Hello Forum Dwellers! This is my first post and i already got in trouble, but before that let me introduce myself.
My name is Bane, i am from Serbia.I am a DM from the beginning of beta for one of my tables and now i am joining already ongoing campaign at one of my players tables.
I am thinking of going with Dwarf, Fighter, who specializes heavily in crossbows, but it seems i am unable to pull it all off.
I had in my mind a dual wielding repeating light crossbows for the combat opening, dropping them after emptying and than proceeding with Heavy Crossbow kind of style.
What bothers me the most is that i can't put all the feats i need even in 20 levels of fighter and i am having a ridiculously hard time choosing between feats.
Progression goes something like this:
1st - Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot
2nd - Rapid Reload
3rd - Crossbow Mastery
4th - Weapon Focus (Heavy Crossbow)
5th - TWF
6th - Quick Draw
7th - Weapon Spec (Heavy Crossbow)
8th - Deadly Aim
9th - Improved Crit (Heavy Crossbow)
10th - ManyShot
11th - Greater Weapon Focus (Heavy Crossbow)
12th - Penetrating Strike
13th - Greater Weapon Spec (Heavy Crossbow)
And this is left to go:
Improved Initiative
Improved Precise Shot
ITWF
GTWF
Greater Penetrating Strike
Now my question is this - is it possible to even remotely get tree of TWF in ? Cause without it most of my idea falls into water, my snowman gets destroyed and my ship sunk, cause unloading inferno of bolts in first round of combat via TWF, Rapid Shot and ManyShot just doesn't seem possible without losing damage output that i will be doing with my Heavy Crossbow from 2nd round on.
i choose to go Fighter route cause mostly my characters are feat crazy and i can never get enough of them.
A bit more than mechanics about my char - Campaign is Legacy of Fire and he is a heavy alcoholic and a mercenary after he freed himself from life of slavery and constant battles in underground arena. Why is he still not dead if he was battling in arena ? Well good question, he wouldn't be happy to reply to that question, but i am - His parents were miners in Zolurket - platinum mine where something went wrong at some point, so his parents made sure he knew his way around fighting undead foes, who would knew it, it was pretty easy for him to modify what his parents thought him to use against the living as well, not that his preference of using crossbow had no small part in his survival.
But he had parents ? How did he ended up as a slave ? Well lets say that his parents had their share of gold problems after running for their lives from the mines, so he ended up enslaved by a money loaner until he payed back his parents debt.
Hope this is enough for a start :)
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I'd seriously recommend forgetting about TWF. Especially with Heavy Crossbows. Even with the feat you're taking -8 to attack (-4 TWF with non-light weapons, and -4 for firing a heavy Crossbow one-handed) and will only be able to fire one shot per two rounds for each crossbow as it will take a move action to load each one, even with Rapid Reload.
You'd be better off with a Light Crossbow which (with Rapid Reload) would enable you to get your full attack off. The damage reduction is an average of one point which is made up for by the rapid fire rate. If you must use TWF, light crossbows are better as you'll at least get two shots per round and the penalty will only be -4. But still not advisable.
I'd advise investing in a Repeating Heavy Crossbow. It's expensive, and requires an Exotic Weapon Proficiency, but it will get you the ability to full attack with heavy crossbow damage.
Oh, i wrote it wrongly or you misread it :)
I meant practically this:
1st round of combat - quick draw 2x light repeating crossbows, shoot with TWF, Rapid Shot, ManyShot, hopefully emptying them.
2nd round - throw them to the floor and quick draw heavy crossbow, shoot with Rapid Shot, ManyShot
3rd round - proceed to shoot with heavy crossbow.
Also i don't need repeating heavy crossbow as i already got Crossbow Mastery which nets me free action to reload any crossbow, which means i can do full attack with it, except if Campaign Setting didn't get errata where they changed what Crossbow Mastery do, as i wasn't aware of errata
for any book actually.
Dude, a repeating crossbow takes two hands to use - one to hold it, one to crank the lever that reloads, recocks and shoots. Unless you have four arms, you can't use two at the same time. Oh, and repeating crossbows are exotic weapons - you'd need a feat for them too.
However, what might work better are a pair of hand-crossbows or light crossbows with double bows (you know, as in the movie Ladyhawk). That would give you four shots in round one. Or you could go for Rapid Reload with a light crossbow which is probably your best bet for a crossbow-based ranged fighter at higher level.
Eum, i have to ask, why is light crossbow best bet for a crossbow-based fighter at higher level ? Cause i can do full attacks ?
And about double bowed crossbows i would check that with my DM.
I think i will give up on TWF light crossbow's cause that's simply not manageable at this moment. All tho it would be nice thing to have, being that bows are in every respect better than crossbows.
Two Repeating Crossbows sounds like Kore the Dwarven Paladin from the Goblins comic from Kobold Quarterly ;)
It did seem a cool idea ... but it would indeed take alot of feats, and would cause you to have WAY too many penalties.
Let's see
-4 from Deadly Aim
-4 from Two Weapon Fighting
-4 from shooting into melee
-2 from Rapid Shot
+1 from Weapon Focus
+1 from Greater Weapon Focus
+1 from Point Blank Shot
-11 Attack Penalty.
I agree it would look very cool ... but at level 20 you will have a meager +9 Attack Bonus ... Not to mention next attacks +5/-1/-6 etc :P
I even took the liberty that you can always get into shooting position ... with soft cover ... like your party members in combat and in your line of sight ... just add another -4 ...
The idea is nice .. but I think you'll just run out of arrows and get cut down ... since you can't properly do any damage in melee either.
-TDL
Eum, i have to ask, why is light crossbow best bet for a crossbow-based fighter at higher level ? Cause i can do full attacks ?
Basically, yes. With Rapid Reload you can shoot a light crossbow as many times a round as you have attacks, but a heavy crossbow only once a round. With Exotic Weapon Proficiency you could take the repeating heavy crossbow, which would be slightly better.
Crossbow, Repeating: The repeating crossbow (whether
heavy or light) holds 5 crossbow bolts. As long as it holds
bolts, you can reload it by pulling the reloading lever (a free
action). Loading a new case of 5 bolts is a full-round action
that provokes attacks of opportunity.
You can fire a repeating crossbow with one hand or fire
a repeating crossbow in each hand in the same manner as
you would a normal crossbow of the same size. However,
you must fire the weapon with two hands in order to use
the reloading lever, and you must use two hands to load a
new case of bolts.
Feat in spoiler solves all such problems with reloading times of heavy crossbow :) but i still don't understand why the heck there is no such thing as scope or something similar for crossbows to add even half dex to damage just so crossbow doesn't end up being demented little brother of bow.
Crossbow Mastery
You can load crossbows with blinding speed and even fire
them in melee with little fear of reprisal.
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload,
Rapid Shot.
Benefit: The time required for you to reload any type of
crossbow is reduced to a free action, regardless of the type
of crossbow used. You can fire a crossbow as many times in
a full attack action as you could attack if you were using a
bow. Reloading a crossbow for the type of crossbow you chose
when you took Rapid Reload no longer provokes attacks of
opportunity.
Special: A fighter may select Crossbow Mastery as one of his
fighter bonus feats. A ranger may select Crossbow Mastery in
place of Manyshot for his improved combat style at 6th level.
That looks good, it would solve most of your problems. As for the scope, well, the crossbow WAS the demented little brother of the bow. The Crossbow's big advantage was not it's power or range, it was the fact that anyone could use one, while an archer took years to train. Otherwise, the archer had all the advantages as witnessed at Crecy and Agincourt.
After a few very swift negotiations with my new DM (i didn't have to be evil) he agreed that Crossbow Mastery could be used as a Firearms Mastery, with that said, i am more or less settled, i would just like you guys to check on it, in case i missed anything important. Of course we both also agreed upon weapon group: Firearms.
1st - Exotic Weapon Prof (Firearms), Rapid Reload
2nd - Point Blank Shot
3rd - Rapid Shot
4th - Firearms Mastery
5th - Weapon Focus (Rifle)
6th - Iron Will
7th - Weapon Spec (Rifle)
8th - Deadly Aim
9th - Precise Shot
10th - Improved Critical (Rifle)
11th - Greater Weapon Focus (Rifle)
12th - Improved Precise Shot
13th - Penetrating Strike
14th - Greater Weapon Spec (Rifle)
15th - Critical Focus
16th - Greater Penetrating Strike
17th - Bleeding Critical
18th - Blinding Critical
19th - Critical Mastery
20th - empty
Now did i miss anything important ? You guys got a better idea of what to take ?
We are already full with casters, 1 divine and 2 arcane casters.
From crossbows to guns ... what sort of guns are available in your DM's game-world? A muzzle-loader should take at least 2 rounds to reload, or one round with Rapid Reload (during the Napoleonic wars the British trained intensively for fast firing and managed four rounds a minute or better). However, a rifle may be a breach-loading gun, which would be much faster. Even if muzzle-loading there were multi-barrelled rifles that while heavy were effective.
Well in Campaign Setting there is Firearms section, having few guns, like revolver,rifle,scattergun, musket, blunderbuss. My group is going strictly core, my players are kinda fanatics about PFRPG so we got 3 books at our gaming table - Core Rules, Campaign Setting and Bestiary.
Those ones ... at 1400gp for just a pistol, I don't see you affording one at 1st level, even with the Wealthy trait, but good luck!
Yea good call, i almost missed that one.
As i can't really edit my upper post consider it done.
As for prices on firearms, i find it stupid as well. I mean its not that rifle is so much better than crossbow really, its actually weaker.Especially since its Exotic Weapon, mimicking Heavy Crossbow (practically same mechanics, full round reload, 1 shot, etc). It got lower dice damage and multiplier x3. Also i am starting at level 5-7 depends on the current party, so i will be able to afford rifle fairly easily.
Don't forget the exploding damage, though! If you roll maximum damage, you get to roll the dice again and add to that maximum ... until you stop rolling maximum damage.