Remian Emberton's page

Written exam:
Simple way is to have them do Spellcraft checks to identify other spellcasters using the spells that they have learned, or identify spells on a scroll.

To identify a spell as it's being cast, the DC is 15 + the spell level.
To identify a scroll the DC is 20 + spell level

Practical exam:
This works best if you separate the two.

Wizard: Create a scroll from one of the spells he's learned. Since he's about level 4, he'll only know, max, level 2 spells so the cost will be 150 gp. You can either say that the school provides the materials(and would likely keep the scroll when it's done) or that the student actually has to pay, whichever you think is more fair.

Magus: Has to cast each of the spells while being threatened and not lose a certain percentage of the spells. So if he's learned 4 spells from the school then he has to cast at least 3 out of the 4 spells successfully.

One thing that bugs me about hand crossbows is that they are listed as exotic weapons. Since exotic weapons represent weapons that require extra-special training to use properly, that would imply that using one of these things is hard.

However, historically, crossbows were so effective because they didn't require any special training to use: You just point ans shoot! But anyone can pick one up and use it effectively: It's a point-and-shoot weapon!

I think that some weapons are listed as exotic to make their special features less accessible. For example, the tetsubo. It's basically a greatclub with iron studs in it. In real life, using it would be a breeze. But it's listed as an exotic weapon. I figure this is due to the fact that it's a D10 weapon with a x4 critical. If it weren't for it being exotic, no one would ever have reason to use a greatclub instead of a tetsubo.

Trying to figure out what the point of a hand crossbow is? Originally thought (based on the name) that the point was that you could fire it in one hand (duh!), but it still requires two hands to load, so you still can't do anything with the hand you freed up. Even Rapid Reload does not mitigate this problem, since the free action to reload still requires two hands, as per the hand crossbow description.

That leaves what? A bad crossbow that you can fire once while having something in your other hand? A bad crossbow that you can use while using a buckler?

I was really looking forward to building a dual-wielding hand crossbowman. And I'm certain I'm not the only one.

So can anyone tell me why the hand crossbow exists? Or is it just for flavor?

Reading the rules, you get a -2 penalty for firing a light crossbow one handed, and this penalty STACKS with the penalty for two-weapon fighting, for a total of a -4. The hand crossbow doesn't get this penalty.