Crossbow Mastery Question


Rules Questions

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I've never really looked at doing a crossbow concept character, so I've never looked at the crossbow feats. However, I'm in a game where some is running a rogue based crossbow master. Now while I have no problem with the concept I'm a little irked with how the Crossbow Mastery feat seems to work for Heavy Crossbows. It seems to me that the feat is broken with respect to Heavy Crossbows.

Case in point, Heavy crossbows have a full-round action to reload, meaning you can only fire once every other round. With Rapid Reload (a requirement for Crossbow Mastery), that makes it a move action to reload allowing you to fire once a round. However, just by taking this feat you can all of a sudden reload as a Free Action with a Heavy Crossbow? I could see as a Swift action maybe, but not as a free. Likewise, I don't see how you can use the Rapid Shot feat (another requirement) with a Heavy Crossbow because of the reload time.

Is there an errata for this somewhere? I haven't seen anything official from Paizo and didn't see anything here in the forums. Or is this another example of Paizo thinking it sounded cool and forgot to check the rules and simply wrote an ambiguous description?


What's the problem, by spending many feats he now has a weapon slightly worse than a composite longbow.

The above description is how the feats work and I see no game play problem with this.


Nope. It works just like it says, reloading any sort of crossbow is a free action, no ambiguity, no strings attached.

I think you're overthinking this a bit. You train a lot, and you can reload a crossbow quickly, just like any character can with a bow from level 1.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What my issue with this feat is that for Rapid Reload, you have to pick a specific type of weapon (crossbow or firearm). So what the player is doing that I have an issue with in particular is that he's taken Rapid Reload (Light Crossbow) and now takes this feat and can reload a Heavy Crossbow as a free action. So just by taking one feat he's all of a sudden able to take a weapon from a full-round reload time to a free action? That to me makes no sense since a Heavy crossbow and a light crossbow are reloaded in completely different manners. So just because you're an expert in reloading a light crossbow does not make you an expert in other types of crossbows.


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You're complaining because a feat's prerequisite feat doesn't make complete sense?

Whoo boy, that's a pretty large can of worms to open.


He's complaining because he feels that using a heavy crossbow when you had rapid reload light is wrong. Technically you could take crossbow mastery having rapid reload pistols.


M_Blackhand wrote:

I've never really looked at doing a crossbow concept character, so I've never looked at the crossbow feats. However, I'm in a game where some is running a rogue based crossbow master. Now while I have no problem with the concept I'm a little irked with how the Crossbow Mastery feat seems to work for Heavy Crossbows. It seems to me that the feat is broken with respect to Heavy Crossbows.

Case in point, Heavy crossbows have a full-round action to reload, meaning you can only fire once every other round. With Rapid Reload (a requirement for Crossbow Mastery), that makes it a move action to reload allowing you to fire once a round. However, just by taking this feat you can all of a sudden reload as a Free Action with a Heavy Crossbow? I could see as a Swift action maybe, but not as a free. Likewise, I don't see how you can use the Rapid Shot feat (another requirement) with a Heavy Crossbow because of the reload time.

Is there an errata for this somewhere? I haven't seen anything official from Paizo and didn't see anything here in the forums. Or is this another example of Paizo thinking it sounded cool and forgot to check the rules and simply wrote an ambiguous description?

This actually makes the crossbow worth using. Otherwise it is better to use a light cross which only does 1 point of damage on average less than the heavy one. This is, not broken at all, and that is how it is supposed to work. The crossbow is still not competing with bows or guns. I really don't see the problem here.

I think it is more of a problem that the heavy crossbow takes a full round action to begin with, but I do see your point about the prereqs. However it is not really that big of a deal. It is not like he will go back to using the light crossbow anyway after getting access to the heavy one. If crossbows were really good weapons, and there was some really good benefit to going back to the light crossbow that might be different.

Sczarni

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M_Blackhand wrote:
So just because you're an expert in reloading a light crossbow does not make you an expert in other types of crossbows.

What's he's done is legal, but it doesn't even optimize the weapon (which is sub-optimal to begin with).

If he chose light crossbow when he chose Rapid Reload he's going to be eating AoO's reloading a heavy crossbow as a free action with Crossbow Mastery.

So Crossbow Mastery makes him a master of all crossbows, but he's still has the greatest level of expertise with the Light Crossbow, hence no AoO's when reloading.

This is fine rules & fluff wise. Sub-optimal yes, but still totally fine.

He still needs point-blank master to avoid AoO's when firing. Which is nuts. They should have just rolled that into Crossbow Mastery as far as I'm concerned.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
_Ozy_ wrote:

You're complaining because a feat's prerequisite feat doesn't make complete sense?

Whoo boy, that's a pretty large can of worms to open.

I wasn't arguing that the feat's prerequisites don't make sense, I'm more questioning why if the prerequisites require naming a specific weapon, the feat gives you access to the entire weapon group. As someone said, you can take rapid reload (pistols) and then take this feat. It's all legal, but poorly thought out or described.


M_Blackhand wrote:
_Ozy_ wrote:

You're complaining because a feat's prerequisite feat doesn't make complete sense?

Whoo boy, that's a pretty large can of worms to open.

I wasn't arguing that the feat's prerequisites don't make sense, I'm more questioning why if the prerequisites require naming a specific weapon, the feat gives you access to the entire weapon group. As someone said, you can take rapid reload (pistols) and then take this feat. It's all legal, but poorly thought out or described.

It not making sense is different from broken/OP.

I am thinking it was either an oversight or they were throwing the crossbow a bone. It is a weapon that gets complaints of "why isn't this better" at times.


I agree that taking rapid reload with a pistol to quality for crossbow mastery is silly. A rules oversight on the developer's part, but not anything anyone would actually do.

Otherwise, I'm in agreement with the others. You start by specializing in the light crossbow, and with this feat specialize further in that weapon (not provoking while reloading) while improving to a lesser extent with all crossbows. I feel rapid reload should have been written to apply to a group of weapons in the first place (all crossbows, all one-handed firearms, etc.). Like, if you take rapid reload (double-barreled pistol), it grants no advantage to reloading a single barreled pistol. Just throws you off I guess!

I wouldn't worry about nonsensical reload times. Pathfinder weapons barely simulate the weapons they're named after. Not a good idea in my opinion to start making rulings based on those weapons' real life counterparts. (How are you attacking effectively with a lance unmounted? You have a better chance of dodging a bullet than it being deflected by armor? two-bladed swords?)

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