbow, not a modern bow.
Oh, and longbows being able to take their strings off was a feature, not a weakness. In rain, crossbow strings got wet and their range got axed. Archers could take the strings off and keep them dry until the fighting started. There was a whole battle between the english longbowmen and french hired genoan crossbowmen that was decided by that one fact.
If you want to make crossbows viable, just add the ability to make a crossbow to Strength, but add a penalty that if your strength is not high enough you spend an additional move action to load for each point it is low.
This also gives you the accurate historical picture where a high Str quiverbearer cocked and loaded a crossbow and then handed it to the expert to shoot, maximizing the power of each bolt.
Once you add Str to damage crossbows, Rapid Reload means a crossbow is now better then any bow out there. It's really the deciding factor in the above. Longbow has to add Improved Critical to get back to par in the damage competition.
The crossbow will also do better with vital strikes and crit feats, as noted above.
==Aelryinth
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I think the idea that crossbows were historically easier to learn to use is reflected by the fact that crossbows are simple weapons and bows are martial weapons. But there we have the reason that full BAB classes don't use them-- we expect martial weapons to be better than simple weapons.
Sadly, if crossbows need more feats to master than bows, that makes the "crossbows are easier to learn" fluff just fall apart. I thought maybe a class that gets crossbow proficiency but not bow proficiency might choose the crossbow, since needing a feat for proficiency might (start to) balance out needing Rapid Reload/Crossbow Mastery. That means Clerics, Monks, Wizards, Sorcerers, Alchemists, Summoners, Oracles, and Witches in the core and APG.
The strength bonus is also a good point. So to favor a crossbow, you'd pretty much need STR to be your dump stat. That rules out Monks, I suspect, as well as most Clerics. I guess it's not hard to see why the crossbow has become synonymous with casters.
Thanks for setting me straight everybody!
Honestly even then a caster is probably better off with a gun (if allowed in setting).
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3) The other flaw is that crossbows need more feats earlier in order to be effective weapons.
No, they don't -- everyone simply assumes they do because they're looking at it from the wrong perspective.
Example: bard with STR 7; he has proficiency in all Simple Weapons and a smattering of others (longbow not included). Therefore, it costs him a Martial Weapon Proficiency feat to use a longbow; and he'd suck at it anyway.
At 5th-level, he takes Rapid Reload and he buys a +1/Merciful light-crossbow. He casts Allegro, and has 2x 1d8+1d6+3 with Inspire Courage running the rest of the encounter.
Combat support tactics: delays until after allied melee guys have made full-attacks and then 5' backed away from enemies (to leave them out-of-melee). He then full-attacks, sinking an extra ~22hp damage into whomever needs it to drop.
-- For this character (a fairly common build), the crossbow is a demonstrably superior ranged weapon. Rapid Reload has netted him +3 damage per shot with the crossbow versus a similarly magical shortbow, more than what a fighter would get from Weapon Specialization.
Rapid Reload nets him 37% more damage. (If he didn't have Inspire Courage up and the weapons weren't magical, then 1d8 w/crossbow is 300% more damage than 1d6-2 w/shortbow.)
Also, you can fire a crossbow with only one hand (doesn't come up very often, but still a feature).
Isn't a crossbow more difficult to sunder as well?
No, they don't -- everyone simply assumes they do because they're looking at it from the wrong perspective.
... rest omitted for space...
You still needed to spend a feat on Rapid Reload. Without that feat, the bard would get a single attack of 1d8+1d6+3 with the crossbow, or 2 attacks of 1d6+1d6+1 with the bow. An average of 11 damage with the crossbow, and 16 damage with the bow (if both attacks hit.
You had to spend a feat when using a crossbow to make it better then a bow.
You can shoot a crossbow from prone. There's a big feature that no one has mentioned.
Stay out of melee, out of sight (take cover for a bonus to AC) and shoot with a +4 AC against ranged attacks. I'd consider that worthy for a character concept. Suddenly a level 1 character with 18 Dex and leather armour has a virtual AC 22 (if I did the sums correctly). He has probably taken Precise Shot, spent less than 50 gp, and makes a significant and regular contribution to combat.
GM's should apply this to the kobolds/goblins etc.
Apparently history class lied to me all these years. The longbow was based on the medieval English longbow that was in use during the 12th to 16th centuries. Crossbows came about several centuries BC. Now you will argue that full plate is from medieval Europe. Yes it is but the Roman's employed bronze breastplates that were capable of stopping arrows from the commonly used bows of that time and so a weapon was needed to be created to punch through these defenses. The crossbow. As time progressed, steel was created and weapons evolved further. Eventually the longbow came into being and armors actually stepped back into using more mobile suits. Ie. back and breast. Eventually guns came into being and armor was deemed a hindrance.
The longbow in the game is indeed based on the medieval English longbow; the crossbow in the game is the style of the medieval crossbow as well. Some models of the older ones are very similar, as far as anyone can tell, at least, but most games have a medieval Europe "default".
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The rules just do not do the actual weapon justice. Quit screwing one of histories greatest weapons!!!
I beg your forgiveness in advance. I am compelled by forces beyond my control...
That's it. I'm sick of all this "Crossbow" bullshit that's going on in the d20 system right now. Crossbows deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.
I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine crossbow in Japan for 2,400,000 Yen (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even shoot through slabs of solid steel with my crossbow.
Japanese smiths spend years working on a single crossbow and cock it up to a million times to produce the finest instruments known to mankind.
Crossbows are thrice as powerful as European bows and thrice as large for that matter too. Anything a bow can shoot through, a crossbow can shoot through better. I'm pretty sure a crossbow bolt could easily pass right through a knight wearing full plate with a simple trigger pull.
Ever wonder why medieval Europe never bothered conquering Japan? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Samurai and their crossbows of destruction. Even in World War II, American soldiers targeted the men with the crossbows first because their killing power was feared and respected.
So what am I saying? Crossbows are simply the best ranged instrument that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the d20 system. Here is the stat block I propose for Crossbows:
(One-Handed Exotic Weapon)
1d12 Damage (P)
19-20 x4 Crit
240 ft.
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as Masterwork(Two-Handed Exotic Weapon)
2d10 Damage (P,S)
17-20 x4 Crit
480 ft.
+5 to hit and damage
Counts as MasterworkNow that seems a lot more representative of the shooting power of Crossbows in real life, don't you think?
tl;dr = Crossbows need to do more damage in d20, see my new stat block.
another_mage, what if that crossbow could fire katanas instead of bolts?
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Personally, I think I kind of like the idea that the spellcasting classes are better with crossbows and the martial classes are better with bows. The crossbow is basically technology-- it's the weapon of choice for someone who's not really weapon-trained, but knows how to point and shoot. To that end, I also like that it crits on 19-20 while bows crit for x3. I think this is also part of the problem with Gunslingers-- the game already had crossbows, and they should have been the mechanical ranged weapon of choice.
A quick rules question, if I may: Rapid Reload doesn't specify how it interacts with repeating crossbows. The repeaters seem to act like either heavy or light crossbows depending, but light crossbows are a move action to reload and light repeaters are a full-round action. Can you even take Rapid Reload for repeaters? If so, does it work differently?
Rapid reload clearly spells out what it works with: hand, light, or heavy crossbows. Repeating crossbows are never mentioned, so are never affected by Rapid Reload, and you can't take the feat for them.
However, as a houserule, you could say it reduces the time needed to load a new box into any repeating crossbow (both light repeating and heavy repeating take the same time to reload) from a full-round action to a move action.
The rules just do not do the actual weapon justice. Quit screwing one of histories greatest weapons!!!I beg your forgiveness in advance... *Insert meme here*
Oh, the Masterwork Bastard Sword meme?
1. That's pretty old.
1-A. It's also rather unfunny.
1-B. Seriously, what were you thinking?
2. I don't think that really applies here, since the crossbow actually pretty much sucks compared to the longbow stat-wise as pointed out by others, while bastard swords always were better than longswords, be they normal ones or katanas. Also considering the fact that I think crossbow bolts are just as dangerous as arrows, while a katana just loses against some armor like plate.
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No, happy; it's because it's cheaper to equip a couple hundred men on the castle walls with crossbows than it is to equip them with longbows. And for every Conan of the Bronze Thews in the conscript line-up, there's several dozens Maurices of the Limp Noodle. So, the Conans get the 700gp composite longbows and are made sergeants; everyone else gets a 35gp crossbow.
And @ Mike Schneider: I agree there are cases where you can make better use of a crossbow than a bow but that doesn't make it a better weapon.
There is no such thing as a universally "better weapon".
If you're a monk/ninja with Flurry of Stars, shurikens are your thing.
If you're a Warslinger halfling rogue, slings are the shizzits.
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Crossbow bolts also cost/weigh twice as much as arrows and the quiver only holds 10 bolts. Being a little nit picky at this point, but every little bit counts.
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You still needed to spend a feat on Rapid Reload. Without that feat, the bard would get a single attack of 1d8+1d6+3 with the crossbow, or 2 attacks of 1d6+1d6+1 with the bow. An average of 11 damage with the crossbow, and 16 damage with the bow (if both attacks hit.
You had to spend a feat when using a crossbow to make it better then a bow.
Well, yeah -- what's your point?
Making junk better is why we take feats. With Rapid Reload, the weakling non-martial character gains +6 damage on a full-attack using a crossbow in the example instead of a shortbow. If he spends his feat on Deadly Aim, he gets +8 off a shortbow full-attack, but is -2 to hit relative (so it's worse).
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Crossbows need a buff of some sort. It's a pure low level weapon right now, and usually gets discarded after a few levels.
The simplest buff is that crossbows gets +DEX to damage right off the bat. It's useful later on, viable as a build for fighting classes, and dangerous enough for average low level NPCs.
It's always about the static bonuses, more dice doesn't help unless it's 3 or 4 times more.
Paizo will not buff it though.
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Are they really that bad? Are there circumstances under which you'd prefer a crossbow to a bow? Am I just not seeing the gaping flaws?
They're fine for what they are...SIMPLE WEAPONS. Weapons so easy even a book wizard can fire one.
My Rouge who eventually became my Arcane Trickster, favored the hand crossbow exclusively for his ranged combat which was almost always a sneak attack shot. He took point blank and precise, which also came handy for his weapon attack spells as well.
Hand crossbow is not a simple weapon, and it does have an use, as you stated yourself.
Not sure how that proves light and heavy crossbows are good since they are not the same type of weapons.