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Now this is just being inconsistent - using your same level 9 skill modifier of +14 (though it probably should have a +1 item bonus), the rogue only has a 60% chance of success to Hide. Modifiers from the terrain are definitely going to be inconsistent in my experience (concealment vs cover), but even if we assume them, you explicitly picked the worst-case scenario for the Swashbuckler. Something like a Gibbering Mouther has a +15 Perception, so you're at a base of 50% and standard cover only takes you to 60%. It's a secret check, so you don't know if you made it or not - unlike the Swashbuckler. Or something like a Giant Crawling Hand has a Precise Lifesense within 30ft. If you start your turn hidden and Strike, then Hide, and finally Sneak, you'd need a 70ft move speed to be more than 30ft away from the square you revealed yourself to be in. Given you don't have that, the Giant Crawling Hand will simply Stride up to your square, automatically sense you, and your strategy is ruined.The Rogue can always attempt to sneak up, break off and run if they fail, and rinse and repeat until the job is done. You may counter that a Swashbuckler with a bow could also try this but they aren't going to be experts in stealth and will take longer due to never landing sneak attacks.
Unless you can show me how the Swashbuckler can do better against those same threats I'm still more convinced by the tactics a Rogue can use here.
Either way, I don't think getting even further into the weeds of this particular example is going to be helpful. One could manufacture a scenario where a solo Fighter is disadvantaged compared to a solo alchemist (flying enemy with a ranged weapon with a weakness to the alchemist's bombs and the fighter is STR-based and can't fly). The game isn't built around these solo match ups, or even combat being the only difficult activities being performed. It's definitely true that at a standard Investigator is going to perform worse in combat than a standard Fighter - if that weren't the case, what's the reason to play the Fighter? The question is whether the Investigator can perform to an appropriate level of effectiveness in combat with its unique gameplay - and in my experience, the answer is yes. I didn't have my Swashbuckler player (or Giant barbarian player) thinking about how they could deal more damage with a Fighter, because they picked those classes for their gameplay. They didn't exclusively fight low-level enemies, and combat was a large part of the adventure. My experience hasn't been that players are constantly comparing themselves to alternatives versions of their build - so long as they feel that they're contributing well and enjoying the gameplay, they're happy with the class. It may be the case that some of the overtuned early APs have changed the expectations for some players - I haven't played or run them.
This one is going to be my last post on the thread, as I don't think this is going to go anywhere productive. I hope the upcoming weekend treats you all well :)
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Like any d20 game, PF2e has the same "defer to the expert" skill resolution system. No reason to try and pick that lock and end up making it impossible to open instead of letting your buddy who has a +10 bonus over you do it instead. The entire premise of being a party-based game necessitates having different party members handle different tasks.
Bonus skills from Intelligence stop mattering pretty shortly as you gain more skill increases (and DCs expect you to have more at Expert or Master),
This is one of the more pervasive PF2 myths. It only really applies if you're rolling against a creature's stats, like Demoralize or Trip. The level based DCs scale slowly enough to where if you put some ability score boosts in the relevant stat or invest in a cheap hand me down item you equal or exceed your odds on a trained skill check.
I suppose rarity adjustments could potentially pop up more at high levels, but there are also a lot more bonus sources available at high level: follow the expert, mutagens, buff spells... There are a lot of ways to shift the math without investing skill increases.
Sometimes, sure. But other times only one character may have opportunity to roll (in combat knowledge checks, depending on action economy, or just any time someone gets caught without back up or wants to try their own bluff), or there's opportunity for everyone to roll when the expert may fail (out of combat knowledge checks), or may straight up require everyone to make a check (PFS has lots of this, or various influence encounters in APs.)
Most of the victory point systems are set up to require the whole party to participate in different manners, and your specialist can't necessarily carry the whole team and still rack up enough points.
I really don't think you're applying the same standards here. For one, it's often very difficult to flee - you don't find out you've failed your check (it's secret),
If the monster sees you or the GM asks for an initiative roll from you that's a pretty good indication.
so the Giant Crawling Hand Strides, Strikes, and Grabs you (depending on the exact distance you have to close to).
Assuming it wins initiative...
Failing that, assuming creatures will simply stand in location like a video game NPC while you constantly stealth up,
Have you seen how Paizo has to write the lobotomized monsters in their APs so that their dungeons don't combine too many encounters and create TPKs. There's a very good chance that the monster will be exactly where you left it.
It may be the case that some of the overtuned early APs have changed the expectations for some players - I haven't played or run them
You should try them exactly as written with a GM playing enemies smart and mean when appropriate and see how your group handles it. I think a 'fudge the rolls and hold back attacks to keep the party alive' GM and a 'this is how the monsters should act and if you die you die' GM create very different perspectives about balance.
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I can't take anyone who brings up in-combat knowledge checks seriously with how broken RK is, being very poorly defined in what information the GM should give you
Telling someone you can't take them seriously feels ruder than necessary. That aside, I'll be the first to admit the RK rules have too much variance, but the thing is that variance also means it is really good at some tables. And primarily, the group will probably be rolling these out of combat anyway.
*and* scaling horribly with level due to rarity increases making average RK DCs scale faster than full investment.
That doesn't seem right. Uncommon is only +2 (the difference between trained and expert) and rare is only +5 (only 1 more than the difference between trained and master, and that 1 is easy to make up for with items or ability score boosts.) Unique monsters obviously break the mold a bit, but there usually won't be that many unique monsters, and even when they have the unique tag you should be able to roll to know something about their broader species at a lower DC. Varsumiax the Magma Dragon may be unique, but you should still be able to identify the magma dragon part. (I know, I know, there's gonna be variance here, but again, it isn't bad at all tables.)
There's also the fact that rare monsters should be, well, rare. The plurality of your encounters should be common creatures. That is what common means. If you're fighting lots of rarity tagged enemies, there's a good chance you're going up against a specific group and can offset that with a specific lore. I'm pretty sure Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse have a lot of rarity tagged enemies, but you can take Scarlet Triad lore or Xulgath lore there. (Though that is starting to drift away from intelligence, since Additional Lore is usually the best way to do that.)
The realities of the game make being behind the specialist not very useful since you're going to be lagging behind in ability scores, proficiency, and investment
Only one of those things is true-- proficiency. Boosts to tertiary stats are a standard part of the game. Well, I suppose you'll probably lag a bit in investment, but at the point the specialist is buying a +2 item you can take their old +1 item or just buy one yourself-- below level items are pretty affordable. Compare the 80 gp Lifting Belt to the 650 gp armbands of athleticism. And given most items have a decent secondary use, it helps round out the character beyond numbers.
Trained proficiency alone gives you a 45% chance of hitting an at level DC at 1. At level 20 you have a 15% chance. But by level 20 you've had 4 more chances to boost your ability scores and a +2 item is a trivial cost. When you factor that in you are probably only 5-10% worse off, if at all, and by level 20 there are tons of options to close that gap.
If you leave a skill at trained, don't put any ability boosts towards it, and refuse to use your gold, then you'll fall behind. But that shouldn't be the case for the majority of characters.
and group-wide checks that need a majority of successes are generally infrequent.
More AP books have them then not. AoA has them in at least 3 or 4 books, and both books i read of Extinction Curse had them. They are generally linked to fairly plot critical moments at that-- less victory points means less treasure, extra fights, or other obstacles. I'm led to understand PFS has lots of them as well.
There are also simple DCs to consider. Athletics may not be great for tripping level 20 creatures at trained, but you can sure use it not to drown. Survival tends to use purely simple DCs, and so forth.
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Bonus skills from Intelligence stop mattering pretty shortly as you gain more skill increases (and DCs expect you to have more at Expert or Master),
This is one of the more pervasive PF2 myths. It only really applies if you're rolling against a creature's stats, like Demoralize or Trip. The level based DCs scale slowly enough to where if you put some ability score boosts in the relevant stat or invest in a cheap hand me down item you equal or exceed your odds on a trained skill check.
I suppose rarity adjustments could potentially pop up more at high levels, but there are also a lot more bonus sources available at high level: follow the expert, mutagens, buff spells... There are a lot of ways to shift the math without investing skill increases.
There's some accuracy to it.
Over the course of 19 levels, the level based DC scales by 25 (15 @ 1 to 40 @ 20). A trained skill scales by just 19. To have the same chance of success as you had at level 1, you need to get a +6 boost from somewhere.
Kitting yourself out in cheap items for +x skill bonuses has you run into investment limits rather quickly.
Boosting your stats... if you started with a 14 you'd have a bonus of 3 by the time you hit 20 (boosting it from 14 to 20), and you'd still be missing 3. If you started with 10, you'd get +4, but you hardly had a stellar success rate in the first place with +3 against DC15.
And that leaves... raising your proficiency.
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Could also be a non-fighter with the archer dedication and the 6th-level Advanced Bow Training.
I'd be interested in how the daikyu compares vs a regular shortbow when proficiency isn't as high as a fighter's. If the character only crits on a 20 then it seems like the flat damage would probably overtake the deadly increase.
And Strength isn't free, some characters would rather put their boosts elsewhere. Obviously weapons designed for high-Str characters will benefit from them having that, and probably be better for those characters than other options. If the daikyu is worse or equal to a regular shortbow objectively, then that would be a problem.
Well, if you are a Fighter, you're already 2 less than usual to your attack rolls, and if you're a non-Fighter, you need an ancestry feat or something to select it to even be trained to begin with, which using something untrained at 1st level is a minimum of 3 less than usual. So you are either burning feats to keep up with the projected math (which don't kick in until 6th level via class/dedication feats, or 13th via ancestry feats), which could have been spent on other, better feats, or you are purposefully bad for your party by not being proficient (enough) with your weapons, which defeats the entire point of this being a team game where you contribute fairly to the success of your party.
Really, an Archer doesn't get a whole lot out of investing any Strength to their character when Intelligence for more trained skills and languages, or Charisma for face skills or in-combat debuffs, are far more valuable than an increase in Bulk limitations and a +2 to damage rolls by 20th level.
Bonus skills from Intelligence stop mattering pretty shortly as you gain more skill increases (and DCs expect you to have more at Expert or Master), Charisma is character-dependent, and Athletics is still really solid.
And even in this situation, the Composite Shortbow is equal to or...
Yeah, intelligence stops mattering as much by the time Master skills become commonplace (around 12th level or so), but it's relatively uncommon for games to reach those levels, or beyond. It's still quite relevant for about half the game, though, and when Aid Another becomes reliable to help your specialists reach even higher numbers, it's still somewhat important. Charisma being character-dependent doesn't really make sense, since even a 14 Charisma character who regularly invests into even a single Charisma-based skill (like Intimidate) can make decent returns on it. Frightened reducing enemy AC, to-hit, and Saves, when done at the right time, is really good at shifting the numbers in your favor (which helps a Deadly weapon more than a non-Deadly one), and is useful if you don't have a Charisma-based PC in the party.
Daikyu is 2 Bulk, and an 8 Strength character will have 4 Bulk on average. Half your Bulk is going into your bow, combined with another Bulk for an Adventurer's Backpack, plus some more bulk for back-up weapons, Ammunition, Leather Armor/Explorer's Clothing. That character will not have as much Bulk for carrying things. Short of being a Cloistered Cleric or a Wizard or similar spellcaster (who doesn't even use a weapon), it can't realistically make good use of that Bulk limitation.
Really, even if we take the Daikyu as a functional Martial weapon, it's at-best an ultra-niche side-grade that is more against character flexibility than it is for it. D8 non-propulsive potential with no deadly and 20' more range isn't going to outpace an optimized D6 with deadly D10 that's 20' shorter range, especially if propulsive can be on the table.
If the Daikyu is meant to be Advanced, then it being a Reload 0 propulsive deadly D10 bow that can be used mounted, without a volley drawback, the most conservative "fix" that was proposed to the item's entry, could actually warrant its Advanced template.
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Could also be a non-fighter with the archer dedication and the 6th-level Advanced Bow Training.
I'd be interested in how the daikyu compares vs a regular shortbow when proficiency isn't as high as a fighter's. If the character only crits on a 20 then it seems like the flat damage would probably overtake the deadly increase.
And Strength isn't free, some characters would rather put their boosts elsewhere. Obviously weapons designed for high-Str characters will benefit from them having that, and probably be better for those characters than other options. If the daikyu is worse or equal to a regular shortbow objectively, then that would be a problem.
Well, if you are a Fighter, you're already 2 less than usual to your attack rolls, and if you're a non-Fighter, you need an ancestry feat or something to select it to even be trained to begin with, which using something untrained at 1st level is a minimum of 3 less than usual. So you are either burning feats to keep up with the projected math (which don't kick in until 6th level via class/dedication feats, or 13th via ancestry feats), which could have been spent on other, better feats, or you are purposefully bad for your party by not being proficient (enough) with your weapons, which defeats the entire point of this being a team game where you contribute fairly to the success of your party.
Really, an Archer doesn't get a whole lot out of investing any Strength to their character when Intelligence for more trained skills and languages, or Charisma for face skills or in-combat debuffs, are far more valuable than an increase in Bulk limitations and a +2 to damage rolls by 20th level.
Yeah, using an advanced weapon at level 1 is pretty much never a great idea. But at level 6+ it could make sense if you already wanted Archer dedication for something else so it only costs you one feat.
One feat for a constant benefit like using a better weapon seems pretty solid if it...
Could it? A fair comparison would be a feat like Crossbow Ace that Rangers have access to, it does the following after you reload or Hunt Prey:
-Increases die size by a step.
-Adds +2 Circumstance bonus to the damage roll on a hit.
So, a regular Crossbow, which is a Simple weapon, would be doing D10s base dice (which is higher than a Longbow), and does more average damage thanks to a +2 Circumstance bonus, which will almost never be outpaced by a bow build unless the bow user has at least 22 Strength, which comes with a cost of reduced accuracy by comparison. Yes, there is Reload mechanics, but against higher AC enemies, the Crossbow will pull ahead, since the diminishing returns on iterative attacks make the Bow's Reload 0 mechanic not much worth it in terms of action economy compared to other actions.
This is a 1st level Class feat which makes a Simple weapon comparable to Martial weaponry.
Last I checked, the 6th level Fighter or Archer feat of granting Advanced Weapon proficiency doesn't give anywhere near as good of benefits as this, and it's a level of feat that is 5 levels higher than this one, and the Archer dedication also gives access to this feat, in a way. It's just an example of how Advanced weapons are poorly designed, in almost the same way that PF1 Exotic weapons were poorly designed behind being feat-gated.
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Bonus skills from Intelligence stop mattering pretty shortly as you gain more skill increases (and DCs expect you to have more at Expert or Master),
This is one of the more pervasive PF2 myths. It only really applies if you're rolling against a creature's stats, like Demoralize or Trip. The level based DCs scale slowly enough to where if you put some ability score boosts in the relevant stat or invest in a cheap hand me down item you equal or exceed your odds on a trained skill check.
I suppose rarity adjustments could potentially pop up more at high levels, but there are also a lot more bonus sources available at high level: follow the expert, mutagens, buff spells... There are a lot of ways to shift the math without investing skill increases.
There's some accuracy to it.
Over the course of 19 levels, the level based DC scales by 25 (15 @ 1 to 40 @ 20). A trained skill scales by just 19. To have the same chance of success as you had at level 1, you need to get a +6 boost from somewhere.
Kitting yourself out in cheap items for +x skill bonuses has you run into investment limits rather quickly.
Boosting your stats... if you started with a 14 you'd have a bonus of 3 by the time you hit 20 (boosting it from 14 to 20), and you'd still be missing 3. If you started with 10, you'd get +4, but you hardly had a stellar success rate in the first place with +3 against DC15.
And that leaves... raising your proficiency.
Most invested items already increase skills though. And I don't think investiture limits are that much of a problem. The baseline assumption is one slot for magic armor. Many characters will want a second for hand wraps, doubling rings, or a staff. And a third goes to Apex items, but apex items already boost skills. That's a lot of investiture left to play. Not enough to cover all your skills if you're a bard with high intelligence maybe, but odds are you can cover the 5 baseline trained skills plus at least one more for intelligence.
And again, you can also utilize myriad other options. A bard with Inspire Competence is basically adding an automatic +4 to almost any out of combat skill check. Secrets of Magic added various low level spells you can use for status bonuses. Follow the Expert gets +4 as well, when applicable. A level 20 character won't have every one of these, but odds are someone in your party has something to help with.
By comparison, level 1 just doesn't have those options. The more that DC scales, the more options you gain for keeping up with it.
Also... Having skills trained does occasionally allow you to boost their proficiency. A bunch of archetypes boost skills to expert if you're already trained. I say occasionally because you'd probably be trained in that skill even without intelligence extras if it is important enough to you to take an archetype for.
One other fun thing to note: intelligence is probably linked to more level based DCs than any other ability score. Recall Knowledge, Craft, Repair, Earn Income... Plus those trained only uses for Identify Magic, Decipher Writing, Identify Alchemy, and such. You ever watch the specialist fail to identify a magic item? It is swell if they can pass it down the line and let someone else try so they don't have to wait until tomorrow to use it.
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Most invested items already increase skills though. And I don't think investiture limits are that much of a problem. The baseline assumption is one slot for magic armor. Many characters will want a second for hand wraps, doubling rings, or a staff. And a third goes to Apex items, but apex items already boost skills. That's a lot of investiture left to play. Not enough to cover all your skills if you're a bard with high intelligence maybe, but odds are you can cover the 5 baseline...
Bonus skills from Intelligence stop mattering pretty shortly as you gain more skill increases (and DCs expect you to have more at Expert or Master),
This is one of the more pervasive PF2 myths. It only really applies if you're rolling against a creature's stats, like Demoralize or Trip. The level based DCs scale slowly enough to where if you put some ability score boosts in the relevant stat or invest in a cheap hand me down item you equal or exceed your odds on a trained skill check.
I suppose rarity adjustments could potentially pop up more at high levels, but there are also a lot more bonus sources available at high level: follow the expert, mutagens, buff spells... There are a lot of ways to shift the math without investing skill increases.
There's some accuracy to it.
Over the course of 19 levels, the level based DC scales by 25 (15 @ 1 to 40 @ 20). A trained skill scales by just 19. To have the same chance of success as you had at level 1, you need to get a +6 boost from somewhere.
Kitting yourself out in cheap items for +x skill bonuses has you run into investment limits rather quickly.
Boosting your stats... if you started with a 14 you'd have a bonus of 3 by the time you hit 20 (boosting it from 14 to 20), and you'd still be missing 3. If you started with 10, you'd get +4, but you hardly had a stellar success rate in the first place with +3 against DC15.
And that leaves... raising your proficiency.
Apex item, magic armour, doubling rings/staff/etc., perception item are the four most common ones.
Then consume three slots for your three "main" skills, that leaves you with three slots to chuck cheap skill bonus items in that are also competing with a lot of much better items, such as (greater) boots of bounding to increase your speed, cloak of the bat to give flight even if stealth isn't your main skill (you can use winged rune but it's much more expensive), etc.
As for spells, inspire competence, whatever, yes you can technically use them. They aren't really baked into the math of the game and as such either assume you a) have trick magic item or b) have a friendly spellcaster/alchemist boosting your checks for you.
Then, on top of all of that, the purported benefits of intelligence can basically be replaced by untrained improv or the human one that also lets you use trained skill actions (might require additional investment into adopted ancestry), so if you do have all those bonuses you can save the stat points (much more expensive than a general and an ancestry) by just burning a couple feats.
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The apex items all boost at least one of your skills though. It is probably one of your legendary skills. And your examples of things competing with teriary skill boosts provide... Tertiary skill boosts. Maybe you wind up with some redundancy depending on what you want specifically (like if you still want Boots of Bounding's speed even with a belt of giants strength) but those are pretty specific examples. Odds are you'll wind boosting some skills even if all you want are the activations.
The game doesn't assume you have access to specific classes, but a party of 3+ legendary characters should have SOMETHING. And if nothing else, I think the game expects you to use Follow the Expert on group skill challenges. That's why they made the activity. And following a legend plus ability boosts alone will probably push you past your level 1 odds.
And yes, Untrained Improvisation can cover a lot of this... But in proficiency alone you're behind 10%. And sure, it is cheaper, but you're not just getting that 10% advantage from boosting the relevant ability score. For intelligence, you're getting a higher modifier for five times as many skills as strength (before you factor in Additional Lore, a great feat for smart cookies) and a bunch of languages.
Will every character care about this? Of course not. Strength, intelligence, and charisma will always be viable dump stats for certain builds. But there are real advantages to building for each of them, and building to any of them doesn't make your character bad. It just gives you a different set of advantages than the others.
Tying that back to the daiyku, that means there are viable builds where it would be a superior weapon to the composite shortbow. Most casters, for example, should probably do their casting and save stats over strength and lack the accuracy to benefit from deadly. The added range is nice as well-- casters usually want to stay far from the fray but 30 foot range spells makes volley a pain.
I'm still not sure the daiyku is worth the advanced feat... But I could see a human caster get mileage out of it at from levels 1 through 12.
Also, I think the math is off. Unless I'm mistaken, no investing goes on when preparing a staff. I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing anything in the Staff rules about investment, and far as I can tell staves don't have the Invested trait.
I'm pretty sure staffs do need investing. Can't be bothered to look up the rule though.
That said, staffs aren't for every character. (Though I struggle to imagine why a caster wouldn't get one, beyond lack of opportunity.) In particular, I suppose archers are one of the builds that don't have need an offensive investment. No handwraps or doubling rings, no need for gloves of storing or anything. So the character would have two slots spoken for (armor and perception booster) and the other 8 to use for skills or whatever else. I count Apex in that because they *are* still skill boosters.
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Even aside from the reload issue, it's clear the daikyu as printed is incomplete since it makes no sense for it not to have the deadly trait that all other bows have. Literally every non-crossbow weapon in the bow group (including the Taw Launcher which is kind of like a crossbow) has the deadly trait.
They were formerly an invested item in the playtest.
I also found this out when a player was using a staff.
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Well that's neat, and means that most casters have a lot of investiture as well.
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The Hongali Hornbow is the superior option for a bow you can fire on horseback. It has less range, but in exchange you keep the d8 damage die, it gets the deadly and propulsive traits, it has reload 0 which means you don't need to use any actions to reload it, and you can fire to the right.
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The Hongali Hornbow is the superior option for a bow you can fire on horseback. It has less range, but in exchange you keep the d8 damage die, it gets the deadly and propulsive traits, it has reload 0 which means you don't need to use any actions to reload it, and you can fire to the right.
Okay, let's compare it to a Composite Shortbow, which can also be used while mounted.
Other than granting a die size increase (which the Daikyu already did), it has significantly less range (compared to a Daikyu, which had more, which isn't that valuable in this case), has a weaker Deadly dice value (D6 versus D10), and isn't feat-gated for appropriate use. It's also uncommon and subject to GM FIAT allowance (though largely for setting purposes).
Even if it kept the same exact traits and range as the Composite Shortbow, and just added a damage dice increase, it's still difficult to justify the specialist class/ancestry feat(s) for it, and it only gets more difficult to do so as the game goes on.
Advanced weapons need to do more to justify their feat cost to actually use them properly. It's just another case of "nerf it to oblivion" done by Paizo again. And no, setting-specific weapons aren't an excuse to make purposefully bad weapons, stop invoking the Stormwind fallacy.
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Advanced weapons need to do more to justify their feat cost to actually use them properly. It's just another case of "nerf it to oblivion" done by Paizo again. And no, setting-specific weapons aren't an excuse to make purposefully bad weapons, stop invoking the Stormwind fallacy.
Yep many of these things are just a waste of space. For sure there are some pluses and minuses. But there is very little to justify the rules problems and costs that advanced weapons have.
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I have yet to see anybody make use of an advanced weapon without *something* that lets them peg their proficiency in that weapon to their other proficiencies (ancestral weapon familiarity, a weapon-specific archetype, etc.)
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I have yet to see anybody make use of an advanced weapon without *something* that lets them peg their proficiency in that weapon to their other proficiencies (ancestral weapon familiarity, a weapon-specific archetype, etc.)
I don't necessarily mind that the Advanced weapons are feat-gated. The point is that the feat-gate is almost never worth that price, especially since they made it extremely problematic for most classes to not be able to make good use of said weapons.
The General Weapon Proficiency feat does not scale. Ancestry feats limit you to certain weaponry, and usually may require an additional feat for full proficiency benefits, not available until 13th level (well over past half the game's duration), depending on class. The only time a class may not have an issue is if they are already full Martial going into a specialty dedication (like Archer or Mauler, for example), or if they are a Fighter. But even then, that falls into a similar problem like the above (where you're basically doubly taxed to use a weapon with full proficiencies).
So really, it's the cost of 2 feats, or 20% of a character's average class feats, just to get a meager benefit of one die size increase, or a special weapon trait, and sometimes that comes with concessions in other areas where it shouldn't even be the case because...well...Advanced weapons are supposed to be directly superior to Martial weapons, and far, far outclass Simple weapons.
But when a Crossbow with the Crossbow Ace feat gives more benefits than a simple proficiency feat (or two, even), it's just bad design that needs an overhaul.