Bolt Ace advice


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Grand Lodge

Yea probably. Play away man. It sounds like a lot of fun. If you want 2 though, its probably smarter to just focus on hand xbows. The weapon damage won't matter too much because you will have a big chunk of static damage from deadly aim and crossbow training.


London Duke wrote:
Yea probably. Play away man. It sounds like a lot of fun. If you want 2 though, its probably smarter to just focus on hand xbows. The weapon damage won't matter too much because you will have a big chunk of static damage from deadly aim and crossbow training.

Isn't reloading a light crossbow exactly the same than reloading a hand crossbow? The damage does matter a little bit but don't they work just the same?


Sir Dante wrote:
l at 9th level at the latest. Your will save will be abysmal.
Yeah I'm troubled if I do too much damage with TWF light crossbows against touch AC.

Be aware you'll be blowing 1 grit to shoot at touch AC until you get to level 11 and get signiture deed.

It'd be pretty grit costy to use it seriously often. Unless you happen to crit lucky al ot or your group semi-metagames/rolls lots of health checks to try and have you finish everyone off

Shadow Lodge

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kasatha is easier, they start with 4 arms so any reload problems go away, of course that may not be your cup of tea. Is a little less questionable than the grasping tail trick, which should work by raw but some dms may not get around it

Grand Lodge

Yes reloading is the same but light crossbows count as one handed weapons where hand crossbows are light. That effects 2wf. Stacking too many attack penalties hurts your damage in a bad kind of way.

Lantern Lodge

London Duke wrote:
Yes reloading is the same but light crossbows count as one handed weapons where hand crossbows are light. That effects 2wf. Stacking too many attack penalties hurts your damage in a bad kind of way.

Ummm...

Light Crossbow wrote:

You draw a light crossbow back by pulling a lever. Loading a light crossbow is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity. A light crossbow fires crossbow bolts.

Normally, operating a light crossbow requires two hands. However, you can shoot, but not load, a light crossbow with one hand at a –2 penalty on attack rolls. You can shoot a light crossbow with each hand, but you take a penalty on attack rolls as if attacking with two light weapons. This penalty is cumulative with the penalty for one-handed firing.

Unless your referring to the -2 to attack rolls from firing it one handed, they are light weapons, with heavy crossbows counting as one-handed.


Zwordsman wrote:
Sir Dante wrote:

Yeah I'm troubled if I do too much damage with TWF light crossbows against touch AC.

Be aware you'll be blowing 1 grit to shoot at touch AC until you get to level 11 and get signiture deed.

It'd be pretty grit costy to use it seriously often. Unless you happen to crit lucky al ot or your group semi-metagames/rolls lots of health checks to try and have you finish everyone off

probbaly noticed but.

I utterly destroyed those quotes . I tink I fixed it

Shadow Lodge

light crossbows would fire at -4 but hand crossbows would fire at -2 due to not having a pemnalty for firing it by hand


ElementalXX wrote:
kasatha is easier, they start with 4 arms so any reload problems go away, of course that may not be your cup of tea. Is a little less questionable than the grasping tail trick, which should work by raw but some dms may not get around it

Seems, just seems to me that the more I try to make my bolt ace build work like I want to. The harder it gets, seems like classic longbow builds are a lot easier than grit crossbow ones :S

Like a ranger or zen archer. Or am I just overthinking and trying to optimize too hard?

Also yeah, no four armed races for pc's yet in the upcoming campaign.

Shadow Lodge

Well you can always go dip on feral gnasher or juggler bard.

Its true its easier to do regular bow, is it fair? hell no, but thats what we have so we have to work with it. Personally I like making uncommon builds work


Well, you can take Bow Nomad and use two longbows at one time. ;)

ElementalXX: Grasping Tail+prehensile tail allows you to hold one of the weapons while you reload the other.

Shadow Lodge

Im aware of the trick but some gms have reserves about that combination. Plus you dont always want to be a tiefling


ElementalXX wrote:
Im aware of the trick but some gms have reserves about that combination. Plus you dont always want to be a tiefling

True, but I figured it was worth a mention since you mentioned a goblin archetype.


Even if you have a plethora of limbs or admirable juggling skills, your attacks are going to have some huge penalties. Assuming a Dex modifier of +6 and Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Rapid Shot, your attacks will be at about
+8/+8/+8/+3/+3
with two +1 light crossbows for about 1d8+7 damage, or
+10/+10/+10/+5/+5
with two +1 hand crossbows for about 1d4+7 damage.

Obviously you'll have other bonuses, but you'd basically need to be going against touch AC for it to be worthwhile, and you just won't have enough grit to do so consistently.

You could just avoid some of those penalties by sacrificing some of your attacks, but I would suggest not full attacking at all.

Bullseye Shot and Vital Strike with a +2 minotaur double crossbow will give you +17 to hit and 8d8+16 damage.
If you want to go all out, you can take a one level dip in Savage Technologist. Rage cycle through one of the several item-based ways with Furious Finish. You then have +19 to hit and 84 damage.

Edit: I realized that damage is assuming you're large. So just pay for a permenent enlarge person. -1 to hit and -2 damage, but it's worth it.


Avoron wrote:

Even if you have a plethora of limbs or admirable juggling skills, your attacks are going to have some huge penalties. Assuming a Dex modifier of +6 and Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Rapid Shot, your attacks will be at about

+8/+8/+8/+3/+3
with two +1 light crossbows for about 1d8+7 damage, or
+10/+10/+10/+5/+5
with two +1 hand crossbows for about 1d4+7 damage.

Obviously you'll have other bonuses, but you'd basically need to be going against touch AC for it to be worthwhile, and you just won't have enough grit to do so consistently.

You could just avoid some of those penalties by sacrificing some of your attacks, but I would suggest not full attacking at all.

Bullseye Shot and Vital Strike with a +2 minotaur double crossbow will give you +17 to hit and 8d8+16 damage.
If you want to go all out, you can take a one level dip in Savage Technologist. Rage cycle through one of the several item-based ways with Furious Finish. You then have +19 to hit and 84 damage.

Edit: I realized that damage is assuming you're large. So just pay for a permenent enlarge person. -1 to hit and -2 damage, but it's worth it.

I think you're right, TWF just doesn't work until lvl 11 and that assuming full gunslinger but since I intend to dip 2 levels it won't work.

I have 2 extra feats to spare so I can take bullseye and vital strike most likely. Since I can also full attack with a crossbow it gives more flexibility when I can also then move and attack dealing viable damage.


ElementalXX wrote:

Well you can always go dip on feral gnasher or juggler bard.

Its true its easier to do regular bow, is it fair? hell no, but thats what we have so we have to work with it. Personally I like making uncommon builds work

True that is, most likely I will discard the TWF style since it makes the attack bonus a lot weaker and would be a drain on my grit resource. Instead adding vital strike and bullseye shot with the two spare feats should work.

Grand Lodge

I would probably just disregard until later. Part of the fun of the BA is being a total badass with a crossbow. Its being the redheaded stepchild who takes over the kingdom. The archetype builds off of the gunslinger which is already powerful. Just relish in the fact that although bows are easier and have more shots, any time you shoot, whether volley or sniper style... All your attacks will hit... And HURT.

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