Sorry, should've clarified that my houserule dates back to before SA was errata'd to include shortbows. At the time, the player thought it was still worth it; now I think I'm going to offer a free retrain or upgrade the feat to include longbows.
Greatbow Ranger and Sneak Attack
- Thread starter Nullzone
- Start date
Sorry, should've clarified that my houserule dates back to before SA was errata'd to include shortbows. At the time, the player thought it was still worth it; now I think I'm going to offer a free retrain or upgrade the feat to include longbows.
aurance
Explorer
FYI, it's not as great as you might think. It's something in the neighborhood of +1-1.5 average damage over a dagger (including to-hit chance), and costs two more feats. The ranged thing counts for something I suppose.
In this case it was a player with an Elf Ranger who had already multiclassed into Rogue for other reasons anyway. Pre-essentials errata they would've had to switch to a crossbow to get the most out of it, and then take Speed Loader to be useful, which I think had just appeared.
Since the end result of crossbow+Speed Loader is a 1d8 ranged "rogue" weapon with load free at the cost of a feat, I was in the middle of making a custom feat to allow a shortbow to work with Rogue powers when Treetop Sniper came along. Treetop Sniper being objectively quite a bit better didn't quite sit well with me at first, so I cut it back a bit. In retrospect, probably too much.
I guess part of the reason why, is that it bothers me a bit that now a vanilla Rogue/Thief's best ranged option is often the shortbow, by a pretty good margin. Shortbows do not strike me as iconic sneaky weapons, regardless of what previous editions supported. I think they should be available (that's what feats are for), but now almost any ranged Rogue build is stupid not to use one. It seems odd to me that crossbows are (before feats, at least) pretty poor options for Rogues or Thieves.
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I'd go one further and say that crossbows in general are pretty poor options, mainly due to the loading speed. That's an extra feat other weapons don't cost and, at least for the characters I play, feats are at a premium. I have yet to have room for Weapon Focus, for example, on any character I play.
Actually, I realize I've forgotten that shortbows still aren't viable for most Rogues (aside from Treetop Sniper) even if they do work with SA, since all those weapon prereqs on Rogue powers haven't had errata (yet). So PH1 Rogues are forced to stick with crossbows for now, though shuriken are better before feats.
Thieves, though... have little reason to ever touch a crossbow. Maybe a superior crossbow with Speed Loader is worth two feats. It's definitely worth one if you don't mind giving up your minor action every round.
EDIT: Derp, SA specifically only works with hand crossbows. Gah. So Thieves never have reason to use crossbows, period.
EDIT EDIT: I now see that SA used to work with all crossbows, and now doesn't, which is why I've been so confused. Derp on WOTC's part, I guess. Maybe they just realized superior crossbows were a bad idea?
Thieves, though... have little reason to ever touch a crossbow. Maybe a superior crossbow with Speed Loader is worth two feats. It's definitely worth one if you don't mind giving up your minor action every round.
EDIT: Derp, SA specifically only works with hand crossbows. Gah. So Thieves never have reason to use crossbows, period.
EDIT EDIT: I now see that SA used to work with all crossbows, and now doesn't, which is why I've been so confused. Derp on WOTC's part, I guess. Maybe they just realized superior crossbows were a bad idea?
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Aulirophile
First Post
Superior Crossbow no longer works with SA.
Shurikens aren't better either.... accuracy and the damage die is identical (assuming you take the Rogue feature that supports each one), but Crossbows have immeasurably better support.
