This is a speculative proposal for what a repeating crossbow would look like in terms of game mechanics/rules/features. This should be an uncontroversial proposal, but given the nature of forums I'm sure there will be at least one dissenter. The statistics were created by mirroring the PF1e rules as closely as possible through the interpretative lends of PF2e. From a simulations perspective, the proficiency required to wield a repeating crossbow should not be different from a standard crossbow. Rather, the Repeating Crossbow ought to be significantly more expensive to represent the more intricate work necessary to create one. However, this is not a valid consideration as without some sort of relevant cost, (which gold rarely is for non-magical equipment), there is no reason one would ever use a standard crossbow over a repeating version. Thus, the requirement that a feat be used balances the benefit of the improved weapon.
Repeating Crossbow, Light
Category: Advanced
Price: 21gp
Level: -
Damage: 1d8 P
Range: 120ft
Reload: 3
Bulk: 2
Hands: 2
Group: Bow
Traits: Magazine
- The price was determined by referencing the cost of PF1e Crosssbow and Repeating Crossbow vs. PF2e Crossbow: (250 x 3)/35 = (PF1 Repeating Crossbow x PF2e Crossbow)/PF1 Crossbow.
- The reload was determined by referencing the PF1e Repeating Crossbow. 1 Full-Round Action is (virtually) equivalent to 3 Interact actions
- The magazine trait should be self explanatory for anyone who has played 3.5 or PF1e, but for those who haven't: The weapon has a reload of 0 as long as there are bolts in the magazine case, which holds 5 bolts. Reloading the magazine case requires 3 Interact actions.
I mean, you already run into that issue when you compare Standard Bows versus Composite Bows; there's no reason for someone to not have a Composite Bow even if they don't have a positive strength score (it would be worse for them if they had a negative one, but that's beside the point).
As for the proficiency thing, I disagree. A cartridge/magazine is a lot more different to use compared to just slotting a bolt into the slide. Compare loading a rocket launcher, cannon, or even a revolver which uses individual bullets compared to a cartridge-type weapon like an assault rifle or a semi-automatic handgun. Different techniques requiring different kinds of training. This difference can even spread between the different ages of weapons, such as comparing a rifle from the 1800's, 1900's, and 2000's.
I'd say it would be perfectly fine as a Simple or even Martial weapon, but tack on the Uncommon (or even Rare) trait to it, as finding them would be quite an advance in technology that not all campaigns or regions would be privy to.
...as finding them would be quite an advance in technology that not all campaigns or regions would be privy to.
Repeating crossbows have existed in our world for almost 2000 years, well before the medieval or early modern periods.
I'd follow the way they did with the Alchemical Crossbow: "Creatures use their crossbow proficiency when using the alchemical crossbow" even though you "you can load a single lesser alchemical bomb into the bracket". It doesn't seem any more complicate than a repeating crossbow.
So basically, just change the rarity [and maybe range] and be done with it...
Repeating Hand Crossbow
Category: Simple [uncommon]
Price: 25gp [based off alchemical crossbow]
Level: 0
Damage: 1d6 P
Range: 40ft
Reload: 0
Bulk: 1
Hands: 2
Group: Bow
Traits: Magazine [3 interacts to replace {1 to remove old mag, 1 to draw maf, one to load mag}]
Repeating Hand Crossbow
Category: Simple [uncommon]
Price: 25gp [based off alchemical crossbow]
Level: 0
Damage: 1d8 P
Range: 80ft
Reload: 0
Bulk: 1
Hands: 2
Group: Bow
Traits: Magazine [3 interacts to replace {1 to remove old mag, 1 to draw maf, one to load mag}]
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Category: Simple [uncommon]
Price: 25gp [based off alchemical crossbow]
Level: 0
Damage: 1d10 P
Range: 80ft
Reload: 1 [still takes an action do to the draw weight]
Bulk: 2
Hands: 2
Group: Bow
Traits: Magazine [3 interacts to replace {1 to remove old mag, 1 to draw maf, one to load mag}]
...as finding them would be quite an advance in technology that not all campaigns or regions would be privy to.Repeating crossbows have existed in our world for almost 2000 years, well before the medieval or early modern periods.
The hand held version was so weak, it had to have poison on it to be effective plus it had a pitiful range. : "The Zhuge Nu is a handy little weapon that even the Confucian scholar or palace women can use in self-defence... It fires weakly so you have to tip the darts with poison. Once the darts are tipped with "tiger-killing poison", you can shoot it at a horse or a man and as long as you draw blood, your adversary will die immediately. The draw-back to the weapon is its very limited range." Imperial Encyclopaedia year 1725
EDIT: flagged to move this to homebrew section, as this isn't a rules question/debate.
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(Obviously this belongs in homebrew; flagged. But it's an interesting proposal.)
For balance, I don't think making it uncommon/rare is enough. Those tags are supposed to be for things that are special, not to gatekeep more powerful options.
Reducing the range as graystone proposes could work. It's got an interesting interaction with needing a full turn to reload.
We also need to look at who would use it, and whether it would be balanced for those cases. I'm seeing three main groups of users:
1) Rogues, who want to sneak attack at range. Normally rogues are proficient in shortbows but not longbows, so this improves their damage die from 1d6 to 1d8.
2) Rangers, who currently are kinda locked into bows if they want to use Hunted Shot and if they want to profit from Flurry/Precision edges. Longbows are problematic due to Volley, the repeating crossbow doesn't have that problem and has the same damage die.
3) Classes not trained in bows, such as wizards, sorcerers and clerics. For them it could be interesting because a 1-action strike can be combined with a cantrip without the attack trait, so it gives them one safe strike at a distance.
Considering all this, I do think it's a strong weapon. Not so strong that I'd forbid it, but it should cost something.
Including a cost is appropriate. However, unless you are also using some supporting houserules, I would not use Advanced Weapon proficiency as the cost, because only the Ancestry-based weapon proficiency feats work properly past the early levels, as general feat-based proficiency never increases (which is still a shocking design oversight).
I would make it simple, magazine and reduce the damage and range. (Repeating crossbows sucked traditionally and used poisons on thr bolts to have any real effect)
Just because those repeating crossbows were weak, it does not imply that a more powerful one could not be built. They may just have not wanted to, because they wanted a weapon specially for non-combatants. China refused to arm itself with cannon for a long time until the British attacked, a concrete example of doctorine over effectiveness.
They DID make more powerful ones and those where placed on wagons, ships or walls because they where too big for people to carry/fire without being attached to something. So they VERY much would have used a better version if one was possible. The flaw of the weapon is that it's draw is inherently weaker so it does less damage, has less range and the rocking action did not allow for precise firing. That's just what happen as a result of the way it built.
The Koreans build an improved version that uses a composite recurve prod, fletched arrows and a much longer tiller making it a much larger but slower weapon. For me it'd match the Repeating Heavy Crossbow I listed above, still taking an action to load. It's a give and take between speed and power.
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The repeating crossbow was a peasant weapon and could be made locally in villages to a traditional (hereditary-passed down) design. There was a time when essentially every household had one. A weapon like that will be simple on purpose. Even if they could build better ones for the army, the peasants would carry on using theirs out of convenience and tradition and their local crafters know the design already. Chinese militia used them as late the the 1900s in the Boxer War. It's a useful weapon for street fighting ranges, and easy for a militia to obtain or build.Just because those repeating crossbows were weak, it does not imply that a more powerful one could not be built. They may just have not wanted to, because they wanted a weapon specially for non-combatants. China refused to arm itself with cannon for a long time until the British attacked, a concrete example of doctorine over effectiveness.They DID make more powerful ones and those where placed on wagons, ships or walls because they where too big for people to carry/fire without being attached to something. So they VERY much would have used a better version if one was possible.
The Nu Gong was the only repeater uncommonly used in military service. The Lian Fa Nu requires a complex metal trigger mechanism making it too expensive for civilian home defence. Now the Chu-Ko-Nu had a rugged design that does not require any metal parts but it's rugged reliability over pure performance makes it ineffective as battlefield weapon: this is the kind you'd see peasants use. The fletchless bolts didn't do it any favors in accuracy either.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with a "more powerful" repeater though.
For balance, I don't think making it uncommon/rare is enough. Those tags are supposed to be for things that are special, not to gatekeep more powerful options.
I don't see why uncommon/rare can't also be used to gatekeep more powerful options.
To me, they act as a flag for the GM to check when it's appropriate for a player to select an option.
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For balance, I don't think making it uncommon/rare is enough. Those tags are supposed to be for things that are special, not to gatekeep more powerful options.
I don't see why uncommon/rare can't also be used to gatekeep more powerful options.
To me, they act as a flag for the GM to check when it's appropriate for a player to select an option.
Well you could in a homebrew situation. I mean, you can do anything.
But when you look at how Paizo uses those tags, there's a couple of different use cases:
- This options belongs to a particular ethnicity/country/organization/religion/ancestry. It's just unusual to find it elsewhere, and therefore it's uncommon.
- This option is only available through certain feats or class choices. You'll notice that all of the domain focus spells, bloodline focus spells, school focus spells etcetera have the uncommon tag. Having that domain/bloodline/school gives you access, and it's actually the only thing that can give you that spell. So this uncommon tag is a bit different from the previous one.
- There just aren't that many of this thing around. A certain magic item might be rare. You can't buy it or craft it, or even know which country to go to in order to get access. Finding it is a *rare* treasure. This is basically intended as a game design so that the GM can put in some rewards that the players couldn't have just bought.
- The option might be disruptive to certain plots, like teleporting can be disruptive to a travel-based plot or detect alignment could be to a detective plot. It's not like they're numerically more powerful than common options, but they allow the PCs to do things that the GM may find problematic.
So based on those ways that Paizo uses uncommon/rare options, I don't think making the stronger weapon uncommon is the solution.
Now, for weapons specifically, they do use uncommon weapons as a bit of a power barrier, but actually the barrier is that they make you pay a feat to gain access. For example, dogslicers are pretty neat weapons, but to gain them you're spending 1-3 feats on your goblin weapon skills.
Translation seems off. Gong nu is probably heavy crossbow not repeating.
No, it's a Chinese repeater. Nǔ gōng, means needlework and in this case it's a weapon that fires a lot of 'needles' so a play on words if you will.
Assuming a context of crossbows, #2 is an early example, name means double repeating crossbow, that would be firing 2 bolts at once hence the weaker power (same force double mass) and complex mechanism. I don’t think it was commonly used because #3 was widespread.
The Lian Fa Nu was expensive, prone to jamming, and weak even by repeating crossbow standard but it had a 20 bolt clip and fired 2 bolts at once so it sprayed a LOT of arrows out and with poison, power doesn't matter as much as volume.
relevant because we should not feel we have to limit the power of the repeating crossbow to the historical Chinese weapon (but we can if we want to) because that weapon was deliberately made dumb for peasants to use and build.
NONE of the PF crossbows seem built off of Chinese versions IMO. They are closer to Korean 'wall' crossbows used on ships and such as attached weapons. Even, the reload action is entirely different, and not really practical. [see ranged tactics toolbox pg#17 for image].
I read nǔ gōng as heavy crossbow from the translation.
I was called a Zhu Ge Nu in the Ming Dynasty, but in the Qing period it was just called nu gong as it was the only crossbow used in the military at the time. There were minor differences between the periods, but if you want to call it Zhu Ge Nu instead, go for it.
Are you using a font that doesn't show the tonal markings?
A quick translation online gave me that: If it's in error, sorry.
I really like the crossbows that graystone put together, but I feel like instead of balancing off the uncommon tag they should just be martial weapons.
In particular, the light repeating crossbow is very close to a longbow, trading volley and deadly for magazine. It seems too strong for a simple weapon, but too weak for a martial one. Bumping them up to martial would open up a little more room for power. For instance a reload 0 repeating heavy crossbow matches the longbow nicely, magazine for volley and a larger die for deadly.
Another potential option that's close is to have a number associated with magazine, just like reload.
Magazine 1 (1 action to load 5 rounds),
Magazine 2 (2 actions to load 5 rounds),
Magazine 3 (3 for 5)
Bigger crossbows require more work to load. This gives a bit more variance as well. A reload 0, Magazine 3 repeating heavy crossbow matches longbow nicely. A Magazine 1 light crossbow seems a fair trade to the short bow at a glance, a bigger die size but no deadly, and a fairly small magazine cost.
On cool ancient repeating crossbows, the Greek Polybolos, while technically a siege weapon, was reportedly carried into battle.