I'm presently playing a 1st level wizard and considering what feats I'll take at higher levels. At present I'm using (with DM permission) the Launch Bolt cantrip from the 3.5 Spell Compendium, which allows you to draw a crossbow bolt as a free action, fire the bolt from your hand, avoid the reload time of a normal crossbow, and take advantage of whatever feats you have that would work with a crossbow. This obviously includes feats like Point Blank Shot and Weapon Focus (light crossbow). My question, though, is whether this should also be taken to include multiple ranged attack feats like Rapid Shot and Manyshot. As I see it, the arguments stack up like this:
Pro: It would already be possible to use Rapid Shot with a light crossbow if one had already taken Rapid Reload. The cantrip essentially allows you to act as though you had Rapid Reload already, so why not allow Rapid Shot as well?
Con: Arguably this cantrip is already overpowered, and this allows it to be even more so.
In some ways this isn't all that important to me, since I intend to move to a composite longbow as soon as I can afford it anyway (the character's an elf), at which point it ceases to matter. But I thought I'd like to get people's take on it anyway.
The target of the spell is "one crossbow bolt in your possession". So it can only launch a single bolt per casting.
The "Target: One crossbow bolt in your possession"
seems to preclude the use on more than one bolt in a turn. So no to rapid shot and manyshot.
Ah, good point! That looks decisive to me. Thanks for pointing it out!
Then again, if you quicken that cantrip...
*ducks for cover*
Well, three bolts per round at the most doesn't seem to be overpowering for spending a 4th level spell slot each round.