Crossbows are not meant to be on par with Bows. The idea is that crossbows are easy to use (simple weapons) so they are used by characters who are not based on armed combat like wizards.
That's about terms of balance.
If you see your character as a crossbow user, I'd simply say, ask your DM if you can use the stats of a composite bow for it.
Thinking of realistic terms, crossbows should have some armor piercing ability tough d20 is not build for that stuff (real world heavy crossbows can easily pierce the heavy armor of a knight, that's why knights tended to say using crossbows is without honor)
Basically, crossbows are the superior weapons, especially for not needing a bizeps of the size of a water melon like longbows do and because you can use them more effective on short range but tell that the arcane elven archer
Crossbows are not meant to be on par with Bows. The idea is that crossbows are easy to use (simple weapons) so they are used by characters who are not based on armed combat like wizards.
That's about terms of balance.
If you see your character as a crossbow user, I'd simply say, ask your DM if you can use the stats of a composite bow for it.Thinking of realistic terms, crossbows should have some armor piercing ability tough d20 is not build for that stuff (real world heavy crossbows can easily pierce the heavy armor of a knight, that's why knights tended to say using crossbows is without honor)
Basically, crossbows are the superior weapons, especially for not needing a bizeps of the size of a water melon like longbows do and because you can use them more effective on short range but tell that the arcane elven archer
I think this is a non-issue—the heavy crossbow does do more damage and have greater range than the longbow, as well as hitting a critical more easily. This reflects the advantage crossbows had over bows. It's the light crossbow that's a bit of a meager offering, and that makes sense: smaller, lighter crossbows had far less penetrating power...
As for deadly aim getting an increase in damage on a crossbow, I'm not sure that makes much sense. It's precision damage, and bows were more precise than crossbows if you want to start differentiating on that level.
If a crossbow user wants to deal more damage, isn't there weapon training?
As for deadly aim getting an increase in damage on a crossbow, I'm not sure that makes much sense. It's precision damage, and bows were more precise than crossbows if you want to start differentiating on that level.
Source?
Source?
As for deadly aim getting an increase in damage on a crossbow, I'm not sure that makes much sense. It's precision damage, and bows were more precise than crossbows if you want to start differentiating on that level.
I totally made that up (read: I misremembered). Sowwy :(
IMHO, OP, this is a great idea, and makes sense.
Should appear as an optional rule.
I totally made that up (read: I misremembered). Sowwy :(Source?
As for deadly aim getting an increase in damage on a crossbow, I'm not sure that makes much sense. It's precision damage, and bows were more precise than crossbows if you want to start differentiating on that level.
If we talk about precision, we first have to choose what kind of bow we're talking about - while longbows can be used quite precise, the intention behind them is to let arrows hail down on the battlefield, precision isn't that much of an issue as range and strength is
Plus, heroes tend to be heavy specialized in a weapon, this results in different rules, err let me give you an example:
The real world zen archer reaches an incredible, nearly unbelievable level of precision like performing such feats as extenguishis candles per arrow on a great distance with closed eyes. Part of "training" (actually, they don't train for performing this feats, it's about inner peace after all) is to hold the string for quite some time and to have a "natural" flow of shooting it... something you could not do with a crossbow!
Fantasy heroes are somewhat mystical and mighty about how to use their weapons, I'd rather compare their way to the zen archer as to a pragmatic soldier
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To be honest i'm not really interested in the versimilitude of it (especially after the gunslinger mess indicated that people didn't really worry about that side of things too much), I was interested in the mechanical implications. My gut feeling is that while it improves crossbows it doesn't make them match the DPR of composite longbow builds, but falls somewhere nicely in the middle.
Considering that composite longbows are martial and require two stats to be effective, i'm ok with that.
To be honest i'm not really interested in the versimilitude of it (especially after the gunslinger mess indicated that people didn't really worry about that side of things too much), I was interested in the mechanical implications. My gut feeling is that while it improves crossbows it doesn't make them match the DPR of composite longbow builds, but falls somewhere nicely in the middle.
Considering that composite longbows are martial and require two stats to be effective, i'm ok with that.
I linked the thread in the UC suggestions. Assuming they read it, perhaps is too late, but it's a great idea nevertheless.
(for balance, people should remember that crossbows need two feats more and can't use multishot).
Thanks for the linkage.
As I stated in the 2H-falcata thread, IMHO weapons need some adjustment to be diverse and interesting as a whole.
Luckily, I don't think is necessary a system overhaul for this. Just few tweaks and few options. I pointed out ideas mine or other ones I found across the boards.
Alexander, did you ever try this out? I came up with it too, but it looks like you beat me to it by a year!
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Cheapy, I never saw this response sorry. Now that I have...
I playtested it in several games and it went down really well, especially as a lot of my players are big fans of crossbows. Inquisitors in particular now actually have a reason to use one...
I think it fits in at a comfortable niche. Its still not as good as a high str character with a comp. longbow, but it allows heavily dex-based characters (particularly halflings) to be happy with the damage they are putting out.
What do you think of simply upping the damage dice of crossbows? Light to a d10 and heavy to a d12 or 2d6 and leaving everything else as is.
I think it should indeed be a 3 to 1, much like two handling a sword, so long as you are holding said crossbow in two hands.
Really, I think crossbows have potential for builds focused on never letting the foe get close or hit you, becuase vital strike tends to increase all the weapon's damage, allowing for a move action each turn.
Oh, by the unholy forces of Necro!
.... Yeah. Ok, this thread was made in 2011.
It was brought back a year later...
Then again two years later.
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i think i like that icehawk333, the "while wielding a crossbow two-handed" being the qualifier. because (actual guns aside) i think of hand crossbows as a sort of fantasy pistol, and firing a pistol can definitely be done with more 'deadly aim' if one uses the other hand to steady while shooting. giving the hand crossbow additional flexibility (it is an exotic weapon after all) but only for those that put in the investment.
I houserule in my games that crossbows when used two-handed as well as two-handed firearms do exactly that.
Sure there is something to be said about crossbows being simple weapons, but I never liked the idea that martial characters just find them completely useless. Even with the deadly aim buff crossbows still have plenty of disadvantage. Most notably the reloading.