Crossbowman or Two Weapon Warrior?


Advice


I'm looking to dual wield crossbows, and fire into both melee and at ranged quickly, accurately, and with the maximum amount of attack/damage bonuses. I would also like to threaten with attacks of opportunity with my crossbows, and retain as much armor class as I can.

From what it looks like, Crossbowman seems better geared towards a heavy or repeating crossbow, and Two Weapon Warrior seems better suited for the light or hand crossbow dual wielding, unless I am missing something obvious mechanics wise?

Will post a proposed build for you to pick apart later, but off-the-top ideas will be appreciated while I consider the massive amounts of feats necessary to make him effective...

The Exchange

I'll check this out tomorrow. I like where you're going so far...

Sovereign Court

Two Weapon Warrior is better for dual wielders. Crossbowman is based around readied actions (ie, standard actions).


Illeist wrote:
Two Weapon Warrior is better for dual wielders. Crossbowman is based around readied actions (ie, standard actions).

That's what I see as well, but I normally see Two Weapon Warrior being used for melee weapons. I want to do it with light or hand crossbows.

My build is going to be a Drow with as many Drow Noble feats as I can snatch up (for utility and effectiveness as a sniper) and still get all the ranged weapon feats I need to pull this off.

That's why I'm thinking straight warrior with the Two Weapon Warrior archetype would be best.

Sovereign Court

Barry Armstrong wrote:
Illeist wrote:
Two Weapon Warrior is better for dual wielders. Crossbowman is based around readied actions (ie, standard actions).

That's what I see as well, but I normally see Two Weapon Warrior being used for melee weapons. I want to do it with light or hand crossbows.

My build is going to be a Drow with as many Drow Noble feats as I can snatch up (for utility and effectiveness as a sniper) and still get all the ranged weapon feats I need to pull this off.

That's why I'm thinking straight warrior with the Two Weapon Warrior archetype would be best.

I would actually recommend Cavern Sniper, then.


Illeist wrote:
I would actually recommend Cavern Sniper, then.

I've thought about it, and replacing intimidate with Stealth is definitely awesome, plus the sniping bonuses, but it seems like the bonuses on attack, damage, and AC offered by Two Weapon Warrior would be more useful when I can just skill dump Stealth...

Definitely a tough call. If I were going for the One Shot, One Kill plan, Cavern Sniper would be the obvious choice. I could topload all the accuracy and damage bonuses and use the heavy repeater to great effect and less feat taxes to get there.

I think I want to be the heavily armed and armored dual wielder. I want them to know where I am and run away or dive for cover else risk becoming a pincushion.

Enter battle, pop Darkness, levitate upwards, start firing.


How are you going to be reloading your Xbows? Weapon cords? 3.5 enhancements?


Borthos Brewhammer wrote:
How are you going to be reloading your Xbows? Weapon cords? 3.5 enhancements?

Good question. I had a few thoughts in mind:

1) Weapon Cords, Quick Draw feat, Rapid Reload feat

2) Giving up magic item slots (gauntlet, bracer, or both) to craft a specialized mount (might require me to be a Gnome or Human with the Racial Heritage feat to use it).

3) Use repeating crossbows, gain the Abundant Ammunition spell at will or as a SLA (use Abundant Ammunition on the "cartridges")

4) Get magical cartridges crafted for the crossbows with a command word. Command word triggers the Abundant Ammunition effect.

Shadow Lodge

I'm not sure of what sort of actions you can take during a full attack action, but assuming you can take swift actions during a full attack action (and I don't see anything that says you can't, but am willing to be shown otherwise), You could have it set up so that both crossbows are on weapon cords.

You start the turn with your off hand dangling and you main hand equipped, you begin the full attack and make all the attacks with the main hand, you then drop the main hand as a free action, use your swift to grab the off hand, then finish your full attack. Next turn you start with the off hand, and end on the main hand.

The full attack action says you may begin your attack pattern with either weapon, but because you must make all attacks in descending order, I'm pretty sure this doesn't work by RAW. But it is as close as I can get to figuring this out. And I feel that this isn't going to be game breaking, it would just require a little more bookkeeping on your part due to the irregular attack pattern and being aware of which weapon is equipped at any given time. This is especially important if you are making AOO's with these weapons.


You can take free actions during a full attack action, so it stands to reason that you can take a swift action the same way.

Looking it up, it seems that the most mechanically efficient method is to buy two repeating crossbow magazines with a continuous Abundant Ammunition spell cast on them. According to the magic item creation table, they'd only cost 4k gp each. (1st lvl spell x 1st lvl caster x [2000x2 {doubled because the duration of Ab Ammo is 1min/lvl}])

TURN:

1) Drop offhand weapon (Free Action)
2) Full Attack Action w/main and reload lever w/offhand (Free Action)
3) Drop main weapon (Free Action)
4) Draw offhand weapon using Quick Draw (Free Action)
5) Continue Full Attack Action w/offhand and reload lever w/main (Free Action)
6) Draw main weapon using Quick Draw (Free Action)
7) Benefit for rest of round from Two Weapon Defense and Two Weapon Warrior abilities

As far as I can see, this methodology allows you to do this on an infinite loop if you have the magic clips with the Abundant Ammo continuous spell effect.

Am I missing any mechanics other than the Attacks of Opportunity all that would draw (that I could eliminate with other feat investments) and the "reasonable limits on free actions, as decided by the GM" ?

Assuming this is all legal, this idea may have just gone from Paladin's Divine Hunter to Warrior's Two Weapon Warrior to one BEASTLY Arcane Archer....now, what other 10 levels to take....1 Sorcerer/9 Rogue (with sniper abilities)/10 Arcane Archer?


What you would need is the self-loading crossbow from the 3.5 Arms and Equipment Guide coupled with the Endless Amminution enhancement from Pathfinder Ultimate Equipment. Basicaqlly, you extract the self-loading "enhancement" and apply it to your own crossbow.

Also, I'd strongly recommend to get bayonets on both crossbows. According to Ultimate Combat, it says that bayonets are used only for guns, but I'm pretty sure that you can do so with crossbows after talking it out with your DM.

With self-loading crossbows and bayonets, you'll be fine at both ranged and melee combat.


JiCi wrote:

What you would need is the self-loading crossbow from the 3.5 Arms and Equipment Guide coupled with the Endless Amminution enhancement from Pathfinder Ultimate Equipment. Basicaqlly, you extract the self-loading "enhancement" and apply it to your own crossbow.

Also, I'd strongly recommend to get bayonets on both crossbows. According to Ultimate Combat, it says that bayonets are used only for guns, but I'm pretty sure that you can do so with crossbows after talking it out with your DM.

With self-loading crossbows and bayonets, you'll be fine at both ranged and melee combat.

I'd like to stick to PF rulebooks. I might be making this into my PFS character...

Thanks for the Endless Ammunition tip, though, that seems mechanically much easier to justify than the enchanted repeating crossbow magazine option. Even if it costs double.

Grand Lodge

Why not follow the Vital Strike line?


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Why not follow the Vital Strike line?

The original idea was to wade into battle with a crossbow in each hand and firing until my fingers bleed. Vital Strike seems more tailored to snipers than hedgehogs...

Go for Two Weapon Warrior, Two Weapon Fighting chain, Two Weapon Defense, Snap Shot chain, etc...

Although I'm considering going the One-Shot, One-Kill route though...seems more feat efficient.

Shadow Lodge

Barry Armstrong wrote:

You can take free actions during a full attack action, so it stands to reason that you can take a swift action the same way.

Looking it up, it seems that the most mechanically efficient method is to buy two repeating crossbow magazines with a continuous Abundant Ammunition spell cast on them. According to the magic item creation table, they'd only cost 4k gp each. (1st lvl spell x 1st lvl caster x [2000x2 {doubled because the duration of Ab Ammo is 1min/lvl}])

TURN:

1) Drop offhand weapon (Free Action)
2) Full Attack Action w/main and reload lever w/offhand (Free Action)
3) Drop main weapon (Free Action)
4) Draw offhand weapon using Quick Draw (Free Action)
5) Continue Full Attack Action w/offhand and reload lever w/main (Free Action)
6) Draw main weapon using Quick Draw (Free Action)
7) Benefit for rest of round from Two Weapon Defense and Two Weapon Warrior abilities

As far as I can see, this methodology allows you to do this on an infinite loop if you have the magic clips with the Abundant Ammo continuous spell effect.

Am I missing any mechanics other than the Attacks of Opportunity all that would draw (that I could eliminate with other feat investments) and the "reasonable limits on free actions, as decided by the GM" ?

Assuming this is all legal, this idea may have just gone from Paladin's Divine Hunter to Warrior's Two Weapon Warrior to one BEASTLY Arcane Archer....now, what other 10 levels to take....1 Sorcerer/9 Rogue (with sniper abilities)/10 Arcane Archer?

Quick draw doesn't let you change the action of retrieving a weapon on a weapon cord or picking up a dropped weapon, so that attack pattern you detailed doesn't work that way. Sheathing a weapon or picking one up is a move action either way. There might be a feat or something that lets you pick up or sheathe weapons faster, but without that, you are restricted to having only 1 weapon in hand at a time.

Edit: also, that attack pattern is ignoring the restriction that you must make your attacks from highest to lowest. So if your attack pattern is +20/+15/+10 (MH) and +20/+15 (OH) then you must attack +20/+20/+15/+15/+10. You can choose to make those attacks MH/OH/MH/OH/MH, OH/MH/MH/OH/MH, MH/OH/OH/MH/MH, or OH/MH/OH/MH/MH, but you cannot make a pattern like OH/OH/MH/MH/MH or MH/MH/MH/OH/OH by RAW.

My previous post was under the assumption that you were talking about a game where you could negotiate with the GM, not PFS.


Quath wrote:

Quick draw doesn't let you change the action of retrieving a weapon on a weapon cord or picking up a dropped weapon, so that attack pattern you detailed doesn't work that way. Sheathing a weapon or picking one up is a move action either way. There might be a feat or something that lets you pick up or sheathe weapons faster, but without that, you are restricted to having only 1 weapon in hand at a time.

Edit: also, that attack pattern is ignoring the restriction that you must make your attacks from highest to lowest. So if your attack pattern is +20/+15/+10 (MH) and +20/+15 (OH) then you must attack +20/+20/+15/+15/+10. You can choose to make those attacks MH/OH/MH/OH/MH, OH/MH/MH/OH/MH, MH/OH/OH/MH/MH, or OH/MH/OH/MH/MH, but you cannot make a pattern like OH/OH/MH/MH/MH or MH/MH/MH/OH/OH by RAW.

My previous post was under the assumption that you were talking about a game where you could negotiate with the GM, not PFS.

Core Rulebook, pg. 186, Draw or Sheathe a Weapon wrote:
Drawing a weapon so that you can use it in combat, or putting it away so that you have a free hand, requires a move action.
Core Rulebook, pg. 132, Quick Draw wrote:
You can draw a weapon as a free action instead of a move action.

Nothing in either of those rules state where the drawn weapon has to come from, other than specifically mentioning that drawing a HIDDEN weapon (one you'd have to dig out of somewhere) is still a move action, even with Quick Draw.

Do you know of anywhere else that RAW might specify? I actually can't find any Pathfinder rules on Weapon Cords...(maybe another 3.5 thing rendering this obsolete)?

Your MH/OH logic and the rules of attacking highest to lowest (thereby forcing alternate hands) make the weapon cord angle an impossibility anyways.

I would truly have to get the 3.5 self-loading crossbows with the Endless Ammunition enchantment to make the build viable...

Originally this was a Home Game thing, but if the mechanics were sound, I would have built a PFS character based off of it. Sounds like that won't happen though.

Shadow Lodge

PRD wrote:
Weapon Cord: Weapon cords are 2-foot-long leather straps that attach your weapon to your wrist. If you drop your weapon or are disarmed, you can recover it as a swift action, and it never moves any further away from you than an adjacent square. However, you cannot switch to a different weapon without first untying the cord (a full-round action) or cutting it (a move action or an attack, hardness 0, 0 hp). Unlike a locked gauntlet, you can still use a hand with a weapon cord, though a dangling weapon may interfere with finer actions.

They are in the APG. Quick draw only supports the drawing part of that quote, not the sheathing part. I really like the idea and concept of this build and think it would be awesome to see functioning. It just stinks that it requires house ruling (even if the house ruling seems reasonable).


Quath wrote:
PRD wrote:
Weapon Cord: Weapon cords are 2-foot-long leather straps that attach your weapon to your wrist. If you drop your weapon or are disarmed, you can recover it as a swift action, and it never moves any further away from you than an adjacent square. However, you cannot switch to a different weapon without first untying the cord (a full-round action) or cutting it (a move action or an attack, hardness 0, 0 hp). Unlike a locked gauntlet, you can still use a hand with a weapon cord, though a dangling weapon may interfere with finer actions.
They are in the APG. Quick draw only supports the drawing part of that quote, not the sheathing part. I really like the idea and concept of this build and think it would be awesome to see functioning. It just stinks that it requires house ruling (even if the house ruling seems reasonable).

Thanks, I couldn't find it anywhere. These weapons would NEVER be sheathed or put up. When not being fired, dropped, or recovered, they'd be in-hand to provide two-weapon defense bonuses.

That being said, the other killer of this mechanic would be YOU CAN RECOVER IT AS A SWIFT ACTION. You only get one swift action per turn.

As a home campaign, the only house rules you'd need would be the DM's permission to use self-loading crossbows from the 3.5 AEG and enchant them with Endless Ammunition (thereby eliminating the need for the weapon cord mechanic).

Shadow Lodge

With the weapon cord one you would only be wielding 1 weapon at a time but you would be TWF if you got the GM to say you can ignore the descending attack order. If you are going to go so far as to pull in 3.5 material, why not just ask for a house ruled repeating hand crossbow, then get a permanent abundant ammunition on the cartridge?

Edit: or use the Endless Ammunition Weapon Property from UE. But I'm unsure if that enchantment removes the reload time. It implies it, but doesn't state it.

Grand Lodge

Where is the descending attack order rule listed?

Shadow Lodge

blackbloodtroll wrote:
Where is the descending attack order rule listed?

Here: Full Attack Action

Grand Lodge

Quath wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:
Where is the descending attack order rule listed?
Here: Full Attack Action

There is no caveat for limiting which weapon you can attack within these rules.

Multiple attacks gained from high BAB need not be the same weapon.

This has been confirmed.


blackbloodtroll wrote:
Where is the descending attack order rule listed?

Oddly enough, I never knew about this until he pointed it out, either.

Core Rulebook, pg. 187, right hand column, second paragraph wrote:
If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest.

This is what he's quoting, but the very next sentence says:

Core Rulebook, pg. 187, right hand column, second paragraph wrote:
If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first.

I can see this being interpreted two ways.

1) Main, Off, alternate until done. Doesn't matter which you begin with.
2) All attacks main, then all attacks Off until done. Or the reverse if you choose to use your offhand first.

It would seem silly to me from both a mechanics standpoint (I invested multiple feats to get to this point) and a practical combat standpoint. I'd use more energy alternating LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT attacks than I would doing LEFT-LEFT-LEFT, RIGHT-RIGHT-RIGHT combos. I'd allow my players to resolve whichever way they chose as long as it was in descending order.

I think it still meets the intent to do main hand high to low, then offhand high to low. You're still resolving high to low, you're simply doing so per weapon instead of going by the bare numbers.


Quath wrote:

With the weapon cord one you would only be wielding 1 weapon at a time but you would be TWF if you got the GM to say you can ignore the descending attack order. If you are going to go so far as to pull in 3.5 material, why not just ask for a house ruled repeating hand crossbow, then get a permanent abundant ammunition on the cartridge?

Edit: or use the Endless Ammunition Weapon Property from UE. But I'm unsure if that enchantment removes the reload time. It implies it, but doesn't state it.

If it doesn't state it, it doesn't do it for the Endless Ammunition.

As far as the "repeating hand crossbow" that doesn't even pass muster with me, nevermind asking my DM for one. It's too small for a repeater. Unless you're a Gnome tinkerer that makes his own weapons, that's a no-go.

I could simply ask for the self-loading crossbow from the AEG as an option. It's definitely not a game-breaker being that it's a heavy crossbow (not dual-wieldable but if I turn this idea into a one-shot, one-kill sniper, that's not a dealbreaker). The stats, mechanics, and cost of the item are virtually identical to Pathfinder standard. Put Endless Ammunition enchantment on it, and it becomes a $20k weapon.

But, one worth it because I will never, ever need to reload it.

I would just go with the Sorc/Rogue/Arcane Archer route if I were able to use that weapon and take BBT up on his suggestion for Vital Strike chain and have a very, VERY deadly sniper.


Expensive, but Gloves of Storing solve your reloading problem.


Crosswind wrote:
Expensive, but Gloves of Storing solve your reloading problem.

No it wouldn't, Gloves of Storing only holds a single item. That would allow me a single load of a single crossbow and then the item is gone from the gloves. If it continually produced that single item as a free action, it would work.

And you cannot put extradimensional spaces inside other extradimensional spaces, so that precludes the possiblity of putting an Efficient Quiver in the glove.

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