I'm a little confused on this point; reloading a crossbow triggers attacks of opportunity, and of course reloading the 5 round clip of a repeating crossbow would do so also. But, does the action of pulling the lever to ready the next round trigger attacks of opportunity as well? Thanks!
Pulling the lever is a free action. Free actions rarely incur attacks of opportunity by RAW. Thus, unless the description in the weapon's text calls out the free action of triggering an attack of opportunity, it doesn't.
The text for a repeating crossbow only mentions the full round action of reloading a clip as triggering an attack of opportunity. Thus, you can reload a crossbow bolt from the current clip as a free action without triggering an attack. Note however that actually firing the weapon afterwards while threatened would provoke, as ranged attacks trigger attacks of opportunity.
Thanks!
because pulling the lever is a free action it can be done directly after shooting, shooting a ranged weapon within melee threat range of a creature does provoke an AOO. So if the person is in threat range when he fires, yes that does provoke, but if somebody moves into threat range after he fires he should have already pulled the lever.