NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 7671602" data-attributes="member: 50304">Even the full-sized man-portable repeating crossbow was so weak it was almost worthless against medium/heavy armor. You had to use poison hand hope for a grazing injury.You just can't cheat physics without magic. The energy for each shot has to come from somewhere, or in this case someone. The longbow is your most efficient ratio of force / time. The crossbow's mechanics are dedicated to allowing you to store the potential energy temporarily and deliver it on a more stable platform. Systems with levers and cranks allow you to store more energy than a single draw, which is how they defeat armor (like properly riveted mail) that even the strongest longbow can't hope to penetrate. However, none of these innovations are free. You can give up power for speed or speed for power but you can't have both unless you introduce an external power source. That's one of the reasons the proper medieval heavy-crossbow (the one that killed knights) was typically operated by a 3-man team of an archer and two assistants.Crossbows that a single man can draw are either weak (like weaker than a javelin, but less cumbersome) or take a relatively long time to cock compared to operating a regular bow. Expertise pushes the envelope far enough just letting crossbows keep up with the rate of fire of a normal bow. There's no physics to support one-handed loading semi-auto pistol bow-guns for John Woo antics in D&D.Pew-pew laser crossbow sounds like a fund idea for a magic item, though. Magic items are supposed to break physics over their knee.Marty Lund</blockquote>

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