How would you like to see crossbows implemented in PF2?
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I'd like to see them get a range of damage and loading time set by the loading device they are designed to use. Such as stirrup, goat's foot lever, crannequin, windlass, etc. I'm not worried about realistic load times, but I think that would create a nice veneer of realism, but could still be made to work well in a game sense.
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I am okay with the notion that crossbows will still be bad in PF2.
Historically a lot of the appeal of crossbows is that they are easy to use, require little training, practice, or physical gifts. Player characters, on the other hand tend to have training, practice, and physical gifts coming out their ears. If one type of weapon is just better if you have all the training, practice and advantages that is the one PCs should use.
If we want to make crossbows cool and good, I am fine with completely deviating from realism so long as the fully automatic repeating crossbow with under-barrel mine launcher and grappling hook types of crossbows are exceedingly rare.
Fire as part of the same action to load it for hand crossbows and light crossbows, action to load for heavy crossbows but heavy crossbows having much higher damage as a result.
The new action economy does have some interesting implications and possibilities when it comes to reloading times. The limiting of iterative attacks also makes normal bows shoot less quickly, so they don't have as big of an advantage.
I agree with Shadrayl of the Mountain that crossbows should be defined by their spanning method.
How about:
Hand-crossbow: hand-spanned, 1 action to span.
Light Crossbow: Stirrup, belt or goats-foot lever spanned, 2 actions.
Heavy Crossbow: Cranequin or windless spanned, 3 actions.
So hand crossbows will be able to shoot 3 times in 2 rounds, light crossbows 1 per round and heavy 1 every other round.
Let Rapid Reload decrease the actions needed by 1. So hand crossbows will shoot up to 3 times a round, light will go to the 3 times per 2 rounds and heavy 1 per round.
Damage:
Hand: D4
Light: D6 + STR mod of spanning device
Heavy: D8 + 2 + SRT mod of spanning device
Each spanning device would have a strength rating that lets it act as the equivalent strength for purposes of spanning the bow.
Alternately give them all a STR rating like a composite bow. The spanning methods have a strength equivalence rating and take a number of actions equal to the STR mod of the bow minus some bonus for the device. Hand spanning can be done quicker if the character has that STR mod or more.
Hand crossbow: STR mod 0, Light STR Mod +3, Heavy STR mod +6
The strength mods are higher than the normal range because of the high-draw weight of the bows. This does potentially make them a bit unrealistically powerful (~1000 lb crossbows seem to deliver similar energy to 120 lb longbows) but lets them stand out from bows that shoot three times a round. A beast of a character might be able to hand-span and rapid fire a heavy bow, but if it's balanced that might be something cool and not overpowered. Mighty McStrongarm is so strong that he takes a big windless bow and mows down mooks.
This is all just off the top of my head, so numbers will have to be played with and balanced. But I think there's potential to make them useful and distinct from bows.
In addition, perhaps give crossbows a quality: Accurate. Accurate gives a +2 for the purpose of criticals. So Attack bonus 5, AC 15 will still hit on a 10 but will crit on an 18 instead of just 20.
So it's not so much a bonus to hit, but does mean you can get a good solid hit in a vulnerable spot more often. Along with the str bonus of the device this will make up for the slow speed and make crossbows interesting options that aren't completely inferior or superior to regular bows.
Damage:
Hand: D4
Light: D6 + STR mod of spanning device
Heavy: D8 + 2 + SRT mod of spanning device
Each spanning device would have a strength rating that lets it act as the equivalent strength for purposes of spanning the bow.
I realized that I put the dice as one die sized lower than they are in PF1. I was doing this from memory and messed up. So:
Hand: D6Light: D8 + STR mod
Heavy: D10 + 2 + STR mod
That extra + 2 for the heavy is just to give it a little more of a punch for it's slowness, but could easily be removed considering the spanning methods required for it will already have a higher strength rating.
We already know from one of the blog posts or so that at least light crossbows (if they still make that distinction) reload as an action. This makes me think they’re going to make crossbows still slower firing than bows. Not sure if that means they’re keeping them as the weakest ranged weapon besides firearms, but I honestly think we’d need to see what they’re doing with the rest of the system to get a good answer. I would definitely hope that they make them decent fallback weapons when needed for classes lacking bow proficiency, and that they do reasonable amounts of damage to make up for their slow fire rate.
Another big insight into crossbows is Harsk being made into a two-weapon fighter, which would suggest to me that he is not crossbow focused (not that he was very good with one in the first place but that is a discussion for another thread). Whether this suggests that rangers make for bad crossbow users or if even focusing in on crossbows is something you can’t do has yet to be divulged. But at this stage I don’t have my hopes up that crossbows will be an possible weapon to build around, but probably something that you fall back on when you can’t close into melee.
Crossbows do have a slower rate of fire so that makes sense. They're also much easier to fire than a bow so hopefully everyone can use them even the heavy ones.
As crossbows are my favorite ranged weapon, i would really like them not get shafted so hard. Also, it would be cool to be able to dual wield hand crossbows, withouth having to drop one to reload every time.
Also off topic question, how is dual wielding handled in PF2?
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Heh crossbows... shafted.. nice. That pun was on point.
As far as two weapon fighting goes I heard that one of the dual wield feats reduced multiple attack penalties. Seem very handy.
Composite Bows are the master race of ranged weapons, and it has always been this way since the original 1st Edition D&D. There's no reason to change that paradigm now, especially because there's no new fad to make them less appealing.
In fact, more of the new "cool" characters use bows over crossbows due to their excess training and lack of clunkiness with crossbows. So expecting Crossbows to be comparable, or even have a niche in response to Composite Bows is laughable.
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I want them to be as strong as the bow. I don’t care if it is not realistic. I want a trade-off dammage/reload time that is worth getting a crossbow. So if you have to take one action to reload, make a d12 dammage for example.
Because we need more decent options than bow. Thrown weapons and crossbows should be efficient just to have weapon diversity when you are going ranger for example. Every time I pick a close combat character I have a lots of decent options to choose from, but for range combat except with niche builds the amount of possibilities is too low.
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Having crossbows be way worse than bows is debatably realistic.
However, it's super un-fun for anyone who wants to actually play a crossbow user (see: PF1 Harsk).
Therefore, I'd strongly argue that either crossbows should be as good as bows or (and I prefer this option) they should be worse but there should be a Feat available only to crossbow users that makes them as good as having a bow plus a bow enhancing Feat.
That way sorta gets the best of both worlds, since it makes them worse for most people (thus catering to realism) but lets a real expert not fall behind.
I have no problem with them having a long reload time, I'd desperately like them to have some flat damage or a dice bump.
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I do want to see xbows as an optimal choice without having to jump through hefty taxes. I also hope they are differentiated from other range types in feel and mechanics. Id like to see firearms become the two handed fighting technique of ranged combat, bows would be the agile, and xbows somewhere in the middle.
Honestly, the only thing I'd like to see out of crossbows is maybe the Hand Crossbow damage dice being buffed up to 1d6, that way it's not so weak it's only going to be seen in extremely niche scenarios.
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I agree with doktor weazel, crossbows should derive a bonus from the spanning device. Hand span gains a bonus equal to the strength bonus of the user and upgrades just like a composite longbow. Up to a maximum value say 14 STR which would be like a limit due to the strength of the material. Cranquin could pull to an effective 20STR and take 2 actions to load but anyone could get the bonus since the crank is doing the work. Complex? Probably but you could write it:
Heavy crossbow, d10+5, reload:2
Hand crossbow, d6+STR(0-2), reload:0,
Light crossbow, d8+3, reload:1
Light crossbow, d8+4, reload:1
Maybe it is too complex, i dont know.
Having crossbows be way worse than bows is debatably realistic.
However, it's super un-fun for anyone who wants to actually play a crossbow user (see: PF1 Harsk).
Therefore, I'd strongly argue that either crossbows should be as good as bows or (and I prefer this option) they should be worse but there should be a Feat available only to crossbow users that makes them as good as having a bow plus a bow enhancing Feat.
That way sorta gets the best of both worlds, since it makes them worse for most people (thus catering to realism) but lets a real expert not fall behind.
1. Two trained experts in both weapons will have very clear result differences. I can assure you that an archer will have more and accurate shots that are just as deadly and lethal as a crossbow bolt launcher.
2. Why do you think Harsk decided to retrain out of his silly Crossbow decision to be a cool badass TWF dwarven ranger? Honestly, the only reason he still has a crossbow is because it was a part of his original design in PF1. You could probably get rid of it in favor of a Composite Bow, and he'd still be the cool badass TWF dwarven ranger he is now, just with a less crappy ranged alternative.
3. Creating feat disparities in this way doesn't really help solve the trap option issues that plagued PF1, or promote build diversity. It's the reason why the "one true archer" builds existed in PF1, and that's the sort of thing that PF2 needs to get away from.
As for a real expert not falling behind, I disagree. Bows have demonstrably been superior to Crossbows in a trained environment. Bows being weaker to begin with, but superior in a dual-trained environment is probably the most realistic (and optimistic) approach to balancing them out. This way, a non-specialist would want a crossbow, and a specialist in ranged combat would prefer using a bow. (P.S., I remember someone basically saying this same exact argument before, so this is like a case of deja vu.)
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My argument was not based in realism, since Pathfinder is already so hideously unrealistic I don't think we should worry about it too much.
My argument was about allowing people to play a crossbow user and not have that be a 'trap option'. Because that's super un-fun and particularly punishing to new players.
I'm perfectly willing to throw realism a bone now and then, but if we were actually aiming for it, rapiers would require pretty high Str to wield and be basically useless against armored foes (just to pick one arbitrary example).
And really good Feats that make otherwise sub-par weapons a good choice increase build diversity rather than decreasing it, eliminating trap options and 'one true builds'...at least if done properly.
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If someone wants to play Van Helsing and use a crossbow from levels 1-20, I think that should be a viable choice.
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Hm, one route they could go is just fold Rapid Reload into higher levels of Crossbow (and Firearm) Proficiency instead of being a separate feat. So say:
Expert: One bonus action each turn which can only be used to reload.
Master: Can reload as a reaction, one bonus reaction each turn that can only be used to reload, can use AoO and similar abilities with this "point and click" weapon.
Legendary: Three bonus actions each turn that can only be used to reload.
My argument was not based in realism, since Pathfinder is already so hideously unrealistic I don't think we should worry about it too much.
My argument was about allowing people to play a crossbow user and not have that be a 'trap option'. Because that's super un-fun and particularly punishing to new players.
I'm perfectly willing to throw realism a bone now and then, but if we were actually aiming for it, rapiers would require pretty high Str to wield and be basically useless against armored foes (just to pick one arbitrary example).
And really good Feats that make otherwise sub-par weapons a good choice increase build diversity rather than decreasing it, eliminating trap options and 'one true builds'...at least if done properly.
Clearly, but even as unrealistic as PF is, they aren't willing to butcher the composite bow sacred cow, stuff like that is the bread and butter of their iconicism; the closest they came was with the super niche, extremely late start-up, and highly inoptimal Bolt Ace archetype that is still vastly inferior to a base Gunslinger. Really, the only reason to play a Bolt Ace over the base class is because people banned firearms in their campaign, which is a whole other issue.
That would require delicate balancing that may disrupt the sacred cow in a way that would turn players off from the genre. Paizo can pull it off, but whether they do or not is a whole different story.
Rapiers were a swashbuckler weapon. Such weapons were commonly used against agile and unarmored foes, and required a special stance to properly use. The factor that they are junk against heavily armored foes is just a matter of realism that Paizo decided to handwave. (Though that wasn't the case for the whip, unless you spent a feat or two for it.)
Again, not really, because now all you have is a variation of the Strength V.S. Dexterity problem, where it's either best to take the feat for the added power, or to avoid it because what it gives is too little in exchange, and you're better off sticking with what you have standardly. (In the above case, people are still weighing those options.)
@ RumpinRufus: Van Helsing in PF1 would probably be the most ineffectual vampire hunter in the game, simply because LOLCrossbows.
I'd like to see crossbows implemented with much higher base damage to account for the increased actions they take to use. They could be balanced against bows by being better vs. DR and less prone to fumbles, while being less flexible to use and more prone to overkill. Furthermore, it seems bows will have access to special tricks like Rapid Shot that would be incompatible with these crossbows.
I would balance them as follows:
Hand Crossbow | 1d8 damage | reload as part of firing, fires one-handed, agile property
Light Crossbow | 2d6+STR damage | reload costs 1 action
Heavy Crossbow | 3d6+STR*1.5 damage | reload costs 2 actions
Light crossbow has ~1.5x the damage output of a composite longbow (1d8+STR being something like 6.5 vs. the 9 from 2d6+STR) but takes two actions per attack. This leaves it a little behind the composite longbow on damage per action spent for all but the lowest STR scores.
Heavy crossbow has ~2X the damage output of the composite longbow (6.5 vs 12.5) but takes 3 actions to fire. This leaves it a little ahead of the composite longbow on damage per action in most cases (due to not having to deal with the attack roll penalties for multiple attacks per turn). It has advantages in being better vs. DR and minimizing the # of critical failures. Its disadvantages are that its prone to overkill (and wasting damage) and the slow firing means you can't move or take other actions without losing all your damage for the turn.
I did some quick math to check these assumptions here for anyone interested.
I suppose that, much like the dinosaurs, Repeating Crossbows will be extinct. I mean, they basically were in PF1, but now it will be official in PF2.
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Frankly the composite bow thing is kind of silly and probably should go. The iconic heavy warbow is the English longbow, it was just a self-bow (one piece of wood, no composite). Frankly I think they should ditch the composite/non-composite distinction from bows because nobody except dumb NPCs or cash-strapped 1st level characters ever used non-composite bows. Just fold them into one thing and composite just becomes flavor for some of the higher strength bows. The role of the current non-composite bows will just be filled by the STR 0 bows.
I said it already in another thread, but it bears repeating. In PF1 Harsk's main weapon is a crossbow. In PF2 he will use two-weapon fighting because it'll highlight better the strengths of the ranger. If crossbows were good, there'd be no need to make him change weapons.
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I said it already in another thread, but it bears repeating. In PF1 Harsk's main weapon is a crossbow. In PF2 he will use two-weapon fighting because it'll highlight better the strengths of the ranger. If crossbows were good, there'd be no need to make him change weapons.
If they changed his weapon because crossbows suck, then that's a failure of vision on their part.
If they wanted to highlight two-weapon fighting they still had the fighter. They changed him to shield, but the paladin already was a shield user, so they didn't need to change him to highlight it. So really I don't understand the need to shift the iconics around. And I actually rather liked the idea that some of their iconics were going against type. Having the ranger use a crossbow was cool. It's just they left crossbows as sucking.
We've already given some examples of how to make crossbows have their own niche as something interesting without making them clones of normal bows. I still am big on the idea of pairing them with their spanning devices. That also gives opportunity for unique or enchanted spanning devices, like say an animated cranquin, it doesn't speed up loading, but allows you to use actions while it's busy loading for you.
In followup to my idea of ditching rolling composite and standard bows into one and leaving composite as flavor, I'd recommend giving shortbows something to make them have a niche. Like how about give them the agile property to have more accurate followup shots? It kind of makes sense because they're handier and possibly stops them being ignored except by non-elf rogues, because they have proficiency with them but not longbows.
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Composite Bows are the master race of ranged weapons, and it has always been this way since the original 1st Edition D&D. There's no reason to change that paradigm now, especially because there's no new fad to make them less appealing.
In fact, more of the new "cool" characters use bows over crossbows due to their excess training and lack of clunkiness with crossbows. So expecting Crossbows to be comparable, or even have a niche in response to Composite Bows is laughable.
I honestly don’t know what this is based on, or what the basis of this argument is. It’s a brand new system, and we’ve had several years of complaining about the state of certain elements of it that Paizo is more than likely aware. Crossbows are one of them, and P1e did have solutions eventually. Stuff like Overwatch Style, Bolt Ace, so on and so forth. It was supported, even if it was mechanically weaker than bows out of the gate.
We’re not even sure if the composite system is even in the game yet. They could have other ideas for adding damage to ranged attacks. Frankly, with such a dearth of knowledge at present your assumptions are ludicrously baseless.
I like that animated crannequin idea, that's pretty cool. I wonder if that could end up unbalancing with the extra damage proposed for crossbows, though.
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I like that animated crannequin idea, that's pretty cool. I wonder if that could end up unbalancing with the extra damage proposed for crossbows, though.
Yeah, the damage will need to be fiddled with to find the appropriate balance. I have no clue what it should be other than more than it is now.
That video is pretty cool I'm not sure if you saw, but Tod has some videos of with a 1250 lb draw crossbow too and some other high-draw bows.
Like this one
And this one.
And another.
And with other videos you can see how things like how goats-foot lever spanned bows are much faster.
Tod has awesome videos, and his pieces for sale are really nice too. I've been drooling over some of his daggers. There was a bone handled rondel dagger that was on the in-stock page that was just gorgeous, it sold though.
A few other things I thought were interesting, in the video you linked they give both the delivered energy and the potential of the bow. 433 J for the 260 g bolt and 488 J for the 348 g one, with a potential energy of 1277 J. That really shows the inefficiency (largely due to the short draw-length, but I think some is the prod too). It also shows the recoil, which is something people tend to forget about with bows and crossbows. Tod's videos also show that they're not as quiet as often perceived. And he has a nice comment about how the 1250 pounder takes some work, but his 7 year old daughter can span a 900 pound windlass bow.
I posted about how I'd revise them for PF1 so for PF2 also along these lines:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uw71?New-rules-for-Guns-and-Crossbows
Tod is awesome. Anyway if I was designing the game I'd make crossbows much more accurate than bows for unskilled folks. Mastering a longbow takes dedication but any fool can fire a crossbow with some accuracy.
The real skill comes in reloading it in less then 5 minutes!
Composite Bows are the master race of ranged weapons, and it has always been this way since the original 1st Edition D&D. There's no reason to change that paradigm now, especially because there's no new fad to make them less appealing.
In fact, more of the new "cool" characters use bows over crossbows due to their excess training and lack of clunkiness with crossbows. So expecting Crossbows to be comparable, or even have a niche in response to Composite Bows is laughable.
I honestly don’t know what this is based on, or what the basis of this argument is. It’s a brand new system, and we’ve had several years of complaining about the state of certain elements of it that Paizo is more than likely aware. Crossbows are one of them, and P1e did have solutions eventually. Stuff like Overwatch Style, Bolt Ace, so on and so forth. It was supported, even if it was mechanically weaker than bows out of the gate.
We’re not even sure if the composite system is even in the game yet. They could have other ideas for adding damage to ranged attacks. Frankly, with such a dearth of knowledge at present your assumptions are ludicrously baseless.
Legolas from Lord of the Rings, proficient medieval armies, and several other sources, both new and old, fictional and real, are precisely the sorts of things that are commonly expressed and iconicized in D&D, carrying over to PF1. In other words, a sacred cow in which this entire franchise and genre is built upon, much like vancian casting still being retained in PF2, even though numerous players balked at the notion of archers being the only playable ranged character.
In short, Paizo wouldn't dare turn on the majority of their player base's desires in an attempt to appease what is by-and-large a minority opinion.
Also, Overwatch Style wouldn't work with most Crossbows normally anyway, so suggesting it as a means to make them competent doesn't help matters any.
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In short, Paizo wouldn't dare turn on the majority of their player base's desires in an attempt to appease what is by-and-large a minority opinion.
Is a functional crossbow going to somehow bottom out P2e’s sales? Is this truly the straw that breaks the camels back?
Or will they just make a good system and be done with it, with the state of crossbows being almost entirely non-impactful on the system’s value as a whole? I’m hoping for the latter, since such an assumption suggests a saner course of action. If crossbows get fixed along the way, that would be nice.
Also, have you not seen the goblin thread? They’re taking some pretty big changes in P2e. And from the reaction I doubt they really have an interest in pandering to grognards still obsessed with what was done in previous editions, not when they’re making a classic enemy into a playable hero. You might just be pleasantly surprised, Darksol.
In short, Paizo wouldn't dare turn on the majority of their player base's desires in an attempt to appease what is by-and-large a minority opinion.Is a functional crossbow going to somehow bottom out P2e’s sales? Is this truly the straw that breaks the camels back?
Or will they just make a good system and be done with it, with the state of crossbows being almost entirely non-impactful on the system’s value as a whole? I’m hoping for the latter, since such an assumption suggests a saner course of action. If crossbows get fixed along the way, that would be nice.
Also, have you not seen the goblin thread? They’re taking some pretty big changes in P2e. And from the reaction I doubt they really have an interest in pandering to grognards still obsessed with what was done in previous editions, not when they’re making a classic enemy into a playable hero. You might just be pleasantly surprised, Darksol.
If the crossbows are better than normal bows, I'd suspect it'd be a significant reduction in future sales, since people still want to be Legolas, or may now want to be Green Arrow, but won't because they're bad now.
Of course, as you say, they can just do nothing and stick with the more profitable option, which it is.
As for the goblins thing, that's a whole other issue that depends on how they handle the change (or perhaps the lack thereof) in Goblins from PF1 to PF2. In other words, the Return of the Runelords is key to this hot button topic.
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Beyond weapon stats and messing with action economy, I think a series of crossbow-only feats focusing on singular accurate and powerful attacks might give the crossbow a niche as the slow but hard-hitting weapon it should be.
Though I realize this might be hard to actually do in a meaningful manner, I've always wanted a ranged combat style that isn't based on increasing rate of fire. Being able to actually do that beyond building around Vital Strike would be neat!
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In PF1e crossbows aren't as good as composite bows because of loading times reducing rate of fire and crossbows not receiving strength contribution to damage.
In PF2e, crossbows already have a bit of a leg up.
1. More attacks per round become less accurate, so putting a bit more damage in one attack is proportionally more valuable.
2. Magic weapons are supposed to grant bonus damage dice, rather than flat increases, which helps weapons with larger dice.
3. Three actions per round lets crossbow users plan out their reloading scheme across rounds. Ex. (Fire - Move - Load) (Load - Fire - Load)...
4. Haste granting an action rather than another attack would allow crossbow users to increase their rate of fire by doing a load action with Haste, rather than losing out altogether.
I still think crossbows are likely to fall behind, but buffs probably don't need to be incredibly drastic. Some flavorful concepts that could give crossbows a further leg up might include:
1. Double down on slow rate of fire and make them sniping weapons, allowing you to deal extra damage if you use two actions to fire.
2. Have a critical effect that knocks off one of the enemy's actions, like a mini stun. This helps balance the battle's action economy a bit.
3. Provide bonus on overcoming damage reduction or shields, to make them feel like they have a wallup.
Overall, I'm okay with crossbows being Simple weapons that aren't quite as good as bows. I like the idea of weaklings being able to use them out of necessity during a siege or something, and paladins using a big one to start off a fight before drawing steel.
Making a character who focuses on crossbows should feel different from a normal archer, though. I don't want to see rapid fire crossbows, or essentially reskinned bows.
I really, sincerely, deeply doubt Haste gives an extra action. That massively favors casters by doubling the number of normal spells they can cast in a round, allowing metamagic on the strongest spells (something that is available in limited form as a Cleric capstone), and allowing a chain-casting universalist Wizard to move during their chain of free spells.
I really, sincerely, deeply doubt Haste gives an extra action. That massively favors casters by doubling the number of normal spells they can cast in a round, allowing metamagic on the strongest spells (something that is available in limited form as a Cleric capstone), and allowing a chain-casting universalist Wizard to move during their chain of free spells.
You're probably right, but I'm still sort of hoping Haste gets simplified down into something similar to a straight +1 action buff. I guess we'll see what they do with it.
I really, sincerely, deeply doubt Haste gives an extra action. That massively favors casters by doubling the number of normal spells they can cast in a round, allowing metamagic on the strongest spells (something that is available in limited form as a Cleric capstone), and allowing a chain-casting universalist Wizard to move during their chain of free spells.You're probably right, but I'm still sort of hoping Haste gets simplified down into something similar to a straight +1 action buff. I guess we'll see what they do with it.
I think there was mention of improving iterative penalties?