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I'm just not sure it really makes sense as an advanced weapon given what it offers.
Comparing it to some of its alternatives and it is just not meaningfully stronger (sometimes it's just outright weaker) than its easier-to-equip alternatives.
Compared to the boomerang: same-or-less damage (boomerangs get strength to damage, crossbows don't), same range, different crit-specs (kind of a wash imo), bludgeoning instead of piercing damage.
The advantage the RHC has here is that you can fire it five times out the gate for free, whereas you need a returning rune for you thrown weapon, but I'm not sure how much that evens out, you gain 3.5 damage by having a flaming rune instead of a returning one, but you lose strength to damage anyways and still have to figure out how to get an advanced weapon, which means the boomerang user gets some sort of nebulous feat advantage.
Compared to the shortbow, you lose damage (propulsive and deadly), and gain the negative repeating trait in exchange for better hand economy. The hand advantage is potentially significant, but you're already trading damage and pick up repeating for that loss. Does that really warrant bumping the weapon up to a higher tier as well?
Compared to the air repeater and RHC has double the range and slightly better damage (d6 and d4 agile are really close to each other, depending on how big your static damage modifiers are, d6 tends to win out if you don't have a lot coming from somewhere though), but loses one round per clip.
This one is solidly a win for the repeating hand crossbow for once, even if the damage is similar the extra range is significant.
The problem though is that the air repeater is a simple weapon and the repeating hand crossbow is advanced, a full two tiers ahead. Is the extra range really worth two tiers of proficiency and the loss of an additional ammunition? Again it feels like a weird sell, but even if you really need the range...
Compared to the long air repeater you gain a die of damage at the cost of 3 rounds per magazine.
More damage is good, generally a win here, but again we're comparing a simple and an advanced weapon, and when you look at other types of weapons, a damage die is generally worth one tier. When you compare a Mace and a Maul, you trade one tier (simple to martial) for one damage die. The repeating hand crossbow trades two tiers for that damage die, but also sacrifices ammunition for it too.
... No matter how you compare it, the weapon never really seems to live up to the ideal of being a uniquely powerful weapon that requires specialized proficiency to use because of its strength. In every way it stands out as similar or worse than its martial counterparts and only marginally better than simple options thanks to the repeating trait and its lack of damage modifiers.
I feel like the weapon could almost use access to some loading rune that gives it infinite ammunition... but even then it would still be largely strictly inferior to a boomerang with returning.
Bonus: Compared to Reloading Trick... the easiest way to get Repeating Hand Crossbows is with the (admittedly AP specific and badly named) Drow Shootist archetype. One feat gets you into the archetype, another gets you proficiency with the repeating hand crossbow, cool.
For the same number of feats, you can take the dedication + reloading trick, which lets you reload and fire a hand crossbow as a single action... so pretty much the same thing as a repeating hand crossbow except you never need to reload a magazine (and while it's even more feats, you can combine that with crossbow terror/ace/crack shot to turn your hand crossbow into a d8 weapon and completely outclass the repeater... while still only being barely better than a boomerang or shortbow with 3+ feats of investment so it's not like it's absurdly out of bounds anyways)
IDK this weapon just seems kind of bad.
I feel like the only reason why you would ever use the repeating hand crossbow is on niche builds that want both range and to be able to wield a melee weapon at the same time. Something like a Magus/Eldrich Archer who is going for the ultimate switch-hitter. Even a dual-wield Pistlero would probably prefer something with higher damage, because d6s with no damage adds is just sad, even with Paired Shots.
In every other case, I feel like the effort of even just using Unconventional Weaponry is too much compared to just picking up a boomerang, an agile/finesse thrown weapon (for rogues) or a bow. The cost of other methods is simply absurd.
Paired shots RHC beats out guns and quick draw bandolier boomerang at 11+. You can potentially replace one RHC with a capacity weapon, but most of those have less ammo, less range, or both. D6s sounds sad, but it gets the job done.
I think the repeating hand crossbows isn't... Bad, but it is extremely niche. Thaumaturge can get pretty solid use out of it, which is likely a reference to that bad Van Helsing movie. I do see people go for the melee and a handcrossbow thing at times, and it works well enough there.
I can... Sort of see the mechanical justification for making it advanced if I squint. I have a much harder time seeing the narrative justification, though. It seems easy to fire and at least use the full clip.
The problem is that repeating hand crossbows with Thauma isn't a racial weapon and I don't saw in any part of scenario saying that's "common in another culture" weapon to allow you to take it via Unconventional Weaponry like happen with firearms that have Access entry.
So unless your GM is more flexible with Unconventional Weaponry using this weapon may end impracticable.
Paired shots RHC beats out guns and quick draw bandolier boomerang at 11+. You can potentially replace one RHC with a capacity weapon, but most of those have less ammo, less range, or both. D6s sounds sad, but it gets the job done.
I don't know the exact math so I might be wrong, but with just taking two dips into Thaumaturge, by level 6 (or level 4 with Free Archetype) I can use dueling pistols and that seems much better.
For about the same investment, we realistically get either the same number of shots (2x Paired Shots plus 1 round of downtime over 3 rounds) or they get 1 shot more (round 3, if they have the AP bandolier and archetype). However, each of my shots is more valuable due to fatal d10 (and possibly concussive), which on a crit for both weapons has me at almost double the damage. Especially with some teamwork, that seems like a much better deal.
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RHCs get 5 rounds of paired shots while dueling pistols need to be reloaded with each shot making them useless for a paired shots build. Even if you can reload with your hands full, that doesn't help you with the action sink of reloading two weapons.
Where did you get the idea that you'd only be able to get two rounds of paired shots with RHCs?
RHCs get 5 rounds of paired shots while dueling pistols need to be reloaded with each shot making them useless for a paired shots build. Even if you can reload with your hands full, that doesn't help you with the action sink of reloading two weapons.
Where did you get the idea that you'd only be able to get two rounds of paired shots with RHCs?
By being a moron for a short period that's how XD.
And dueling pistols still get 4 rounds of Paired Shots during those 5 rounds, so I wouldn't exactly call them useless. They can also keep going past round 5, so there's that. Not the most interesting gameplay, so I'd probably ditch the second gun after round 2 and do something different, but hey.
Where are you getting 4 rounds of paired shots with dueling pistols? Just because ammo thaumaturge lets you reload doesn't mean it removes the action cost (or it would have a free action symbol). You'd get exactly one round before having to resort to the usual risky reload,reload,shoot rotation that even arquebus can't beat RHCs with.
Where are you getting 4 rounds of paired shots with dueling pistols? Just because ammo thaumaturge lets you reload doesn't mean it removes the action cost (or it would have a free action symbol). You'd get exactly one round before having to resort to the usual risky reload,reload,shoot rotation that even arquebus can't beat RHCs with.
[Paired Shots= PP, Reload = R, whatever action = ?]
Your 5 turns look like this:
PPR - RPP - RR?- PPR - RPP -> 4x PP
Not very exciting and kinda prone to disruption, but it works.
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Guess it was my turn to be the moron. Still, level 6 to be functional is nice but you realistically need running reload for it to function and you're missing fake out the whole time too. Might be a good transition to make going into the higher levels though. Multitalented thaum at 9, ammo at 10 resolute at 12 or something.
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Personally, I feel like this is partially a legacy problem.
Previous editions didn't have a Rarity system, so many weapons that were meant to be uncommon in the setting or unique to a specific race/region got tagged as exotic/advanced weapons even if they were very simple to use.
Now that we have a rarity system - I feel that a number of advanced weapons (such as repeating hand crossbow) should be dropped to simple/martial proficiency with just the uncommon or rare trait. Most of the supposedly "advanced" racial weapons even already have feat access in an ancestry feat which additionally lowers them to being martial weapons.