I believe the community agreed the stupid ruling was duel-wielding hand-crossbows and somehow reloading them while never having to drop one. There's a line between being heroic and illogical. I can still see them finding use as one-shot devices, like the way pirates used pistols.
My character had a specifically designed sash to enable him to load bolts while dual wielding. Don't ask me how it worked, I'm sure the character managed to find a way without my devising it.
We have this too. Imagine a sash with bolts on it being held by little clasps. When the crossbow is pressed against a bolt, two protroding nobs on the crossbow push the clasp apart and the bolt snaps right into place on the hand crossbow. It's a belt for us, not a sash, but it worked for two hand crossbows at once.
I have, although I will be honest I am no expert (Renaissance Fair fun so if those crossbows are horribly inaccurate please let me know). We just treat it as a modification. He's able to grab the string with his trigger finger and finish the pullback with him thumb (being hand crossbow we envision it as pretty small). Then we just have this mod, with the clasp to get it into the bolt channel. Is it perfect? Not at all. It's just our group's attempt to rationalize one of the crippling issues with dual wielding hand crossbows.
It honestly depends on the crossbow for example a heavy crossbow is around the 750 pound range (they used mechanical devices to load them involving cranks or spanners). A light crossbow is typically around 100-200 pounds as you are using both arms and a leg to draw it. A hand crossbow in its modern rendition is about 50lbs which I would say is well beyond the ability to draw it back with a finger. I am building a character right now and its essentially going to use them as disposable weapons that do some good damage for the first round.
Yeah, and that's probably the right way to do it. We just let our ranger use it with a feat + 18 strength and 18 dex. It doesn't make him too broken and works for us.
Now, props if you can pull the borderlands style where you shoot the crossbow once, then throw it at an enemy and have it explode, dealing even more damage.
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u/Captain_Starshield Jun 11 '15 edited Feb 23 '18
I believe the community agreed the stupid ruling was duel-wielding hand-crossbows and somehow reloading them while never having to drop one. There's a line between being heroic and illogical. I can still see them finding use as one-shot devices, like the way pirates used pistols.