Siege weapon load time

[o00obiffo00o]

Hey all.
I'm finding it unclear how many actions it takes to Load a siege weapon.

Example: the standard bombard requires 2 crew and has a Load time of 3 (full round actions).

So, are those 3 full round actions by each crew member of the siege engine? Or just 3 single full round actions, able to be preformed by any/all of the crew members?

Also, what if there were a crew of 3 for the standard bombard? Would that change the Load time? If it is 3 single full round actions, could a crew of 3 load the bombard in a single round?

And in terms of Aim time, is the listed amount only for a siege engine that is mounted to something? That is, what if a large creature were carrying it: would said creature still be required to use the full aim time?

Cheers,

[Korlos]

That's the total number of actions needed to reload. You can add more crew to reload faster. With two crew, in round 1, crew member A fires while crew member B supplies the first reloading action. Round 2, A and B each reload and now the siege engine is ready to fire in round 3.

With four crew, crew members B, C, and D delay until after A fires. They each spend their action reloading and then A can fire again in round 2.

The CRB and Ultimate Combat contradict each other on the size of siege engines. The CRB says that a ballista takes up one square, but UC says that all siege engines are either large or huge. If a siege engine is large and takes up four squares, I doubt a large creature could wield it as a weapon. Large creatures do count as 4 crew, so they can reload most things in one action. Siege engines don't have weights so we can't use that to judge whether it would be practical for a giant to pick up and use. Based on the damage, a bombard would be sized for a creature larger than huge.

[o00obiffo00o]

Korlos wrote:

That's the total number of actions needed to reload.

Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for.

With four crew, crew members B, C, and D delay until after A fires. They each spend their action reloading and then A can fire again in round 2.

Korlos wrote:

The CRB and Ultimate Combat contradict each other on the size of siege engines. The CRB says that a ballista takes up one square, but UC says that all siege engines are either large or huge. If a siege engine is large and takes up four squares, I doubt a large creature could wield it as a weapon.

But, "In most cases, a Large or large creature can use a siege firarm as a 2-hd firearm..."

So listing a ballista as a Large-sized creature (4 squares) seems false, especially when all other weapons are listed based on their size as weapons, not as creatures.

Korlos wrote:

Siege engines don't have weights so we can't use that to judge whether it would be practical for a giant to pick up and use.

We can extrapolate based on what we have, tho, using the weapon size/weight equations.

A ballista is described as basically a large heavy crossbow. Larger versions, or the ballista-variants can be at least compared to a similarly-sized ballista.
We also have the culverin (i.e. hand bombard). We can size/weight that up, as well.
And, of course, there is always real-world examples from which we can draw comparisons.

Korlos wrote:

Based on the damage, a bombard would be sized for a creature larger than huge.

Sorry, I mixed examples there. You are correct.

Thanks again for the response!

[Gray Warden]

Korlos wrote:

You can add more crew to reload faster.

Sorry to necro, but I think it's better than creating a new thread. Are there any sources for the quoted part? I cannot find evidence in the rules that enables one to use a crew larger than what defined in the engine's entry.

[Gray Warden]

Bump?

[Cevah]

Ranged Siege Engines wrote:

Direct-Fire Ranged Siege Engines:

Sheer manpower can also reduce the penalties for size. Increasing the crew of these weapons by 1 or more can reduce the attack roll penalty for creature size: as long as an extra crew member is no smaller than three size categories smaller than the direct-fire weapon, it can reduce the penalty due to the aiming creature’s size by 2. For example, a Huge ballista fired by a Medium creature that is part of a crew of two (the creature aiming the ballista and someone to help position it) takes only a –2 penalty on attack rolls.

/cevah

[Gray Warden]

This is in no way related to the thread.