Does your ranger use a crossbow?

[StreamOfTheSky]

The crossbow could be specialized refit, a repeating crossbow with a crank, a la the Chinese Repeating Crossbow. According to the website, "By means of this arrangement one hundred men could discharge two thousand arrows in fifteen seconds." Dividing the total number of arrows by the total number of men, nets 20 arrows per 15 seconds per person. Cutting that roughly in half, 9 bolts in 6 seconds is entirely reasonable.

Yes, repeating corssbows are amazing, I'm surprised no one else brought it up. On the other hand...didn't those have considerable reload time? I don't dispute being able ot bombard an enemy with bolts in any one round, people in real life could do that, as you show. But to be able to repeat that round after round?

 

[Turtlejay]

Yeah, it was kind of an odd oversight to make thrown weapons return automatically (and with no action cost), but to have bows and crossbows still use mundane ammunition and require reloading. It would have little mechanical effect to have magical weapons fire bolts of magic, or to re-summon the same bolt after it has completed its flight.

Jay

 

[Zaran]

Yeah, it was kind of an odd oversight to make thrown weapons return automatically (and with no action cost), but to have bows and crossbows still use mundane ammunition and require reloading. It would have little mechanical effect to have magical weapons fire bolts of magic, or to re-summon the same bolt after it has completed its flight.

I don't think it was an oversight. The only reason the returning throwing weapon was made was so that those kind of characters didn't have to acquire more than one weapon to have a useful character. Bolts and Arrows have a negligible cost.

Making crossbows have almost the same mechanics as bows is basically the same idea: To simplify the game so it works instead of worrying about how it works.