Do crossbows in Pathfinder 2e fill a similar role as in Pathfinder 1e? I have read that the ranger can make something out of their use (running reload), but I cannot find anything else too compelling.
Crossbows have a reload of 1 or 2 and slightly higher damage die than bows. What sets them apart from other ranged weapons? Why would anyone pick one up?
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Yeah, they kinda fulfill the same niche: they're the "point and click" ranged weapon available to not-so-martial classes, and some specialists can get more out of them.
Wizards, sorcerers, cloistered clerics etc. don't get a lot of choice when it comes to ranged weapons. They don't usually have proficiency in bows. You could spend (ancestry) feats to pick that up, but if you don't want to, there's the crossbow. However, offensive cantrips are better in PF2 so wizards won't be reaching for the crossbow so much anymore (hello Telekinetic Projectile!). For a cleric it can be an option though, because their standard choice of cantrips is holy lance (only works against some alignments), disrupt undead (only good against undead) and daze (rather low damage, doesn't work on mindless creatures, and some creatures are immune to nonlethal damage).
For rangers, you'll always be looking to see which of the ranger edges a weapon would work with. Crossbows work okay with Precision (1d8 extra damage on the first strike that hits per round - not that that works even if that strike hits multiple enemies with Penetrating Shot).
Ranger feats that go well with crossbows are Crossbow Ace, Hunter's Aim, Running Reload, Skirmish Strike, and the combo of Penetrating Shot/Double Prey.
Your fighting style would be basically walking around the fight using Running Reload, and either doing pinpoint attacks with Hunter's Aim or trying to line up two enemies at a time with Penetrating Shot. Basically, compared to bows, crossbows are the "one big hit per round" school of thinking.
Folks have been trying to do DPR calculations and coming up with all sorts of numbers, most of them different from one another. The consensus seems to be that crossbows are a bit behind bows in damage, but not enormously much. Under some circumstances the difference becomes smaller: there's the alchemical crossbow which adds extra damage, and I think in the case of higher AC enemies, the bows don't get as much value out of their extra attacks at lower to-hit.
So overall, if taking a few shots with a shotgun sounds more appealing than shooting a lot of times with a revolver sounds like an interesting style to you, crossbows may be the thing.
Clerics w/ Favored Weapon Crossbow can be mediocre+ instead of just mediocre (w/ weapons that is), so yep, Ranger's the crossbow user for now, though another class w/ MCD Ranger can get the main benefits (albeit perhaps too costly).
The reload 1 (reload 2 is simply not feasible unless you're firing only once) is a hurdle, yet Running Reload mitigates that often. That w/ Crossbow Ace, Penetrating Shot, and (maybe) Perfect Shot become your core feats. This leaves a lot of room for an MCD, cool senses, Warden's Boon (which is a great gift to a warrior ally w/ Double Prey & Shared Prey) and so forth. Only needing 10 Str is a bonus, freeing up stats to have even more breadth than non-Rogue martials.
Is it worth it?
A number-cruncher determined a Precision Ranger w/ crossbow is competitive w/ an archer (w/ Flurry or Precision + 14 Str), especially when limited to one shot or forced to move around. At higher levels, when opportunity attacks (or variations) cover large areas and party scattering is commonplace, you'll often be moving so lose little by reloading then (and will have Penetrating Shot too, which tilts damage numbers even more your way).
Note though that some forum folk argue that ranged combatants are inferior, especially with so many battles being in enclosed spaces. And a crossbow doesn't synergize with Haste as well as a Flurry archer, if that's a party thing (which at 14th plus, often will be).
If combat's your primary shtick, then I'd have to agree that melee contributes (and risks!) more, yet also needs more investment.
(And pets die fast, so beware investing there.)
Good luck
I have a Ranger build in my pocket to test out Crossbow Ace in practice actually. Adding in the Rogue Archetype for mobility and picking up Sneak in later levels to try to help out with Crossbow damage. In theory the build will be pretty sweet once up and running. Just need to actually run the darn thing.
I had a Ranger in my Fall of Plaguestone game who went the crossbow route with precision damage. It's not very action efficient or dynamic until you get Running Reload, so until then the character's turns seemed more like a caster than a martial. Unfortunately, that player had some pretty bad luck with rolls, and with lower volume of fire there weren't many turns where he could shoot more than once to make up for that.
But when he hit (and especially when he crit) things tended to go down pretty fast. Hopefully there's some more crossbow support forthcoming.
I have a Ranger build in my pocket to test out Crossbow Ace in practice actually. Adding in the Rogue Archetype for mobility and picking up Sneak in later levels to try to help out with Crossbow damage. In theory the build will be pretty sweet once up and running. Just need to actually run the darn thing.
I was thinking too that Mobility would be optimal, especially when moving away from enemies w/ AoOs. The most powerful can disrupt your action, which could stop your reloading too!
And the Rogue MCD can swiftly open up some high level skill feats.
And a crossbow doesn't synergize with Haste as well as a Flurry archer, if that's a party thing (which at 14th plus, often will be).
Seems kind of a mixed bag IMHO. You CAN attack alot with normal bows, but Haste doesn't get rid of MAP and bows aren't even agile. While an extra attack action allows crossbow to attack/reload/attack/reload. I'm not sure Haste is so much better for archer, and many times they will probably end up using it to Stride. (as may a crossbowman, with reload on subsequent round possible, still allowing 2 attacks/round after Stride on 1st) If anything that seems more beneficial for crossbows but YMMV.
Flurry rangers are different dynamic, but they also get precision edge as well as feats to make crossbow usage extra viable, so again it's not clear cut.
Crossbow also allows neglecting STR more, which can help other build important stats. If you really go heavy into STR with composite bows that is gret damage wise, but for those who that isn't option for (or have other priorities), they are penalized further on damage if they want to actually dump STR. Outwit and/or Monster Hunter especially have inclination to use other stats, that deprioritizing STR might facilitate. Cleric is probably especially apt for this as you discussed (considering WIS + CHA usages for them along with evergreen favorite CON).
Overall, I see people looking at it primarily from lens of "full weapon combat". IMHO, it actually seems good for casters who might only want to make one weapon attack thru-out a combat, having other things they want to do e.g. Striding, Metamagic, 1-action spells and skill actions atop 2-action spells. As competitive 3rd action it's not necessarily in "spam" territory, and if so the reload factor is not very impactful.
Although one thing I rarely see anybody note is the difference in wielding: Bows are 1+ Hands meaning one hand is free whenever not immediately firing an arrow, but crossbows (besides hand crossbows) need 2 hands to wield. Meaning, as normal you can freely drop a hand to do something else with it, but it takes 1 action to regrip before attacking. Sorcerors get around that with their super-eschew not needing free hand for material components (eschew feat itself for wizards doesn't, since it explicitly still needs free hand), but that is something that impedes other casters using crossbows and material component spells (which are honestly are very few, but it's something to look out for).
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You can reload and a regrip a crossbow as the same action, BTW. After all, you need to take a hand off to retrieve a bolt.
You can reload and a regrip a crossbow as the same action, BTW. After all, you need to take a hand off to retrieve a bolt.
Hmm. My gut reaction was to disagree here. But then re-reading "Reload" does support that. That is not an angle I had thought of. Neat.
Sure, no explicit regrip is needed for reloading, I just mentioned that in context of using free hand for unrelated actions (like material component spells). Although as you can effectively regrip for free as part of reload, perhaps a good tactic to exploit might be firing 1st before casting material component spell, since then the regrip you would need anyways (after casting material spell) is free with reload (which you need anyways after firing). And of course that can be done via Running Reload.
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Yup. You just need to time your other Interact actions to be before your bow is loaded again. Which can still be disruptive, I'll admit, if you need to run to someone and feed them a potion or something, but a crossbow user gets better mileage out of such things than a two handed weapon user.
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So overall, if taking a few shots with a shotgun sounds more appealing than shooting a lot of times with a revolver sounds like an interesting style to you, crossbows may be the thing.
The fighting style can be summarized as "do you remember bunny hopping in quake?"
...which is an apt comparison, since the forced built in movement helps you defensively since it is harder to pin you down.
Sort of off topic, but is there some benefit of Eschew Materials (Wizard) I am not seeing? It just doesn't seem worthwhile, since it doesn't change hand usage (unlike material-free Sorceror casting which I call 'super eschew'), and still counts as manipulate. Plausibly it could reduce recognizability, but AFAIK the rules don't support that at all...??? Really, I'm not sure why they didn't just have it work like Sorceror ('super eschew' not needing free hand at all), is it that important for Wizards to have harder trade than Sorcerors for 2H weapons vs material spells? (which are few anyways) It'd be at cost of a Feat anyways, so doubly weird IMHO. What Wizards are happily spending a Feat on weak-sauce Eschew? AFAIK it's usage boils down to "you are imprisoned / your gear is stolen" scenarios (for which there is also Feats to retain spell preppability without spellbook). But on it's own it still doesn't do much even then (without spellbook). What am I missing?
Sort of off topic, but is there some benefit of Eschew Materials (Wizard) I am not seeing? It just doesn't seem worthwhile, since it doesn't change hand usage (unlike material-free Sorceror casting which I call 'super eschew'), and still counts as manipulate. Plausibly it could reduce recognizability, but AFAIK the rules don't support that at all...??? Really, I'm not sure why they didn't just have it work like Sorceror ('super eschew' not needing free hand at all), is it that important for Wizards to have harder trade than Sorcerors for 2H weapons vs material spells? (which are few anyways) It'd be at cost of a Feat anyways, so doubly weird IMHO. What Wizards are happily spending a Feat on weak-sauce Eschew? AFAIK it's usage boils down to "you are imprisoned and all your gear is taken" scenarios (for which there is also Feats to retain spell preppability without spellbook). But on it's own it still doesn't do much even then (without spellbook). What am I missing?
I don't think you are missing anything. The feat basically boils down to saving you 5sp at character creation. At least that's what I can glean from it.
I don't think you are missing anything. The feat basically boils down to saving you 5sp at character creation. At least that's what I can glean from it.
I am sure there are other uses. Like monstrous creatures or hardcore worshipers of Arshea. Y'know- people that don't have pockets or belts to attach pouches onto.
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Are you certain that the Manipulate Trait is applied to Eschew Materials for Wizard?
I'm not seeing ANYTHING that indicates that's true at all, it simply notes that you don't need to use Material Components which is specifically where the Manipulate Trait is included. The replacement air-drawn sigils and runes or whatever that are noted on the Feat mention nothing at all about them having the Manipulate Trait and as far as I understand those replacement rules completely override everything normally involved with the Material Component and it's associate Traits.
This probably needs a new thread...
If Eschew's "drawing sigils in the air" isn't actually Somatic and therefore doesn't have Manipulate trait then that is better (for feat value), but I would think that would be worth calling out equally to how it is worse (more constrained) than normal Somatic... after all why point out how it is more constrained than normal Somatic if it was never intended to imply being like Somatic in first place?
To posit this isn't Somatic at all means... you can do them regardless of normal restrictions vs Somatic, i.e. being restrained or paralyzed, despite that conflicting with fluff of "drawing sigils in the air"? That would be BETTER than Sorceror "super-eschew" in this regard (while still needing free hand, despite not caring about restrained/paralyzed).
I guess I am not satisfied with RAW there, and that probably does deserve discrete attention. In a way, I feel this increases chances this wording is just mistaken artifact of editing, and may be fundamentally changed in Errata if not fully intended.
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Went ahead and opened a new thread for the Eschew Materials discussion to continue in. Just trying to keep things on topic.
I am sure there are other uses.
Other uses being that if your spell component pouch is taken away or destroyed you can still cast your spells. The feat would be really useful in a "taken prisoner" scenario.
I am sure there are other uses.Other uses being that if your spell component pouch is taken away or destroyed you can still cast your spells. The feat would be really useful in a "taken prisoner" scenario.
Or water elementals attacking the bathhouse.
But yeah- the prisoner scenario has pretty much always been the go to. That, or a sunder happy GM.
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I don't think sunder is really a thing anymore. :(
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As the person who originally went off-topic with this ;-D,
I also encourage taking the Eschew discussion to new thread for it which Beowulf created/linked to.
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Well the ranger crossbow build is pretty obvious really. Just take the crossbow related feats at the levels where they appear.
It's not the highest DPR, but it's not so far below it that it would be bad. And it's got it's own mobile playstyle that's interesting, and occasions when it really performs.
Also, it's just nice if you like rolling a lot of dice for a single attack. I mean, 1d8+1d10+2 for a normal hit at level 1 is perfectly respectable. By level 12 that could be 3d10+2d8+3d6+5 on a greater striking alchemical crossbow with two elemental property runes.
Well the ranger crossbow build is pretty obvious really. Just take the crossbow related feats at the levels where they appear.
It's not the highest DPR, but it's not so far below it that it would be bad. And it's got it's own mobile playstyle that's interesting, and occasions when it really performs.
Also, it's just nice if you like rolling a lot of dice for a single attack. I mean, 1d8+1d10+2 for a normal hit at level 1 is perfectly respectable. By level 12 that could be 3d10+2d8+3d6+5 on a greater striking alchemical crossbow with two elemental property runes.
With the potential of more Sneak damage if you go rogue archetype/ are duel classing rogue. Then again, you could splash that into any build and it would be awesome so YMMV.
Crossbows also seem pretty great when it comes to readied actions... Though in fairness so is Hunted Shot.