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Hey Mark, I don't know if you're allowed to answer but, are crossbows any better in the final product. I love crossbows conceptually but in practice even the classes with bonuses towards using them are seem better off just using bows.Well for one, as this exchange illustrates, it makes bows much more powerful than other ranged weapons.I had the exact same idea, how has it gone for you? I was worried it would be to unbalanced.I suppose it is close when you put it that way, I keep forgetting Shortbows aren't Agile because in my houserules I drop Volley from Longbows and give Agile to Shortbows.Shuriken is a martial weapon albeit an uncommon one and being agile, thrown, and one handed it is competitive with the shortbow.Grumble, grumble, grumble... Stupid playtest pdf. They have uncommon ranged after exotic melee so when I saw exotic I though everything after that was exotic too. :(
That does make it pretty close then.
We have tried to make simple weapons a certain amount worse than martial weapons and to make weapons roughly competitive with others in their category. We believe bows should be just about the right amount better than crossbows given bows are martial and crossbows are simple. If that's true and we did so correctly, it should mean that a Dex-based champion of Abadar using Abadar's favored weapon (crossbow, which gets a bonus die increase and does 1d10) is able to keep up with one that decided on shortbow instead (1d6).
We have tried to make simple weapons a certain amount worse than martial weapons and to make weapons roughly competitive with others in their category. We believe bows should be just about the right amount better than crossbows given bows are martial and crossbows are simple. If that's true and we did so correctly, it should mean that a Dex-based champion of Abadar using Abadar's favored weapon (crossbow, which gets a bonus die increase and does 1d10) is able to keep up with one that decided on shortbow instead (1d6).
So would you say in your opinion that a ranger with Crossbow Ace using a Crossbow be competitive with a shortbow ranger? Also do think its worth it to use the heavy crossbow as a main weapon or more of a one shot and drop weapon?
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We have tried to make simple weapons a certain amount worse than martial weapons and to make weapons roughly competitive with others in their category. We believe bows should be just about the right amount better than crossbows given bows are martial and crossbows are simple. If that's true and we did so correctly, it should mean that a Dex-based champion of Abadar using Abadar's favored weapon (crossbow, which gets a bonus die increase and does 1d10) is able to keep up with one that decided on shortbow instead (1d6).So would you say in your opinion that a ranger with Crossbow Ace using a Crossbow be competitive with a shortbow ranger? Also do think its worth it to use the heavy crossbow as a main weapon or more of a one shot and drop weapon?
Heavy crossbow with Crossbow Ace and Precision Hunter's Edge can hit like a truck once per round, typically harder than a greatsword fighter's hit (ranging from close at low levels to much harder at high levels) at a significant range. When combined with Running Reload, you can also move a lot and even sneak, making you incredibly tricky to pin down, especially if you crit and they have to remove the bolt from the specialization effect (assuming they live through the crit, I guess). If your group makeup or the campaign is conducive to that style, you're going to have a lot of fun (you might even be able to use snares more often with all that movement, leading enemies into snares you set a ways back) and as you say, you can always drop it and switch if you want, but if everyone is mostly rushing into melee with other melee and standing still, turret archer with flurry hunter's edge and shortbow with lots of smaller attacks could have the advantage.
Think of it this way: You might be doing 3d12+8+2d8 precision+1d6 elemental rune = 40 or something on a hit while the shortbow user is doing 3d6+6+1d6 elemental rune or 20 per hit unless they invested in Strength. They will need two hits to equal your one hit. They can probably do it if they sit still and shoot, and they might even hit more than twice, but you got to move and sneak a lot, and your damage is concentrated in the attack with the highest chance to crit (even higher if they're flat-footed since you were Sneaking).
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Just realized I got way off topic but I was so excited to get to ask you some questions. Thank you so much for you time Sir also I need to thank you from my entire gaming group for fighting for the Champions of all alignments as my group loves the concept so much that I had to homebrew the concept when we played D&D and PF1