Seems lie the whole crank thing of the heavy crossbows let someone with lower strength do it. My guess is that it could load a fixed crossbow but that a balista might be too much work -- but then maybe not.
Worst kind of min-max I saw in my life...
I agree with Oninotaki. But, please, don't make a machinegun crossbow attached to an invisible servant all-too ready to cranck it back up each round! (Just saying, in case.)
Worst kind of min-max I saw in my life...
Yikes, no; I'm not creating an item.
Just developing NPC tactics. I'm trying to describe team tactics on some of the elite NPC teams (Eldaarich's Red Guards, House Azeth's Great Caravan, Kurn's elite Black Brethren), and thought this could be how a 2nd level wizard could make himself useful atop the great caravan: reloading crossbows and having his Unseen Servant reload crossbows.
Does this seem like abusing the rule? I've actually never seen much particularly useful you could do with them, but they've got to be useful for something. Seems like support capacity like reloading crossbows would be just the sort of thing they'd be good for.
Here's another question about fixed crossbows. Do you have to "ready" a loaded fixed crossbow, just as if you were drawing a weapon? Or can you just take it and shoot all in a standard action?
Say you're 10 feet away from a loaded fixed crossbow. It's more than 5 feet, so you have to use your move equivalent action to get there. Can you shoot it, or do you have to wait until next round?
Would the answer be different if you had the quick draw feat?
Finally, 2 questions about the cool feat "Rotate Lines"
Rotate Lines [General]
In the heat of battle, weary and wounded soldiers retreat to be replaced by fresh, unwounded ones.
Prerequisites: Base attack +3
Benefit: You can swap positions with an ally within 5 ft. This is a move action that does not generate an attack of opportunity for you or your ally. You may
not take a 5 ft. step in addition when rotating lines.
If you have the feat, does your ally also have to have the feat?
What is the "Normal" rule? I thought that normally there's no Aoo when you move 5 feet, and I also thought that 2 allies could move through the same square.
Rotate Lines [General]
In the heat of battle, weary and wounded soldiers retreat to be replaced by fresh, unwounded ones.
Prerequisites: Base attack +3
Benefit: You can swap positions with an ally within 5 ft. This is a move action that does not generate an attack of opportunity for you or your ally. You may
not take a 5 ft. step in addition when rotating lines.
If you have the feat, does your ally also have to have the feat?
What is the "Normal" rule? I thought that normally there's no Aoo when you move 5 feet, and I also thought that 2 allies could move through the same square.
Your ally doesn't have to have it. Basic effect is that on your turn you get to take an ally's place. Normally, he'd have to move on his turn, then you'd have to move on your turn. 5' step disallows AoO anyway, so that's not much. So, you're granting the ally a 5' step retreat, off his turn, and without leaving the square empty.
Any takers on my 2nd question --
Do you have to "ready" a loaded fixed crossbow, just as if you were drawing a weapon? Or can you just take it and shoot all in a standard action?
Say you're 10 feet away from a loaded fixed crossbow. It's more than 5 feet, so you have to use your move equivalent action to get there. Can you shoot it, or do you have to wait until next round?
Would the answer be different if you had the quick draw feat?
I agree with Oninotaki. But, please, don't make a machinegun crossbow attached to an invisible servant all-too ready to cranck it back up each round! (Just saying, in case.)
Worst kind of min-max I saw in my life...
Aren't there quickloading crossbows magical items anyway? Also, if you want min/maxing, check out some of the craziness on the CO boards. Fun to look at, better to guard against as a DM.
Doesn't make any sense to me why you'd have to "ready" it so I'd say that you could move-action to it and then standard-action fire the thing. IMO the whole "ready a weapon" action is, essentially, just the drawing of it/knocking an arrow/etc. - that's why you've got the Quick Draw feat to make it a free action, and why people with a BAB of +1 or better can do so as part of their move; there's not much to it, so to say that you have to somehow spend an action to grab ahold of an already-prepared weapon stock and put your finger on the trigger doesn't make much sense.
Ah -- now that bolded part is what I didn't know, and that answers my question, I think. Thank you!
Doesn't have to be an unseen servant, if Dirk's right; any flunky commoner could reload your fixed crossbow for you while you shot from the other one.
Am I in error?
I'm not looking for anything "quickloading" in the sense that you're speaking. An unseen servant would still need a full round to load the fixed crossbow. But if you had two fixed crossbows on a wall, and an unseen servant, then (correct me if I'm wrong) you could fire once per round instead of once every two rounds.
Doesn't have to be an unseen servant, if Dirk's right; any flunky commoner could reload your fixed crossbow for you while you shot from the other one.
Am I in error?
That is correct, although the rules for that would be a little different; if you had, say, 2 regular crossbows sitting next to each other, you could fire one with a standard action, take a 5' step over to the other, then move-action to pick it up. On the other hand, since that BAB+1 rule is correct, as a GM I would be inclined to agree that, as long as you didn't have to go way out of your way to get ahold of the weapon (i.e. it's not laying on the ground or stacked up in a rack) then you could apply the "draw your weapon as part of your move action" rule to this situation. The big difference is the ease with which you can "acquire" the weapon - if it'd take as long to ready the crossbow/fixed crossbow/etc. as it would be to draw a sword from its sheath, then you should be able to do it as part of your move action (if you have a BAB of +1 or higher). If not, it would take an entire move action to get the weapon.
As far as the "reloading commoner" issue goes, that's a valid tactic although in the end it doesn't really make much difference as far as offensive power is concerned - if you had two people and two crossbows, you're still only firing an average of 1 bolt every round no matter how you work it. The only real benefit here is that you could have a "weapons master" (fighter or someone else with a good attack bonus) and a couple lower-level peons to do the reloading, so as to get the best overall to-hit roll for the cheapest weekly wage. ;)
Oh, and something else - you don't even need 2 fixed crossbows to do this; the firer shoots the crossbow while the loader holds his action, reloading the bolt at the end of the round. That way you're getting off 1 shot a round, using a single weapon, thanks to "team tactics" akin to how military units deploy man-portable machineguns.
Aren't there quickloading crossbows magical items anyway?
Also, a Rapid Reload feat that lets you use a X-bow like a bow (ie, your full number of attacks/round)