Is a light crossbow mostly made of wood?


Advice


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Because a PFS character has a low strength and needs to save every pound possible. If a light crossbow is mostly wood it could be made out of darkwood.

Base Light Crossbow 35gp
Mastwork Cost 300
Darkwood adds +10gp/pound of original weight = +40 gp

So 375 gp for a masterwork darkwood light crossbow that weighs 2 lbs vs 4 lbs for a standard light crossbow ?

Would this fly in PFS, since special materials and masterwork are available ?


a crossbow is mostly wood.


Should be good, only a small number of the bits are going to be metal. The majority of the bulk is wood.

Sczarni

Yea I mean I GUESS this COULD go both ways...it sounds more of a flavor type thing that isn't specified in any text that I see. I mean it seems more likely that it was made of wood, but in theory it could be metal too and made of mithril to assist in weight as well.


Hero Lab says a light crossbow can only be made from the special materials Darkwood or Ironwood.

That's of course, by no means, anywhere near an official ruling. It's just what Hero Lab says.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

I believe that Ironwood has no effect on the weight of an object, but does cause it to count as wood for most purposes instead of metal (and thus usable by druids). I'm more interested in the weight savings from Darkwood.

I've done some more poking around the web and found a site (Crossbows.net) from a fellow who manufactures replica crossbows for museums and recreationists. His "Iolo's First Book of Crossbows" page indicates that early crossbows were more likely to have non-metal prods while later ones had metal. He speculates that the metal ones, while less efficient and heavier, were more durable and as the price of spring steel came down, the use went up.

EDIT: Missing parenthesis

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