The crux of my question is, can I use Quick Draw with reload 1 weapons to reload the weapon and also fire it in the same action?
QUICK DRAW FEAT 2
You Interact to draw a weapon, then Strike with the weapon you just drew.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing saying that Ammunition is not a weapon, and it's listed in the weapon section on the weapon table. We use the standard Interact action to draw and reload weapons. However, technically we're not Striking with the weapon 'we just drew' (the bolt or bullet), but rather with the sling or crossbow the ammunition went into.
I could see it go either way, just figured I'd ask before I made my Sling Staff halfling.
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Drawing is not loading. Even if the ammunition counts as a weapon, as shuriken do in PF1, drawing it won't load it into the projectile weapon.
Since this is a playtest, the next obvious question is whether Quick Draw should be reworded to allow quick loading, too. And I think the answer is no. Reloading would be done repeatedly, but drawing is essentially once per combat, except for thrown weapons. A Quick Reload would be a stronger feat than Quick Draw, so it should not be tacked onto Quick Draw as an afterthought.
However, you could argue that you can store a crossbow or sling loaded, so instead of reloading your first sling staff, you could drop it and Quick Draw a second loaded sling staff.
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Drawing is not loading. Even if the ammunition counts as a weapon, as shuriken do in PF1, drawing it won't load it into the projectile weapon.
Since this is a playtest, the next obvious question is whether Quick Draw should be reworded to allow quick loading, too. And I think the answer is no. Reloading would be done repeatedly, but drawing is essentially once per combat, except for thrown weapons. A Quick Reload would be a stronger feat than Quick Draw, so it should not be tacked onto Quick Draw as an afterthought.
However, you could argue that you can store a crossbow or sling loaded, so instead of reloading your first sling staff, you could drop it and Quick Draw a second loaded sling staff.
Unless you can't stow a loaded weapon, yeah, I don't see a reason I couldn't stash multiple slings/crossbows and simply drop them after I use them.
Seems pretty lame that even among the few ranged feats there are, most of them don't apply to weapons with reload 1.
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Since this is a playtest, the next obvious question is whether Quick Draw should be reworded to allow quick loading, too. And I think the answer is no. Reloading would be done repeatedly, but drawing is essentially once per combat, except for thrown weapons. A Quick Reload would be a stronger feat than Quick Draw, so it should not be tacked onto Quick Draw as an afterthought.
I actually disagree. No one takes Quick Draw except for people who rely on thrown weapons. And for those people, Quick Draw basically IS exactly the same as Rapid Reload. It reduces a tax of 1 action (drawing) before you can Strike to 0, and it applies multiple times per round, every round. This is fundamentally the very same thing as what Rapid Reload does.
I don't see any reason the feat shouldn't be worded to do both.
Since this is a playtest, the next obvious question is whether Quick Draw should be reworded to allow quick loading, too. And I think the answer is no. Reloading would be done repeatedly, but drawing is essentially once per combat, except for thrown weapons. A Quick Reload would be a stronger feat than Quick Draw, so it should not be tacked onto Quick Draw as an afterthought.I actually disagree. No one takes Quick Draw except for people who rely on thrown weapons. And for those people, Quick Draw basically IS exactly the same as Rapid Reload. It reduces a tax of 1 action (drawing) before you can Strike to 0, and it applies multiple times per round, every round. This is fundamentally the very same thing as what Rapid Reload does.
I don't see any reason the feat shouldn't be worded to do both.
The two Quick Draw characters I have seen were different. Perhaps that is why I view the feat differently.
In a Serpent's Skull campaign a barbarian had Quick Draw. She had two weapons: claws from her Lesser Beast Totem rage power and a lucerne hammer for reach. She wanted to be able to draw the hammer while charging or in the middle of combat while still making her full attack. In my Iron Gods campaign a fighter carried a variety of weapons made of different materials with different damage types. He thought that he should draw the right weapon for the job once he figured out the weakness of his opponent.
Also note that in PF1 Quick Draw and Rapid Reload are two separate feats. And that PF2 Quick Draw functioning as Rapid Reload would make every Reload and Strike combination a single action, even the 2-action reloading of a heavy crossbow.
I attempted to port over the gunslinger from 1e in this thread and found myself considering the reload interaction a lot because of the gunslinger's nature.
In our group's playtest our rogue uses quick draw with his hand crossbow so long as its loaded. Nothing prevents it from being so RAW I believe.
To Ops point, there are some pretty interesting things you can do with reloads because a reload weapon takes more actions, and can be balanced against the hindrance of the reload. By default reload weapons should have extra options as far as actions go but I'd guess that's coming as part of the full CRB.
I think there is something to be said about what you could do with "action chaining" in 2e where feats can either reduce the actions required for a type of action or allow you to have actions that give you the ability to attempt other actions for free as part of another action.
There's some precedence for this in the current rulebook and I tried to expand on that for the gunslinger stuff. I look forward to seeing more clever ways to chain together abilities in this new action economy.
What about a loaded bow? Can I nock the arrow and pull the string, then put the bow on my back? Then, when I need it, I can quick draw the pre-loaded bow and fire it, right?
Should work with slings too. Just pre-load them and quick draw when needed. You could probably have a dozen pre-loaded slings dangling from your belt.
Of course those don't work.
Neither does pre-loading a crossbow. It's not a gun. Bullets stay in your gun while it's holstered but crossbows don't work that way. The bolt just falls off.
Some historical inventor created a retaining spring to hold the bolt gently in place. Not tightly in place; holding it tightly will greatly decrease the firing range and accuracy and you'd almost never hit anything you shoot at. This gentle spring lets you wave the crossbow around a bit without the bolt falling off, as well as firing up or down at a steep angle.
But loading a crossbow and then letting it dangle from your belt while you wander around adventuring would never work; the bolt would still fall out of the gentle retainer spring. Actually, even if it stayed in the retainer but just slipped away from the string maybe even a half inch, that would lead do disaster when you fire it as the string would demolish the bolt rather than launch it. Splinters everywhere, maybe even in your face.
If that's too much realism in a FRPG, I get it. Do what you want. Have a merchant that sells hollow crossbows that house little loading pixies that fly out and load your crossbow while all you have to do is point and shoot. It's fantasy, do what you want.
But if you want verisimilitude, you need to load your crossbow at the time you fire it, not before. So, create a feat like Rapid Reload (better yet, hopefully the developers will so it can be CRB2 RAW).
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What about a loaded bow? Can I nock the arrow and pull the string, then put the bow on my back? Then, when I need it, I can quick draw the pre-loaded bow and fire it, right?
Should work with slings too. Just pre-load them and quick draw when needed. You could probably have a dozen pre-loaded slings dangling from your belt.
Of course those don't work.
The rules have the concept of reloading a projectile weapon and of a loaded weapon, but it lacks any mention of loading the weapon the first time. I checked by searching on the word "load." As far as I can tell, in the rules as written, a bow can be carried loaded, ready to shoot, just like a crossbow can be carried loaded. That would allow an attack of opportunity with a bow via the 8th-level fighter feat Slippery Shooter. As a GM, I would allow carrying a bow loaded for Slippery Shooter, but it would take both hands.
A single sentence could clarifiy that a bow, crossbow, sling, or blowgun cannot be stowed in loaded condition, but the rulebook lacks that sentence.
reload 0 says: This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. So reloading is drawing amunition. I would rule that quick draw does allow you to reload and attack with a reload 1 weapon, you would still need to have it in hand and a reload 2 would requir you to interact with it once before.
By that logic, reloading is also firing the weapon, so you could reload on a Strike.
However, I have changed my mind since my October 20 post, above. I still believe that the October post reflects the playtest rules as written, but I will override them via a houserule.
Reload
Ranged weapons indicate how many Interact actions it
takes to reload them. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition
and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an
item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines
whether you can spend those actions out of sequence or if
they must be performed together as an activity.An item with an entry of “—” must be drawn to be
thrown, which usually takes an Interact action just like
drawing any other weapon. Reloading and drawing
a thrown weapon both require a free hand. When you
spend the last action required to reload a weapon you’re
holding, as part of that action, you can place your hands
in the grip necessary to wield the weapon normally.
QUICK DRAW FEAT 2
You draw a weapon with the Interact action, then Strike with the weapon
you just drew.
I have grown annoyed with Pathfinder 2nd Edition requiring Interact actions so often. Thus, I am planning to houserule that a single Interact action allows multiple Interactions. The Reload rules already allow changing a grip as part of the Interact action to reload. By my houserules, Quick Draw's Interact action to draw a crossbow bolt would also count as one of the Interact actions to load the bolt.
And Quick Draw does need to be rewritten, because it does not allow a changing a grip before the Strike, since that is not drawing a weapon if the weapon was already in hand.