The idea of a character dropping to the ground to fire at a target 5' away strikes me as silly as well. [Hit the Deck] sounds more suited for a technique used against ranged attacks.
Yeah, I thought about that while I was typing, but my original concept was that the CT would drop out of the way of a melee attack, fall prone, and fire a bolt into their opponent from a surprise-like position.
The requirements for the class seem awfully high. 3d6 sneak attack will force what, 5 levels of rogue? But there are 3 feats required, and BAB +5, which would require another two additional levels, either to Rogue 7 or Rogue 5/Fighter 2.
Well if you're saying that they're too high for the what the class provides, then cool, I get to add more stuff
.
If you want to get technical, I don't think there is really a reason why high-power crossbows are impossible (for anyone to build or use!) except that they should possibly take longer to load. If the crossbow had the right type of device for pulling back the string - a cranequin, for instance - I don't think you'd even need high strength, it would just take a bit longer. Anyhow, that was a digression, more to the point: don't require odd Str requirements, just base it off of Str bonus. It's just simpler that way.
Well, aside from my agreeing that they could probably be standard weapons anyways, I was thinking that the mighty-draw would either require a longer reload time(which would make crossbows insane), or more simply a minimum Str to draw it back to the required position. Hm.... I don't know, changing it to a Str mod would really have almost the same effect, but I happen to like the odd str requirements. I guess my feeling was that since a strong character could load a bunch of Mighty-Draw crossbows and then distribute them to his weaker allies, the requirement needed to be a little steeper, but not way different.
I do like most of the abilities.
Thanks, although a lot of this class was constructed with MotW turned to the Deepwood Sniper PrC, so a few abilities were borrowed from there.
What about being able to fire in melee without receiving an Attack of Opportunity, though?
Well, it's included in the "In the Thick" ability, if that's what you're asking. And as for "In the Thick"'s balance issue, I was thinking along the lines of the opponent's loss of dexterity to AC, not the firing/loading in melee part.
"*Race: Human, Elf, or Half-Elf"
This I do not like. Elves using Crossbows?! They get MW: Bows as a racial bonus... it'd be silly for them to use Crossbows.
This was more of a flavor-based decision(though I guess that would be hard to pick out without me including any flavor text at all). Really, I was thinking primarily for humans, but obviously Elves that turned away from their ancestral weapons could use this class, so I included them too.
Now, Gnomes, Dwarves and Humans using Crossbows -- that I could see.
Well, I was going to say that I had intended to exclude small races because they couldn't use the Heavy Crossbow, but now that I actually
read the Heavy Crossbow entry, that's gone. Personally I picture a character with this class to be more agile and skilled, and I didn't see Dwarves and Half-Orcs that way. Now, though, I believe I'll eliminate the race requirement completely. *Poof* it's gone.
Advice: either eliminate the Race requirement, or specifically exclude Elves.
I did just that... the first part.
"In the Thick(Ex)"
This is a WEEE bit overpowered, espeicially given the 3d6 Sneak Attack requirement.
Alright. I'm thinking about combining "Hit the Deck" and the questionable part of "In the Thick" to bring the concept closer to what I had originally imagined. Here goes(I've listed both so you see the changes to each):
In the Thick: At 3rd level, the Crossbow Tactician learns to better fight with his crossbows while in close-quarters combat. He no longer suffers an attack of opportunity when loading or firing a crossbow in melee.
Hit the Deck: At 7th level, the Crossbow Tactician can duck an attack and imediately make a surprise attack with his crossbow, catching the attacker flat-footed. Once per combat, when an attack-either melee or ranged- would be successful against the Crossbow Tactician, he may choose to fall prone and make an immediate Attack of Opportunity with his Crossbow against the attacker(assuming he has any AoOs left for the round). The target is treated as flat-footed against this attack. (Note that normally a ranged weapon cannot be used for an AoO. This ability allows crossbow AoOs only in conjunction with this ability.)
Thanks Nifft and CCamfield.
