Heavy Repeating Crossbow modification? [3.5]

[Rezby]

hey, I got a question. a character of mine wants to buy a heavy repeating crossbow with a clip size of 8 instead of 5, so my thinking is that since its costum made, its gotta be at least of masterwork quality, so 1250 gp instead of 700 for the increased clip size? and decrease the total rang increment down to 100 from 120 since despite the smith's best work at keeping it balanced, it begins to lose a bit of accuracy at longer ranges. Is that a reasonable DM judgement in your opinion? Or am I missing some big powergaming fiat that having an increased bolt size will make his character totally borken? He's going to be a ranged scout/ranger skirmisher dude starting at level 5 with 20k starting gold (as a player, I hated being poor, so as a DM, I'm making the players not).

[Marnath]

All it will affect is how often he needs to reload. I see no issue with doing this. It shouldn't really lose range though.

[Rezby]

well, think about it conceptually. Its being physically made bigger, so its gotta compensate for the weight gain by being made lighter somewhere else, so it'd be a little bit less unwieldy than a normal heavy repeating crossbow, so its just got a range increment of 100 ft instead of 120 ft is my reasoning (which is still long enough to shoot most anything that you can see if you're good enough).

[Marnath]

Three more bolts won't weigh that much. A small counterweight in the pommel should do the trick.

[Siosilvar]

A +1 Quickloading crossbow gives you a 100-bolt extradimensional space. One of my favorite crossbow enchantments.

Magic Item Compendium page 41.

[ericgrau]

EDIT: Shortening oversized post again.

No, essentially +1 damage vs. rapid reload+light crossbow won't break the game, but limiting his clip size is what seriously gimps repeating crossbows at higher levels. So I'd err low on prices. Ya, ~500 gp for 8 bolts, ~2000 gp for 12 bolts and ~4000 gp for 16 bolts (in an extradimensional space?) is about right IMO, for the +1 damage on the levels where he'll need that many bolts. A +1 enchant for essentially +1 damage is overpriced though.

[Fizban]

I'd give him up to 10 bolts for free, and upgrade the repeating crossbows while I was at it. There is absolutely no reason to use a crossbow over a bow unless you have under 10 strength, and at higher levels when you can boost your strength bows can get damage bonuses while crossbows cannot. Repeating crossbows are worse than normal bows, and cost a feat to use: this makes absolutely no sense.

Other magic besides quick loading:

You could rip the enhancement off Hank's Energy Bow from this excerpt. The cost adjustment comes out to 20,000gp, and it obviates the need for ammunition entirely.

The Quick Loading enhancement reprinted in the MiC is decent, but it's still a huge over-tax on crossbows. Instead of a feat, you increase the exponential cost of your weapon by another point. Instead, make it into an augment crystal:

Crystal of Ammunition
600gp (least), 3,000gp (lesser), 6,000gp (greater)
Least: When attached to a weapon that requires ammunition, this crystal creates an extradimensional space in which up to 100 pieces of ammunition sized for that weapon can be stored. The crystal automatically supplies the projectile of your choice from among those stored when the weapon is ready to fire again, removing the need to replace clips on repeating weapons but not reducing the time to reload others.
Lesser: As the least crystal; additionally, this crystal reduces the reload time for any weapon by one step (full round or standard to move, move to free).
Greater: As the lesser crystal; additionally, this crystal also increases the mass of it's stored projectiles while allowing the weapon to fire normally. This effectively increases the size of the attached weapon by one step when firing stored ammunition.

Huh, that ended up a lot harder than I thought. The arbitrary difference between least and lesser is annoying, but it still comes out better than the Crystal of Return, and I wanted there to be a difference between repeaters and non-repeaters. So, it's a cheap Efficient Quiver, then cheap Quick Loading, then Quick Loading and an extra die of damage.