Mighty Crossbows

[Egon the Monkey]

It's strange that the archery shop doesn't sell any Mighty crossbows, only long- and shortbows, and there is only one, rather crappy Mighty +1 one (with -2DEX). Since you can't rapidshoot them, and you need a feat just to get 2 attacks with one, I think it would be good to see some Mighty ones about.

[Daemonic Daz]

I don't see many people using them, but if a excellent character comes rolling around and does some good stuff. I'm sure our DM team would be more than willing to make a decent Crossbow for them.

[Capricious]

I think the problem with a mighty crossbow is that simply isn't how a crossbow works. With a light crossbow you pull it back with your hands to a designated spot, your strength doesn't matter. A heavy crossbow uses a crank mechanism to pull the string back at a tension that's really beyond most character's strengths. In both cases the tension is a constant, which is why they do more base damage than a bow.

However, there's all kinds of other ways to make a crossbow better, additional damage types added (fire, cold, piercing, etc.), skill points included, etc. It's just that the mighty attribute sort of goes against the whole physics of how a crossbow works.

[Lulzebub]

Crossbows already get higher max damage, and they have something that really makes them shine over bows: a critical threat range of 19-20. That is why they do not get rapid shot, nor should they. They kick quite enough ass already.

[Equinox]

Crossbows suck. Fact. 19-20 critcal threat range does simply not compare to an extra attack.

Unless you are a rouge with sneaks. in which case any weapon will do.

[ExileStrife]

Capricious is right, it doesn't really make sense to have a mighty crossbow for "practical" reasons, though I suppose it wouldn't stop us in the land of make believe.

[Lulzebub]

No, but when you combine a 19-20 critical threat range with bastard sword damage on a ranged weapon, that extra attack makes a huge difference.

Think about it for a minute. A fighter takes weapon focus, weapon specialization, and improved critical for heavy crossbow. He's getting a critical hit every other round, on some fairly heavy damage, at range. Suddenly that crossbow doesn't suck so much anymore.

[AfroMullet]

Only that the crit will do damage in the low 20s. 24 at most, unless the crossbow has some sorts of extra damage. Buffed bastard sword dudes can almost hit for that much on normal hits. The 19-20 critical range on a heavy crosssbow is nothing because the weapon sucks. Archery already sucks. Crossbow archery sucks even more.

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

"Mighty" is one of those game mechanics that developers seemed to play with during the 3rd Edition of D&D (perhaps earlier? Anyone with a love affair for 2nd edition, was mighty a property that was introduced, and/or common?). First it was "Mighty Composite Bows"... the word "Mighty" being thrown in front of it seemed to make it a term of sorts... and then there were mighty whips... mighty heavy whips... mighty chain daggers... mighty nagaika...
 
Essentially "Mighty" became a catch-all term for any base weapon type a designer could conjure up that uses the strength bonus mechanic in an abnormal circumstance. Made a great deal of sense with Composite Bows... the other stuff was a bit questionable. Fun times.
 
In 3.5, you didn't see "Mighty" anymore, and instead the Mighty Composite Bows were simply called Composite Bows. I also liked the fact that they changed it so it gave you a -2 to attack if you didn't meet the Strength Rating. So you could have a Composite Bow with a 10 Strength Rating, but unless you had 10 Strength Bonus, you'd get -2 to Attack :P
 
Mighty shouldn't be on crossbows, unless it's intended to be a magical property, in which case, hey, it's magic... some powerful rune or another absorbs the strength from your body and makes some sort of extra concussive force behind the bolt, sure sure. However, the only way I can see it being non-magically justified... is that you had some huge crossbow that had a high-tension crank that couldn't be turned by those of normal ability (i.e. people with STR 10 and below), and only those with a strong arm could actually turn this high tension crank... with the higher tension, the crossbow would have a stronger firing "power". But then it would have to be restricted so that those who didn't have proper strength couldn't crank it in the first place. But even this sort of quasi-realistic justification is dubious.
 
My, that was a bit of fun.
 
Where's Alyssara? Isn't she supposed to pour her endless lore into this debate? :)

[ScottyB]

Couldn't a Mighty Crossbow just be a crossbow with multiple draw-back positions? Thus, if you have the strength to crank it far enough then you can use a higher-tension launching point. Otherwise, if you're just 10STR, then you only get it back to the normal position.

I know it's BS reasoning, but we have GNOMES. I'm sure they could figure it out.

[VanillaPudding]

I'm in favor for anything that makes archery not a horrible waste of time outside of being a coward on quests. :)

[Egon the Monkey]

It's pointless to discuss whether a Mighty Crossbow makes sense on EfU... when we have one as questloot XD.

(It's called the Reptilian Small Ballista, it's a +1 Mighty -2Dex Heavy Crossbow, and it's probably the worst weapon on EfU, short of someone deciding to use  a Surgeon's Knife. The only thing it works for is a Zen Archer.)

As for "How do you make it Mighty?" Simple. A Light Crossbow with a powerful draw, or a Heavy Crossbow with a mechanism that takes more force to operate, but therefor stores more. It's just a case of Making It Bigger. The simplest mechanism would be a high tension bow piece and a "Stirrup" you stand on to draw the string upwards. If you're interested, look up historical crossbow designs.

@Lulzebub. It's still better to use a Mighty +2 pr Mighty +3 Longbow that you can get. 1d10+0, no rapidshooting ,19-20 2x crit, vs 1d8+2, 3x crit,  and the option to trade -2 AB for another attack. It's not even worth it as a Sneak Attack Delivery System unless you don't plan to focus much on archery or are taking mage levels so you'll never get that 2nd attack.

[Lulzebub]

You're leaving out improved critical. It becomes 17-20/2.

[Egon the Monkey]

And a longbow becomes 19-20 x3 if you happen to be a L8-9 fighter taking imp crit. The fact that it's got more crits is irrelevant, as the longbow gets better crits so it evens out. It's like saying a longsword's better than a battleaxe because you get a better critrange. Also, Imp Critical affects a minority of characters so it's not really significant anyway.

@Daz. Yes, it's possible for a cool character to get uberloot to make a daft weapon choice good. See the crazy bows VanillaPudding's Assassins have had. However, that's never guaranteed, and a character struggling to get anywhere can get boring, fast. It's worse with ranged weapons, as melee weapons give you plenty of options to get around a bad weapon due to the large amount of +damage weapons in the "light weapon" and "simple weapon" categories, the fact you can use plenty of buffs, power attack or dirty fighting, KD, etc.Most combat on EfU comes down to Teh Buffz, and crossbows are the weapon that benefits least from those in any way.

On the other hand, there are some great whips, halberds, clubs and other subpar weapons, and knowing there are semi-rare items a PC using those could get hold of in the future gives concepts using them the hope they could acquire that, and not have to hope for DM loot.

[Drakill Tannan]

Screw reality. Even if we assumed magic where posible, the are far too many unreal things on EFU.

I agree with egon. I like the crossbow, it's a neat weapon, it's just useless too. Make some mighty crossbows.