Crossbow user

[Half-orc Bard]

I want to use a crossbow as my main weapon. I'm thinking I'll use the Great crossbow. Tell me if I should do otherwise. I want to know if there are any good PrCs. Also he is evil so I was thinking about reloading slaves. Any ideas about costs would he helpful. Thanks Internet

[Half-orc Bard]

Oh and good feat suggestions would be nice

[WinceRind]

Weeeelll...

The crossbow slaves is a novel idea, but great crossbow isn't that great for a main weapon I think. It's heavy, large, and normally takes a full round action to recharge. Even with rapid reload, i think it's only going to be move action, and you'd not be able to use all your attacks.

Just having light crossbows is easier - sure, they don't do too much damage, but you can have two, and you can have slaves reload them or something.

Not to mention, rapid reload lets you reload one as free action so you can shoot it as a bow. But you can't use two at the same time for this...

But of course there are tricks for that, you can either carry a lot of crossbows and drop one each time you use up the arrow and Quick Draw a new one... And if you use Repeating Crossbow, it's even easier - at five arrows per pop, you can have 2 repeating light crossbows, one in each hand, and a regular light crossbow as a back up - so whenever you use up the arrows in repeaters (I think they take a full action to reload) you can drop them and draw your light crossbow while your slaves pick up the repeaters and reload them.

As for feats, Crossbow Sniper is pretty much a requirement. It lets you add 1/2 of your DEX modifier to crossbow damage, and lets you do sneak attack or skirmish damage at 60 feet as opposed to 30. I think you need Weapon Focus with crossbow to get this feat, and it only applies to one type of crossbow. It's from PHB2 I think.

Otherwise, most usual bow feats will work fine for you too. Rapid shot, as long as you have the ability to shoot more then one arrow per round (repeating crossbow or rapid reload feat with light or hand crossbow), will be great. Point Blank Shot, generally useful. Precise Shot, yeah, of course. Y'know, the usual stuff.

But, yeah, if you have an abundance of feats ( I suggest a fighter or similar class for at least a few levels, crossbows take a LOT of feats to be good) you could do great with 2 or more Repeating Light Crossbows and maybe one back-up Light or Hand Crossbow. Some source of precision damage never hurts either, because even with Crossbow Sniper you can only improve crossbow damage this much outside of enchantments and stuff.

Keep in mind that dropping something is a free action, but picking up isn't. I'm not sure if there's specific rules for tossing an object to someone, but if there isn't there are always cheesy ways to do it if you want to.

Like, you willingly let your slaves disarm you when you use up the reloading crossbows, on which they use a standard action. Then, they can use the remaining move action to recharge reloading crossbows with Rapid Reload (although I'm not entirely sure if it applies there, it might not)... But on the other hand, it would still probably take you one move action to receive the crossbows back so why bother - you won't be able to full attack on the same round anyways.

Of course, there are feats that allow you to do special things with ranged weapons as a standard action - I believe Penetrating Shot or something similar, and Manyshot, although the latter might not apply to crossbows. But I'm not too sure on that, they might be full round actions...

And you can always have one die of sneak attack damage and pick up that feat that lets you substitute 1 die of sneak attack for stackable 1 damage per round bleed. With 2 repeating crossbows, favorable conditions, and sneak attack you can really make someone bleed.

Also, in retrospect, you might as well not bother with the slaves - if you've got enough money, you should be able to just carry a ****load of loaded repeating crossbows and drop them/ quick draw a new one whenever the ammo runs out, just to pick them up and reload later. But when it comes to enchanting them, or moving a lot, it's going to be a pain in the ass. Not to mention all the weight, although that can be easily avoided.

[WinceRind]

Also I think there's an extensive guide for ranged combat on either this forum or some other, but I don't have a link on my hands.

It's either on brilliantgameologists or here, you might be interested in looking.

As far as I remember, they had pretty much a full list of feats you might want, and useful tricks for both bow and crossbow shooting.

[Incanur]

Take Hand Crossbow Focus and get a aptitude great crossbow. :smallcool:

[Leon]

Ask your DM if when you take Crossbow Sniper that you can use your Full DEX mod rather than the half the feat as written wants you to.

It is odd to me that a melee with a Str 18 can get a +4 or +6 with his Mod but the ranged PC has to make do with a +2 - more so when the melee has such options as Power Attack for even more damage.

You are going to have to get your DEX to quite high levels before it becomes a potential for being OP.

[Psyren]

Be a Warforged Lurk/Psyrogue and dual-wield armbows :smalltongue:

[Fizban]

Take Hand Crossbow Focus and get a aptitude great crossbow. :smallcool:

Holy crap that's amazing! Does that even work? I may suddenly have to change my opinion of this most broken weapon ability, for if it could benefit me so much then it must be welcome.

[Incanur]

Holy crap that's amazing! Does that even work?

RAW, yes. As always, your DM may have other thoughts. Considering how weak crossbow are otherwise, though, it's hardly the most broken thing in the game. Personally, the flavor is the only aspect that would worry me.

[HunterOfJello]

Isn't there a ballista in Heroes of Battle? Why not go for the heavy version of the crossbow?