Dedicated Crossbow Specialists; how good are they?

Well, tested and approved. Im playing with a group of "dwarf elite crossbowman" right now!

(five dwarves, all of then using Crossbows and buklers as weapons and Dwarf Waraxe or battleaxes as secound weapon; a ranger, a cleric, a paladin, a fighter aqnd a wizard)

We have reached the 6 level, and I shall say that Crossbows are very good! Point Blank shot, precise shot, rapid reload, focus, rapid shot and weapon specialization for the fighter. the other ones just take point blank as first feat and some diferent combination after that.

(the wizard and the cleric both took precise shot and focus, as if they need to use some movimentation during combat, I just cast a spell instead of reload/fire the crossbow; the paladin use precise shot and quick draw; its my front man, and he is allways ready to drive in to peril; the ranger took rapid reload and precise shot, in this order)

Rapid shot works fine with both types of crossbows - not just with the light one as I was afraid in the beggining - but manyshot just dont work. Its impossible to fire multiple bolts with the crossbow (well, this really makes sense!) but Im thinking to try the feat with a repeating one to see the results. My other choices for the fighter will be something like greater focus, greater specialization, dodge and quick draw. I dont think that there are any other feat to improve the number of shots/turn for him, but its fine; three shots with something like 8 damage its nice for me. Im just afraid about high levels, as there are no magic crossbows in the game, as I shall remeber...

 

There are two magic repeating crossbows I can remember off the top of my head.

Lately I've noticed that it's hard to find enough ammunition to maintain a slinger character. There are shops that sell ten stones at a time, but my slinger uses more than that, even assuming I run around to all the shops to get stones. You just don't find much ammo for slings after the early game.

 

Best thing to do is buy the 30 available in town the head to Delko Grove, turn around and head back to town and repeat. Also Kobolds have slingers, so if you get a random encounter with them, take it.

 

Most shops sell 100+ arrows and bolts. Jakk the leatherworker sells 30 stones at a time, and every other merchant that sells stones at all sells 10. It's not that you can't get enough, because you can go back and forth from the Deklo Grove to Hommlet like General Ghoul said. It's just a convenience issue.

I would think one of the advantages of a sling would be that you could gather stones as you travel or pick some up from a riverbank in an emergency.

 

I am trying this with a longbow archer right now. Two things:

1) You can get sneak attack with 2 levels of rogue. Does it improve with more levels? I dont see a reason to take more than 1 or 2 levels.

2) In order to do this you need to be a human for the mismatch in levels right? I am trying with an elf and I just realized that I may be screwed... haha

 

+1d6 per 2 levels of rogue. So, a 20th level rogue doing a sneak attack gets +10d6. BAM! In addition to crit, weapon damage and Holy/Shocking Burst/Icy Burst/Flaming Burst.

Per bolt. :yes:

 

Yep, it rocks. In my last game my rogue/bard archer was possibly my top damage dealer. Fighter levels are nice but unnecessary.

Halfling rogue/something slinger works too.

 

You only need 1 lvl of rogue for sneak attack, 1d6 dmg. If you want to improve on that, you need to add odd lvls of rogue, ie 3 rogue lvls for 2d6, 5 rogue lvls for 3d6, etc. 2 lvls of rogue will not do anything to your initial 1d6 sneak attack (it will give you evasion however which can be nice).

As far as crossbow specializing, sure, you can go that route and do decently, but keep in mind it's not the fact that you're using a crossbow that makes it effective. The high dmg in all the cases mentioned above is coming from crafted weapon elemental/holy etc bonuses, sneak attack, and feats like rapid shot (I'm not sure if manyshot works with crossbows).

You can do the same exact thing with a longbow except, you get in addition to the above:

1. Might/STR bonus dmg, which iirc is multiplied on critical hits and can get you as much as +12 dmg per attack, or potentially +60 dmg in one round over the crossbow (haste, BAB +16, crit on every attack which I realize would be one in a million), or more realisticly +28 dmg (if you crit on one out of five attacks) over the crossbow in one round.

2. Feats: you don't need to waste a feat on rapid reload with a longbow, and can use it on say, Manyshot, which also increases your dmg output. With a crossbow I'm not even sure Manyshot works at all. If it does, you still have to burn an extra feat on the crossbow. Effectively, you're getting more dmg output with the longbow for the same number of feats or less.

3. Manyshot. See above; it's extra dmg that (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure isn't available for crossbows.

So can you make a crossbow specialist do high dmg? Sure, if you invest in a crafted weapon (or find Iolo's Joy I suppose), take rogue levels, set up conditions for sneak attack on sneak attackable foes (requires extra effort that a melee sneak attacker doesn't need to go through), and spend the extra feats, perhaps Ranger favored enemy/archery path etc. It's less effective than a composite longbow (or even plain longbow) user however. A finesse melee dual wielding sneak attacker will outperform both the crossbow guy and composite longbow user as far as dmg, with less effort - the downside is he'll be more vulnerable to taking dmg.

But at the end of the day, if you want to make a sub optimal crossbow specialist for the fun or flavor, say a dwarf character, by all means go for it, the game can be just as fun if not more by not optimizing.

 

Rapid shot and many shot don't do extra damage. Rapid shot, every bolt fired is rolled as a separate attack, making it possible to get multiple criticals. Many shot, only 1 attack is rolled for. If it hits, all bolts hit. If it misses, all bolts miss. If it criticals, only the first bolt criticals and the rest are normal damage, as per the feat description. And it builds up more to hit penalties (-2 per arrow cumulative) whereas rapid shot only has a -2 to hit per bolt. So really, by using a bow, you're giving up all the +d6's of rogue sneak attack damage for a fixed strength damage bonus of like +6 or so plus whatever damage bonuses rangers get against specific creatures. Unless you have a rogue that takes feats to use a composite bow instead of a crossbow and having to take rapid reload. Hmmm. I think I may try that and see how much more damage my rogues can do with a strength bonus added to everything else, lol. But really, a rogue is pure death with the insane damage they do now, let alone with even more damage added. Might not be worth the trouble. You could arguably say that rangers hit more often against their favored enemies but I never seem to have a real problem with excessive misses on the rogues.

I never take many shot because it's just an ammo waster and you're taking cumulative to hit penalties for the hell of it. Rapid shot is the only way to go.

So, in summation, my personal preference is for a straight rogue class using a light crossbow or composite bow for maximized death dealing. An elven ranger with a bow just can't overcome the d6's. Either way I guess. If you just want to be over the top damage-wise, take a rogue. If you want to role play, take a ranger. Actually, for a composite longbowman rogue, I think I'll take the first 2 or 4 levels as fighter and then the rest as rogue so I can get all the archery skills by level 4 and anything else after that is unimportant.

The only question I have is why isn't the composite bow listed as a weapon skill? It should at least be under either martial weapon skills or exotic weapon skills.

*edit*
Rapid Shot [General]

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Point Blank Shot.

Benefit: You can get one extra attack per round with a ranged weapon. The attack is at your highest base attack bonus, but each attack you make in that round (the extra one and the normal ones) takes a –2 penalty. You must use the full attack action to use this feat.

Special: A fighter may select Rapid Shot as one of his fighter bonus feats.

A 2nd-level ranger who has chosen the archery combat style is treated as having Rapid Shot, even if he does not have the prerequisites for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.

Manyshot [General]

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, base attack bonus +6

Benefit: As a standard action, you may fire two arrows at a single opponent within 30 feet. Both arrows use the same attack roll (with a –4 penalty) to determine success and deal damage normally (but see Special).

For every five points of base attack bonus you have above +6, you may add one additional arrow to this attack, to a maximum of four arrows at a base attack bonus of +16. However, each arrow after the second adds a cumulative –2 penalty on the attack roll (for a total penalty of –6 for three arrows and –8 for four).

Damage reduction and other resistances apply separately against each arrow fired.

Special: Regardless of the number of arrows you fire, you apply precision-based damage only once. If you score a critical hit, only the first arrow fired deals critical damage; all others deal regular damage.

A fighter may select Manyshot as one of his fighter bonus feats.

A 6th-level ranger who has chosen the archery combat style is treated as having Manyshot even if he does not have the prerequisites for it, but only when he is wearing light or no armor.

Rapid Reload [General]

Choose a type of crossbow (hand, light, or heavy).

Prerequisite: Weapon Proficiency (crossbow type chosen).

Benefit: The time required for you to reload your chosen type of crossbow is reduced to a free action (for a hand or light crossbow) or a move action (for a heavy crossbow). Reloading a crossbow still provokes an attack of opportunity.

If you have selected this feat for hand crossbow or light crossbow, you may fire that weapon as many times in a full attack action as you could attack if you were using a bow.

Normal: A character without this feat needs a move action to reload a hand or light crossbow, or a full-round action to reload a heavy crossbow.

Special: You can gain Rapid Reload multiple times. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new type of crossbow.

A fighter may select Rapid Reload as one of his fighter bonus feats.

 

Necro:

The only issue I have with your reasoning is that the purpose of a bow (or crossbow) is to have the character be behind the line of attack and be safe from MOST area of affect spells to be allowed to plink away unhindered. In my games, the archer is a elven fighter, fully equipped with all the necessary skills to maximize the bow, with a high dexterity (natural or otherwise) and a high strength (natural or otherwise) and a composite longbow. By the time he is level 10 most every arrow hits for on average 15-20 per hit, not including crits. This also does not take into account haste or other buffs.

Of course, he has Bracers of Archery, Greater and other goodies, but funny enough the Bracers do not work for crossbows, only bows.

I agree a rogue with a crossbow can get sneak attacks, but my rogue ALWAYS gets the first ring of invisibility and is dual wielding with a rapier/longsword and dagger. And invisibility does not really help an archer, but most certainly a rogue with a sword looking to use crippling strike.

 

I was reading the description of Manyshot in the 3.5 Players Handbook last night, and I couldn't figure out a single good reason why anyone would take it. The penalties are so severe it's not worth it.

I agree with you and disagree with blackfly (sorry blackfly ). Fighter or fighter-type levels are unnecessary for an archer. The way I would explain it is this: if you're taking fighter-type levels with your archer, the benefits are mostly wasted. More weapon proficiencies? You don't need them. Heavier armor? You're not a front line fighter, and heavier armor negates your dexterity bonus. Also, your archery attacks are dexterity-based to begin with without the need for Weapon Finesse. Dexterity is the most important skill for rogue-types, so you're going to have high Dex anyway - it's much less useful in an allaround sense for a fighter-type. Fighters get some bonus combat feats, sure, but there aren't so many missile-weapon-specific feats that you need to be a fighter to get them all.

I wouldn't go straight rogue, though, just because I don't see much benefit to not multiclassing your rogue in ToEE. You can take levels of bard or cleric (especially with the Trickery domain) and still get sneak attacks, trap finding & disarming, lockpicking, and skills galore - plus you'll have some spells or other benefits. Also, a rogue/bard or a rogue/cleric gets shield proficiency so you can use a buckler; that's something you want for an archer.

I like fighter, barbarian, or ranger levels for rogues who are going to sneak attack in melee, though. In that case those levels are much more useful.

 

Using Manyshot requires only a standard action, while benefitting from Rapid Shot requires a character to use a full-round action. The battles in ToEE are usually in pretty cramped quarters, so there isn't much need for that much mobility - but at least in PnP D&D both feats definitely have their uses for the supreme archer characters.

Any archer can also benefit from leveling as a fighter. Rogues will find the +1 BAB per level very nice and extra weapon proficiencies for other races than elves can also help. Rangers will undoubtedly benefit less due to their class abilities requiring them to use only light armour and sufficient weapon proficiencies & BAB, but only Fighters can have Weapon Specialization feats, which net a nice damage bonus for every rapid-firing (pun?) archer character.

However, as this thread is supposed to be about crossbow specialists, I prefer a dual-wielding hand crossbow shooter with poisoned bolts. Sure, the alignment rules in D&D regarding poison use kick it in the nether regions, but as a ranged enemy debuffer this character really shines. With Rapid Reload and Quick Draw this lad/lass always has an answer in one or two crossbows bolts.