New exotic weapon: The Quad-bow

[Asmor]

The Quad-bow is almost like 4 seperate longbows grafted together by the grips. It is designed so that each seperate string is drawn by a different finger, and arrows rest on the grip between arms.

A quad-bow allows you to make up to 4 attacks with a single attack action. You may make 2 attacks regardless of BAB, 3 attacks with at least a BAB of +6, and 4 attacks with a BAB of +11 or higher. All attacks are made at your full BAB, although for each attack you make you suffer a -4 cumulative penalty on all attack rolls. For example, a fully-loaded quad-bow wielded by someone with a BAB of +11 may make 4 attacks, each with a -16 penalty, as a standard action.

Reloading a quad-bow is a move action. With the rapid reload feat, it becomes a swift action. Alternatively, a quad bow may be used as a normal longbow by only loading one string, although you still incur a single -4 penalty.

Finally, due to the need to essentially draw 4 seperate bows, quad-bows are made less stiff than normal bows and have a limited range and slightly reduced damage potential.

Quad-bow 100 gp 1d6 ×3 20 ft. 6 lb. Piercing

Quad-bow Mastery
You are especially proficient with a quad-bow.
Prerequisites: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Quad-bow), Rapid Reload
Benefit: The penalties for each attack with the quad-bow is lessened by 2, to -2 per attack. Using the quadbow like a normal longbow also results in only a -2 penalty.
Normal: For each arrow fired, the quad-bow imparts a -4 penalty

 

[Notmousse]

Lemme get this straight...

Less range, less damage, costs a feat to use normally, costs two more feats to use with even minimal efficiency, *and* it costs more than a normal bow. Why?

At most you're looking at two 'attacks' for 4d6 each since even with rapid reload you can only reload once per round without taking a move action.

The only possible use I can think of would be to combine this with (Improved) Manyshot to perform volley attacks, though that would require a liberal reading of the item and feat.

Even as a half assed replacement for Manyshot it's not something I would call interesting.

 

[Asmor]

So you think it's underpowered, then?

Maybe I went a bit overboard on the "bad things." I dunno.

On the other hand, keep in mind that this essentially lets you take a move action and still make a full complement of attacks. With rapid reload, you can move and make up to 4 attacks every round.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

This item just strikes me as not right.. not from a mechanics viewpoint, but from a 'how in the heck would that work' standpoint.

On the mechanic side, items that grant multiple attacks can be a bad thing.. how do they interact with iterative attacks or multi-attack? Better to combine the arrows into one attack.



I could see a Dual or quad cross-bow, but not longbow.
As a dual-crossbow, you would need to load each 'barrel' as if it were a normal crossbow, but could loose all the bolts at the same target, making it more like an elephant gun approach.

Something like:
Dual Cross-bow. This variant crossbow comes in a variety of sizes and fires 2 bolts instead of one. Due to the ungainly mechanism it suffers a -4 to hit. The damage is double normal, with a Dual Light X-Bow dealing 2D6 and a Dual Heavy X-Bow dealing 2D8. It takes an additional Move action to reload a Dual Cross-bow.

Quad Cross-bow. This variant takes multi-bolt mechanisms to an extreme. It fires 4 bolts instead of one. Due to the ungainly mechanism it suffers a -8 to hit. The damage is quadruple normal, with a Quad Light X-Bow dealing 4D6 and a Quad Heavy X-Bow dealing 4D8. It takes an additional Full Round action to reload a Quad Cross-bow.

The weilder can chose to fire only one bolt at a time in order to fire at multiple targets. When fired this way, the weapon deals the normal damage by its type and still suffers the penalty to hit.

An Exotic Weapon Proficiency can reduce the penalty to hit by 4. A second EWP can negate the penalty to hit from the Quad X-Bow

Rapid Reload acts as normal.

 

[DanMcS]

So you think it's underpowered, then?

Maybe I went a bit overboard on the "bad things." I dunno.

On the other hand, keep in mind that this essentially lets you take a move action and still make a full complement of attacks. With rapid reload, you can move and make up to 4 attacks every round.

I don't think it's very useful. This costs an exotic weapon proficiency and another feat to be about as useful as manyshot. And with manyshot, you can do it with any bow; it has two prerequisites (PBS and rapid shot) that any archer is going to have anyway.

For some reason, this lacks the "all attacks have to be at the same target" restriction of manyshot, which I'm having touble visualizing. You'd have to be really good to aim at several targets simultaneously

 

[Fieari]

How about a +1 priced ability that grants the manyshot feat to wielders who don't have it? And perhaps reduces the to-hit penalty for those that do already have it...

 

[Asmor]

I don't think it's very useful. This costs an exotic weapon proficiency and another feat to be about as useful as manyshot. And with manyshot, you can do it with any bow; it has two prerequisites (PBS and rapid shot) that any archer is going to have anyway.

For some reason, this lacks the "all attacks have to be at the same target" restriction of manyshot, which I'm having touble visualizing. You'd have to be really good to aim at several targets simultaneously

You don't have to shoot each arrow at the same time. You hold each string with a seperate finger, and can let each one fly independantly.

 

[Machiavelli]

A couple years ago I used AutoCAD to draft a design for an 8-shot crossbow. It may be about what you're looking for, so long as you're ok with a gnomesque level of mechanical sophistication.

It uses a block-and-tackle system on the single (very strong) composite metal/wood laminate cross-piece to provide a draw force of 40 pounds at 12 feet of draw. Two separate ropes on two separate blocks feed around the front of the cross-piece from the bottom up, then back into a groove just big enough to fit both ropes and a modified bolt. At the back of the groove the ropes pass down through the stock to be taken up on the winding winch. A ratchet-and-pawl system on the winch limits each pull of the firing lever to release 1.5' of rope back through the weapon onto the drawing blocks. The bolts are pushed, one at a time, down between the ropes in the firing groove, and they have dull teeth on the sides to engage the grooves of the twisted-strand ropes.

I'd say drawing and loading a bolt, then aiming and firing it, would take the same time as doing the same for a bow. As such, you could use the crossbow like a bow for 8 shots, which provides absolutely no advantage over a bow. With a spring-loaded auto-loader triggered by the firing lever, though, you would essentially have a semi-automatic crossbow.

I'd set the stats for the semi-automatic crossbow at the following:
Exotic Ranged Weapons

Gnome Heavy Auto-bow   750gp   1d6(s)   1d8(m)   19-20/x2    60ft    16lb    Piercing
  Auto-bolts (8)        16gp     -         -         -         -      2lb      -

Loading the Gnome heavy auto-bow takes 2 full minutes, provoking attacks of opportunity every round, and cannot be performed by a non-proficient wielder. A loaded auto-bow may be carried without danger of accidental firing, but for at least 8 consecutive hours every day the bow must be unloaded, to prevent warping of the crosspiece. A warped crossbow deals 1 hit die lower damage (1d8 becomes 1d6, etc.) and its range decreases by 20ft. Firing the Gnome heavy auto-bow is no more complicated then firing a standard heavy crossbow, so it can be fired without penalty by a wielder proficient with simple weapons, but a proficient wielder may choose to fire up to 4 bolts per attack, applying damage for each bolt and suffering a -1 cumulative penalty to the attack roll for each bolt fired, up to -3 for four bolts. Only specialized auto-bolts may be used, which may not be available in most armories.

 

[Machiavelli]

Asmor, I know that crossbow has nothing to do with YOUR weapon idea, but the game mechanics appear to be what you're looking for. Does it actually help you at all?







Also, I'd like to shamelessly plug the "Elymasti" thread. It needs more traffic, as I haven't gotten a single response yet and am beginning to suspect that I'm a natural-born thread-killer >.<

 

[Asmor]

Don't feel too bad. You should see how many threads I'm subscribed to that have me as their last poster.

Honestly, I'm happy with the way my bow came out even if everyone else isn't. Your crossbow is nice, but it's not really applicable IMHO.