I've sorta stymied myself with a fairly simple question here: Can Medium characters wield Small crossbows? I've gone looking and found a fair amount of discussion on the reverse (characters wielding crossbows sized for larger users), but nothing on this. The issue I'm getting stuck on is that crossbows are generally two-handed weapons, but can be wielded one-handed, so I can work my way to either a "yes" or "no" answer with equal parts certainty and hesitation.
Here's the answers I've tentatively settled on for now; tell me your thoughts.
Hand & Light Crossbow: When wielded one-handed, both of these weapons are treated as light weapons, so my inclination is that these weapons are too small to be used by a larger wielder.
Heavy Crossbow: When wielded one-handed, this weapon is treated as a one-handed weapon, so perhaps it's possible, treating it as a light weapon?
Either way, regardless of size, I'm confident that you always need to use two hands to load a crossbow regardless of how small it might be.
If anyone's curious, I'm running a variant version of Sewer Dragons of Absalom as a home game, and the question arose when it came to looting some height-challenged baddies.
Each item has a set size. For example, if a Hand or Light Crossbow is a Light Weapon for a creature of appropriate size, assuming Medium size, you would be correct in that a Large or bigger (or even Diminutive or smaller) sized creature would be unable to use it.
For a Medium Heavy Crossbow used by a Large creature, it would be a Light Weapon, yes.
As for reloading, it technically does, since you need one hand to hold the crossbow, and the other hand to load the bolt into the pullable lever.
I believe PFS houserules magic items that aren't appropriately sized for the PCs automatically resize, and is something that could be appropriated for your home game, so as not to constantly feed the PCs junk that's unusable and only serves as vendor trash whenever they defeat encounters against enemies who are different on so many levels.
You could also simply allow the Crossbows to be of Medium size and negate the issue entirely that way, though it's more-or-less the same subject as above.
Wrong size weapons impose a -2 penalty (if I remember correctly). Otherwise yes, they could.
Wrong size weapons impose a -2 penalty (if I remember correctly). Otherwise yes, they could.
From the PRD:
A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies.
The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder's size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. For example, a Small creature would wield a Medium one-handed weapon as a two-handed weapon. If a weapon's designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can't wield the weapon at all.
Referencing crossbows, it says that they can be fired in one hand, and you could fire two crossbows at the same time, one per hand. They are considered a light or one-handed weapon, depending on the type of crossbow when you fire them in this manner.
Since you only need one hand to actually fire the crossbow, and they are considered a light or one-handed weapons when you fire them, in the case of a Light or Hand Crossbow, they become unwieldable by a Medium or larger creature, since it becomes something other than the above bolded designations. Heavy Crossbows apply the same thing, except to Large or larger creatures.
Using a small light crossbow onehanded would incur a -4 penalty to hit. You can already fire one one handed at -2 making f it small just makes it harder to hit.
No its -4 because the light crossbow has an inherent -2 for firing one handed. A gm is within his rights in a home game to removevthis but we have no rules to remove inherent weapon mechanics because of size changes.