[PFS] TWF + Hand Crossbows + Rapid Reload + Weapon Cords

[Dimminsy]

I apologize if this has already been discussed (my search-fu didn't find what I was looking for using "hand crossbow weapon cord"). This is mostly for PFS.

I'll start by quoting the relevant text.

Hand Crossbow wrote:

Crossbow, Hand: You can draw a hand crossbow back by hand. Loading a hand crossbow is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

You can shoot, but not load, a hand crossbow with one hand at no penalty. You can shoot a hand crossbow with each hand, but you take a penalty on attack rolls as if attacking with two light weapons.

Weapon Cord wrote:

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 farther 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 hit points). Unlike with a locked gauntlet, you can still use a hand with a weapon cord, though a dangling weapon may interfere with finer actions.

Two Weapon Fighting wrote:

Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by 2 and the one for your off hand lessens by 6. See Two-Weapon Fighting in Combat.

Normal: If you wield a second weapon in your off hand, you can get one extra attack per round with that weapon. When fighting in this way you suffer a –6 penalty with your regular attack or attacks with your primary hand and a –10 penalty to the attack with your off hand. If your off-hand weapon is light, the penalties are reduced by 2 each. An unarmed strike is always considered light.

Does this mean that I have to be holding both hand crossbows at the same time to benefit from the TWF feat tree or can I use the weapon cords to always have a hand free for reloading with free actions from Rapid Reload?

Rapid Reload wrote:

Benefit: The time required for you to reload your chosen type of weapon is reduced to a free action (for a hand or light crossbow), a move action (for heavy crossbow or one-handed firearm), or a standard action (two-handed firearm). Reloading a crossbow or firearm still provokes attacks of opportunity.

If you have selected this feat for a hand crossbow or light crossbow, you may fire that weapon as many times in a full-attack action as you could attack if you were using a bow.

Normal: A character without this feat needs a move action to reload a hand or light crossbow, a standard action to reload a one-handed firearm, or a full-round action to load a heavy crossbow or a two-handed firearm.

1) Would the TWF penalties stack with the hand crossbow clause "You can shoot a hand crossbow with each hand, but you take a penalty on attack rolls as if attacking with two light weapons." bringing the total to a -4/-4? Or is that just reiterating the TWF penalties?

2) Assume I start the round with at least one of my hand crossbows in a hand (hand 1). Would this attack sequence be legal?

1) Attack with hand 1 with the TWF penalties applied to hit using hand 2 to reload.
2) Drop the hand 1 crossbow.
3) Use a swift action to recover the hand 2 crossbow.
4) Use all offhand attacks of hand 2 applying TWF penalties using hand 1 to reload.
5) Repeat except hand 1 becomes hand 2 and vice versa.

I know this isn't going to be the best build (you never have a swift action free, reduced damage vs normal bows, etc.), I was just seeing if it was possible to do. Kind of wondering if the build would work with light crossbows (though that would be harder to justify). Thanks in advance!

[chbgraphicarts]

Weapon Cords have been errata'd to be Move Actions to retrieve.

You can ask your DM if Gun Twirling works with the Bolt Ace archetype, however (you'll still need Rapid Reload & Quick Draw to make it viable, though).

[Athaleon]

Gun Twirling is another four feats - Weapon Focus & Dazzling Display are prerequisites, and Quick Draw is needed to make this aspect of the feat work. This is on a class concept (Crossbow TWF) that is already so feat started as to be practically nonfunctional until level 5. You already need:

- Mandatory ranged feats Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot
- Essential ranged feats Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim
- Crossbow Tax (aka Rapid Reload)
- Exotic Weapon Proficiency, because the Hand Crossbow is such a powerful weapon its users needed to be docked another feat. For balance or something. Also the Bolt Ace (the only class that makes Crossbows worth it) won't get you free proficiency. It still has Firearms proficiency because the ACG was too rushed for proper editing.
- Two Weapon Fighting, which again requires another feat because it's just so powerful.

Anyways, like I said to someone in a different thread just now, play a Tiefling if you want to TWF with Crossbows or Pistols. Much easier than screwing around with Weapon Cords, or waiting for (and paying for) Gloves of Storing.

[Dimminsy]

Huh, I always thought ArchivesOfNethys had the most accurate info. Guess they haven't updated Weapon Cords yet. Is the only point of weapon cords now to not be totally disarmed or not provoke an attack picking your weapon back up? Seems rather odd, but it's super cheap even for that still.

Athaleon, ya, crossbows are non-functional in the sense of not contributing anywhere close to a normal bow build. How would playing a Tiefling help?

[Athaleon]

Dimminsy wrote:

Athaleon, ya, crossbows are non-functional in the sense of not contributing anywhere close to a normal bow build. How would playing a Tiefling help?

Use the Prehensile Tail alternate racial to hold one Hand Crossbow while you reload the other one.

[Entryhazard]

What about Repeating Hand Crossbows?

[Athaleon]

Entryhazard wrote:

What about Repeating Hand Crossbows?

The wording of their rules in Ultimate Combat just leads to a lot of confusion over reload times (when changing magazines) with Rapid Reload. And Rapid Reload gets a regular Hand Crossbow's reload down to a Free Action anyways.

So it offers no advantages, potentially some major disadvantages, and in any case costs 700g more than a regular Hand Crossbow. Bravo to whoever wrote those rules.

Spoiler:

Repeating Hand Crossbow from UE wrote:

This weapon functions identically to a repeating heavy crossbow, except its damage, critical, and range values are equivalent to those of a hand crossbow instead.

So it works just like a Heavy Crossbow. Let's check out its rules:

Repeating Heavy Crossbow from UE wrote:

The repeating heavy crossbow holds 5 repeating crossbow bolts. As long as it holds bolts, you can reload it by pulling the reloading lever (a free action). Loading a new case of 5 bolts is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

You can fire a repeating crossbow with one hand or fire a repeating crossbow in each hand in the same manner as you would a normal crossbow of the same size. However, you must fire the weapon with two hands in order to use the reloading lever, and you must use two hands to load a new case of bolts.

There you have it, by RAW, Two-Weapon Fighting with a Repeating Hand Crossbow is impossible. But let's keep going because I am bored.

Now let's look at Rapid Reload:

Rapid Reload wrote:

The time required for you to reload your chosen type of weapon is reduced to a free action (for a hand or light crossbow), a move action (for heavy crossbow or one-handed firearm), or a standard action (two-handed firearm). Reloading a crossbow or firearm still provokes attacks of opportunity.

One interpretation is that because it doesn't mention Repeating Crossbows at all, it does not speed up the Full Round Action needed to change magazines. You would then need Crossbow Mastery to reduce it to a Free Action, meaning Rapid Reload was a 100% feat tax. It gave you zero benefit, and you set that feat on fire simply because you had to in order to take the next one in the chain.

One interpretation is that "Hand Crossbow" also refers to "Repeating Hand Crossbow", Light also refers to Light Repeater, etc. So you can now change magazines as a Free Action. But reloading a non-repeating Hand Crossbow was always a Free Action anyways. So the switch to a Repeater costs you 700g and provides no advantage.

As Mr. Plinkett would say: Filler Up! (with a lot of "nothing makes sense")