Talk:Rapid Fire Crossbow (3.5e Equipment)

Ratings

	The Dire Reverend favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	Who needs realism? I don't.

	Leziad likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	A good substitute for the heavy repeater. Also cool kids don't care about realism.

	Quey opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	To start, completely unrealistic. The PHB repeater is already a bit of a fudge on reality, but this is just grossly twisted. Objects don't get actions. Finally, there is no rule here for rewinding any springs or something to make the "autoloading mechanism" work. You just shove in bolts and it works itself like magic. I might consider liking it if at least that part made sense.

BackHandOfFate favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!

Finally, an exotic ranged weapon that is actually worth using. For games that give you alternate methods of acquiring exotic weapon proficiencies, this weapon is golden. Even in normal games, this weapon is great for flavor. The fact that there is no description of what the weapon looks like or how it functions mechanically (aside from explaining the game mechanics, which is pretty much the only thing that matters since it's a game) allows for alot of creative license to be taken for people who love giving their weapons a personal feel. I may be among the few who think this, but whenever I see an actual picture of an exotic weapon in a D&D book, I end up disliking it nine times out of ten. This weapon allows for archer types to break out of the long/shortbow rut and do something a little more interesting while still being reasonably effective. When I create Sjach 3.0, I will be using this weapon.

Unrealistic?

D&D. Unrealistic. Whatever do you mean?

But if you say so, I guess you're right that auto-loading mechanisms are impossible. That's why machine guns, auto-crossbows, and other rapid-fire devices were never invented. Seriously, how can a machine fire AND load itself? Impossible, gotta be magic. -- Eiji-kun 10:12, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

And of course we cannot abide unrealistic things. --DanielDraco 10:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

...Oh snap! The Dire Reverend 15:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to have a sentence describing how it works, would it? Machine guns store their energy in gunpowder in the shells. Real automatic crossbows have some sort of mechanism whereby the firer pulls back the string before each shot, but being able to fire continuously by holding down the trigger precludes that unless it's an absurdly heavy trigger. Why not say something like "each bolt is spring-loaded in the clip" or "special crystals most commonly mined on the Elemental Plane of Wood are laid down the barrel, functioning as a wooden railgun"? --Foxwarrior 18:05, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't mostly because it's a pointless bit of fluff I feel best left up to others, if they ever actually want to incorporate it. In Eberron, it's probably alchemical crystals and magiscience. Elsewhere it might be some kind of steampunk device. I'm not really too worried about settling on any particular one. -- Eiji-kun 18:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

If it's fluff that you don't want, why include the description "The crossbow loads itself as a free action as long as their is ammo in the stock."(sic)? Objects don't get actions, creatures do. And it's not unprecedented to say "in a medieval setting, this works with alchemical hydraulics while industrial tech versions may use steam, but the concept remains the same" or something of the sort. But as Foxwarrior stated, there has to be something to pull back the string. Guns have the benefit of each unit of ammunition able to provide some energy to move to the next round, but crossbows do not. So if you want to keep the item setting-agnostic, at least give a general mechanism that could be interpreted in different contexts instead of an object gaining creature abilities. I'd also suggest bumping the price back up, at least to be on par with the repeating crossbows already out there. Right now, it's cheaper for the damage it does.--Quey 22:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Exotic weapons require the investment of a feat and thus can be cheap. The heavy and light repeater suck and I suspect this item was made to replace them. --Leziad 22:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, the heavy repeating crossbow is an exotic weapon already. Why, exactly, does it suck?--Quey 22:41, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

It require you to invest a feat in, cost too much money and even then it doesn't fix the iterative attack problem with crossbows. You need yet another feat (rapid reload I think) and invest even more money for enhancement to get the iterative attack a bow would get (with slightly higher dice damages but you don't have the ability to add your str like a composite bow). Basically it require too much resources to be brought on par with other ranged weapons. This crossbow while it still need a feat does not require further resources to be made decent. --Leziad 22:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Why do I include its reload but not how it's done? Because that's a mechanical aspect: "You don't need to take an action of your own to reload this weapon until its stock is out". That's a property of the weapon which is important, but it's not important how this is done... springs, gears, magic, little crossbow fairies, the color yellow, etc... since you can play anything from cavemen to far future to weird scenarios where crossbow fairies and the color yellow make sense as ways machines work, I don't see the need to try and specify the impossible task of categorizing each one, nor do I feel the particular need to tie it down to one specific time frame or reason. You keep bringing up "objects can't take actions"... ignoring the fact this isn't technically true (intelligent items, items which react to stimulus like traps), it's a moot point since that is very much placed in the mechanics and, as mentioned before, specific trumps general. If you're really having trouble rationalizing this in your mind, consider the trap. You can make perfectly mundane traps to auto-reset, without WotC going into detail how this is achieved. So imagine that inside your crossbow you have a little auto-reseting trap of "move bolt into place, pull back string".

tl;dr You've confused mechanics for fluff, and I think the current wording is just the right amount of fluff to crunch. YMMV.

Oh, and yes, this is meant as a replacement, as repeating crossbows suck hard. So hard, that the Heavy Repeater is actually useless, literally. I can get into why it fails to even achieve the goal of repeating later. (EDIT CONFLICT: What he said.) -- Eiji-kun 22:49, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not confusing the two; I have two different objections. First, objects cannot take actions. Even intelligent magic items get ability scores, and are considered creatures ("these items think and feel the same way characters fo and should be treated as NPCs." DMG 268, "Intelligent Items"). As for traps, it may be that the traps take energy from their trigger, or maybe someone needs to rewind them after being sprung so many times (as the DM wishes). That rewinding is not specifically stated in books, but they still don't take actions.

The other objection was that you don't say how it works. It would be nice, but it's not absolutely necessary. But since you decided to go as far as to describe the presence of a mechanism and some sort of "action" going on, you might as well get more specific on how it works. You don't have to describe every possible setting. You could give an example or two, or even something as vague as "cutting edge engineers have figured out how to create an efficient store energy so the crossbow can quickly reset itself, allowing iterative attacks from BAB...". If you don't want to even go that far, don't go so far into the description so that it sounds like *poof* it works because the mechanism *physical impossibility*.

A suggestion: If I were making it, I would add something in for resetting it. Like you have to spend a minute winding it after going through a couple clips. SOMETHING. Heck, maybe you wind the clips themselves beforehand, and they store the energy.

I do understand your wanting to improve the repeating crossbow. I do think the other mechanics work very well.--Quey 23:29, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The automatic trap reset I refer to is here. As you can see, there's no specifics how (which is just fine), just that it does, either immediately or after a timer. I just want to emphasize this cause, well, it's a pretty clear case of "objects taking actions". We don't really call it that cause the reset action is "no action", so it's not a problem. Though... now that I think about it, I have the perfect thing.

They use bolt clips. Stick a spring in the clip. When it fires, the pre-coiled spring loosens, tossing in the next bolt for firing. So if its a concern for you, the energy is coming from the bolt clips themselves. Satisfying?

Fortunately it seems its just come down to a case of conflicting fluff needs. While I'm not terribly convinced it's needed, I also don't particularly care too much. Maybe later I'll stick in the spring-bearing clip idea. -- Eiji-kun 02:55, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, just saying "It works because of the mechanism," is completely valid. That completely fails to answer what the mechanism is or how it works, but you don't need to explain clockwork to say that clocks work because of gears. --Undead_Knave 03:09, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Finally, I found what I am looking for. PHB Glossary, pg. 304: "action: A character activity. Actions are divided into the following categories, according to the time required to perform them (from most time required to least): full-round actions, standard actions, move actions, and free actions." pg. 306: "character: A fictional individual within the confines of a fantasy game setting. The words “character” and “creature” are often used synonymously within these rules, since almost any creature could be a character within the game, and every character is a creature (as opposed to an object)." That last part is important. When a trap resets itself, it doesn't have a choice in the matter. I ask, what other options does it have? What other actions does it get in a round? What is it's initiative? It doesn't have options, actions, or and initiative count; it's an object. It didn't have any choice in the matter of resetting. It happens automatically. Anything an object does is the result of a character's actions. Objects do not have ability scores, but constructs, as creatures, do. Incidentally, I found this while randomly wandering: Repeater Module --Quey 04:28, 8 August 2012 (UTC)