Crossbows!

[BumblingDM]

Curious - what is the best build and what is the best the crossbow to use? Highest damage - or two handed and what not

[Greenish]

Probably the best crossbow is the light crossbow, for it's easy to reload (a feat can make it free, allowing full attacks) and pretty much everyone is proficient with it.

Crossbows tend to be worse than straight bows for most anything. Crossbow Sniper, however, is a decent feat that only works with crossbows, so a sniper build (rogue or swift hunter, most likely) might appreciate them.

[PId6]

I rather like hand crossbows since A) rogues gain free proficiency with them, and B) the Hand Crossbow Focus feat from Drow of the Underdark saves me a feat by merging Weapon Focus and Rapid Reload, allowing me to pick up Crossbow Sniper that much quicker.

And Greenish is quite right; crossbows are pretty much strictly worse than bows unless you're either using Crossbow Sniper (with some precision-damage class like scout or rogue) or trying to duel-wield somehow (which is still not easy, but at least possible with crossbows). Make sure to pick up the Splitting weapon ability from Champions of Ruin to double your damage output.

[Prime32]

The archery handbook has a section reviewing the various types of crossbow.

[BumblingDM]

its not for me so much as one of my players - just trying to get an idea of options, and paths for him.

He is doing the crossbow, rogue - order of the bow initiate

[Gavinfoxx]

its not for me so much as one of my players - just trying to get an idea of options, and paths for him.

He is doing the crossbow, rogue - order of the bow initiate

Basically, hand him the Archery Handbook, and give him the option to completely change his character around!

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boa...hp?topic=642.0

[PId6]

He is doing the crossbow, rogue - order of the bow initiate

Order of the Bow Initiate is a rather huge trap for anyone intending to do archery (or much of anything). The class is quite underpowered due to requiring standard action attacks when archers really want to full attack every round. See if he'll do straight rogue or some kind of swift hunter instead. And yeah, the archery handbook is quite good for this kind of thing.

[aquaticrna]

best use of crossbows I've seen was a HHH filled with loaded heavy crossbows, every round he would drop the empty one, draw a loaded new one, and fire.

[PId6]

best use of crossbows I've seen was a HHH filled with loaded heavy crossbows, every round he would drop the empty one, draw a loaded new one, and fire.

So, with that very roundabout (and expensive, if they're enchanted) method, he has managed to make himself a light crossbow that deals 1 extra damage on average and can only make standard action attacks?

[aquaticrna]

it was a low level campaign, we only made it up to 4 before the party dissolved... might have been using bolt drivers instead of heavy crossbows, it was a long time ago.

[Darklord Xavez]

Heavy. Repeating. Crossbow. (with rapid reload, of course)

BOO YAH GREENISH
-Xavez
P.S. what's crossbow sniper?

[nyarlathotep]

Heavy. Repeating. Crossbow. (with rapid reload, of course)

BOO YAH GREENISH
-Xavez
P.S. what's crossbow sniper?

Why are you leading that poor boy down the path of failure.

The repeating crossbow in any of its forms is terrible as it requires a feat and with rapid reload actually loads slower than the light or hand crossbow, as both of those don't require the full round reload between clips.

[gorfnab]

Lightning Mace + Hand Crossbow Focus + Power Critical + Aptitude Splitting (possibly Enervating too) Hand Crossbows + Blood in the Water Stance + Disciple of Dispater + Grillions Blessing (or Spare Hand)

[Esser-Z]

Build a bunch of Arbalesters!

[Calmar]

Unless you prefer to use only official material, this PrC I made might be of interest for you.

[Greenish]

Heavy. Repeating. Crossbow. (with rapid reload, of course)

BOO YAH GREENISH

BOO right back at YAH. You can't take Rapid Reload for a repeating crossbow, and even if you could, well, you'd have wasted 2 feats to have a weapon worse than a longbow.

P.S. what's crossbow sniper?

It's a feat that allows precision damage from 60' (instead of normal 30') when attacking with a crossbow, and adds 1/2 dex mod to damage. Drow of the Underdark.

[Esser-Z]

It's a feat that allows precision damage from 60' (instead of normal 30') when attacking with a crossbow, and adds 1/2 dex mod to damage. Drow of the Underdark.

PHBII, not Drow of the Underdark. Useful feat!

I'm thinking Artificer might be good for crossbows. Infusions let you Bane it up regardless of how magic it already is, on the fly. You can build it yourself, meaning you can afford better magic. Arbalesters are pretty awesome, upgraded. Extra attacks (3/4s BAB, start with high dex, upgradeable to HD of yours -2, free magic on the attacks with another feat, tiny gives an attack bonus...) using actions other than yours. On the other hand, that's not YOU firing the bow, anymore, and you DO have 1/2 BAB...

Hm. Next Gestalt game I'm in, I should try a Full BAB//Artificer crossbow specialist.

[Greenish]

PHBII, not Drow of the Underdark. Useful feat!

Right you are, I was in fact confusing it with Hand Crossbow Focus, which is the way to qualify for Crossbow Sniper.

[LibraryOgre]

Depends on which game you're playing, and what you're using a crossbow for. For older games (AD&D, C&C):

Heavy Crossbows are good shock weapons... fire once then move into melee. We have a dwarven rogue in our C&C game who uses them like that. They're also good if you have someone with a substantially better attack bonus, and a secondary character (like a henchman or hireling) who isn't as accurate. Fire, hand off to the henchman for a reload, while he hands you a freshly loaded crossbow. I had some hobgoblins use that against a group of players... once they realize that they're facing three heavy crossbows a round, they find another way through.

Light crossbows are good for a sustained (once per round) rate of fire, especially if your DM uses some of the armor-piercing options from things like Combat and Tactics (which he really should).

Hand crossbows in these situations are primarily poison delivery methods. They are useful if you've got sneak attack, but their lack of penetration, speed, and damage makes them far less attractive UNLESS you are poisoning someone... less range than the comparably damaged sling, not as flexible as the dagger.

[Calmar]

What is C&C?

[LibraryOgre]

What is C&C?

Non-helpful answer: Pure awesome.

More helpful answer: C&C is short for Castles and Crusades; somewhat of a hybrid of 1e, Mentzer edition Oe, and d20.

Like earlier editions, HP is generally lower, with monsters not having ability scores (thus, no con to HP). Magic items are generally scarcer and less in the control of players (i.e. there's less assumption that you'll get X amount of money for starting at Y level and be able to purchase whatever items you like). Classes and races tend to be distinct concepts and types, rather than collections of abilities, with fewer options within the class (i.e. All fighters are statistically the same, without feats to differentiate them; their main differences come from choices of weapons). Attributes use a common bonus table, but that table is taken from Mentzer, not 3e (9-12=+0, 13-15=+1, 16-17=+2, 18-19=+3).

From d20, it largely just takes the ascending AC and hit bonus.

We recently finished Keep on the Borderlands in C&C, and it was more less taken directly from the book... no modification needed beyond switching the ACs. D20 adventures would likewise be pretty easy, though you'd need to figure up HP and XP for the monsters a bit differently.

[Boren]

If you allow dragon magazine material there was the heavy mechanical crossbow. I don't recall the exact stats but I remember it being much better than your run of the mill crossbow. Comes from a small Eberon article.

[Stephen_E]

best use of crossbows I've seen was a HHH filled with loaded heavy crossbows, every round he would drop the empty one, draw a loaded new one, and fire.

You could argue for a variant of HHH which stores Crossbows for use, and thus with Quick Draw you can draw as a free action.

Thus firing as many Heavy Crossbows a round as you have attacks.

But yes, Crossbows are hard done by in the DnD system.

Stephen E

[Boren]

Ok I found the mechanical crossbow and it really wasn't as good I thought I remembered. From a house rule perspective my group runs that because you reload a crossbow with a winch and use heavy mechanical advantage you can use any 'mighty' bonus without having the score without penalty, unlike a bow with a pull that's too hard. I know its a house rule thing but its useful and makes sense, at least we think so