[3.5] Instant Reload

[Thurbane]

Quick question for the Playground: can anyone see any issues removing the Epic tag from the Instant Reload feat?


Instant Reload [Epic]
Prerequisite
Quick Draw, Rapid Reload, Weapon Focus (crossbow type to be selected).

Benefit
You may fire the selected type of crossbow at your full normal attack rate. Reloading the crossbow does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Special
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a different type of crossbow.
Given the amount of reqs feats it has anyway, I can't foresee any issues with allowing this as a non-epic feat. I mean, crossbows are generally the poor cousins of the composite bow anyway.

Thoughts? Any issues I may have missed?

Cheers - T

[Aotrs Commander]

Quick question for the Playground: can anyone see any issues removing the Epic tag from the Instant Reload feat?


Given the amount of reqs feats it has anyway, I can't foresee any issues with allowing this as a non-epic feat. I mean, crossbows are generally the poor cousins of the composite bow anyway.

Thoughts? Any issues I may have missed?

Cheers - T

Considering Pathfinder basically made a feat (https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Crossbow%20Mastery) that used rapid reload as a pre-req and did more than that, I'd say no. Actually, just pinch that, it's better and less restrictive. Given how sucky crossbows are, having a heavy do effectively +1 point damage over a bow (when any specialist archer is going to be using a bow where they can adde their strength) is paff-all really, especially if you need two feats to do it.



Hell, I went further and modified Rapid Reload such that it works automatically with crossbows, slings and exhaled weapons (i.e. blowguns/blowpipes) and even firearms for any of the aforementioned you have (at the time or later) had proficiency. Crossbows and slings are pants enough that making them take two extra feats just to come close to STARTING to compete with bows is going to break nothing!



(Come to that, I also added an equivilent to crossbows, which meant - for a little steeper cost than a strength bonus on a bow - you got an effective strength bonus on crossbow damage. Crossbows ought to be vaguely viable beyond being used soley as the back-up weapon for a bottom-level wizard or cleric who has run out of spells...)

[Biggus]

There's a magic item special ability called Quick Loading (MiC p.41) which does this for hand and light crossbows for a +1 enhancement bonus equivalent (it takes a move action for Heavy Crossbows), so I don't think it would break anything.

[Zaq]

But have you CONSIDERED just how much STRONGER a crossbow is than a normal bow? Clearly we need to lock this away behind EVEN MORE feats. Why not get Combat Expertise involved for a gratuitous INT prereq? Can we add an awkward BAB requirement? Maybe force you to be an elf or something? Ooh, I know, let’s add ranks in Heal! Maybe a daily limit, too. And probably Spring Attack. Maybe Great Fortitude to represent the fact that loading crossbows quickly really takes a lot of grit.

Seriously this shouldn’t even need to be a feat, let alone an epic feat, let alone even more an epic feat with unnecessary prereqs like that. If you’re already houseruling, just roll it into Rapid Reload. Or make it (and Rapid Reload) available for free because ain’t nobody got time for that.

Crossbows already have lower potential than bows without adding in unnecessary restrictions. Removing unnecessary restrictions makes the game better. Please do that.

(Also, I know the “its effects do not stack” language is standard whenever they talk about taking a feat more than once, but what the hell would stacking even look like?)

[Uncle Pine]

Considering that even without the Epic tag it'd still be a worse investment than the regular Hand Crossbow Focus coupled with a +1 aptitude weapon, no: even after such a modification, Instant Reload would definitely not be overpowered.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The majority of epic feats don't really need to be restricted to ECL 21+. That one in particular is certainly among those that don't.

[liquidformat]

But have you CONSIDERED just how much STRONGER a crossbow is than a normal bow? Clearly we need to lock this away behind EVEN MORE feats. Why not get Combat Expertise involved for a gratuitous INT prereq? Can we add an awkward BAB requirement? Maybe force you to be an elf or something? Ooh, I know, let’s add ranks in Heal! Maybe a daily limit, too. And probably Spring Attack. Maybe Great Fortitude to represent the fact that loading crossbows quickly really takes a lot of grit.


Dear Sir you forgot to make your text blue!

Anyways pretty much all the epic feats that are mundane focused should be available pre-epic such as Swarm Of Arrows and legendary _________, and they sadly don't even help mundanes that much. I mean seriously feats like Bane Of Enemies replicates a +1 item enhancement, how is turning that into a feat make it reasonable to put into epic levels. Heck it should be available before level 10...

[Mike Miller]

Rhakshasa everywhere just plane shifted out of your games, Thurbane.

[liquidformat]

Rhakshasa everywhere just plane shifted out of your games, Thurbane.

Especially the 3.0 version...

[Thurbane]

Fun fact: the Rakshasa's vulnerability to blessed crossbow bolts, which first appeared in the 1E Monster Manual AFAIK, wasn't based on mythology, but rather an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0621537/)

...or at least that's what I read once upon a time.