Skip to content

Usefulness of Crossbows

BelacRLJBelacRLJ Member Posts: 51
This may be a dumb question, but:

Since short and longbows allow for 1 extra attack per round and crossbows don't, and there are more magically enhanced arrows than bolts that drop as loot, why would anyone use crossbows at all (especially light ones)?

Am I missing some key wrinkle in the rules?

Edit: This excludes specific powerful bows in each category and as such is more geared toward BG1.
Post edited by BelacRLJ on
Quartz

Comments

  • Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
    edited October 2019
    Crossbows do 1D8 rather than 1D6 damage and actually have a better speed factor than longbows and shortbows, which I think means that even though they shoot twice per round you get to shoot first (I could be wrong about this - to be honest who attacks when has always been a bit of a mystery to me). The Army Scythe (+1 Crossbow of Speed = +1 damage, +1 to hit and +1 attack per round) is expensive but is available from pretty much the start and though you are far more likely to stumble across magical arrows than magical bolts for most of the game once you get to Durlag's Tower I think you will find all the bolts you can handle. And once you have got hold of bolts of lightning and bolts of biting you are going to be doing some serious damage to your enemies.
    StummvonBordwehrSkatansarevok57
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    There are a few reasons, which don't add up to enough that most parties will want a crossbow user.

    First, the selection of special bolts is different from the selection of special arrows. Bolts of biting are different from arrows of biting, dealing a fixed amount of poison damage instead of a percentage of maximum health - which makes them better against most BG1 enemies. Bolts of lightning deal 4d4 elemental damage, more than even those ridiculous 2d6 acid arrows in BG1.
    This continues in BG2, only better; the elemental arrows are nerfed while bolts of lightning aren't, and more special bolts like the ones kuo-toa and sahuagin use show up.

    Second, there are only so many top-end bows. There's exactly one +1 composite longbow, one +2 longbow, and one +2 shortbow. If you've got more than three archers, one of them has to use inferior equipment - or switch to a crossbow like the Army Scythe (light crossbow of speed +1).
    The added BG2 wrinkle? In BG2, bows don't get bonus damage from enchantment but crossbows do. Increased damage per bolt gives crossbows their niche.

    Third, the baseline bolt damage is slightly higher than the baseline arrow damage. 1d8 versus 1d6 isn't exciting, but it is an advantage which lets that light crossbow of speed keep up with the +2 bows damage-wise.
    SkatanmonicoAerakar
  • ilduderinoilduderino Member Posts: 773
    edited October 2019
    I think they will generally be worse than bows, especially mundane crossbows vs mundane bows, but the army scythe and firetooth can be very effective and there are only so many bows.
    Aerakar
  • BelacRLJBelacRLJ Member Posts: 51
    That makes sense. For a given individual archer in BG1 it still seems to me that nonmagical bows are superior, but at the party level it's likely that a magical crossbow will make the list (so it's worth having someone prepared to wield it by putting proficiencies into it at lower levels).
    Permidion_StarkSkatan
  • masteralephmasteraleph Member Posts: 270
    Also, in BG2, the army scythe returns and is just as good. And there’s a crossbow available to buy outside Watcher’s Keep which doesn’t get the bonus attack but deals lots of additional damage.
    monico
  • ChroniclerChronicler Member Posts: 1,391
    Biggest reason imo is that lots of companions use longbows and shortbows and almost none of them use crossbows.

    So by having your player character use crossbows, let's say Imoen can use the best shortbow, Kivan can use the best longbow, and you can use the best crossbow.

    Additionally, having at least one member of your team use crossbows diversifies the kinds of magic ammo you can use. The Magic Bolts have different effects from the Magic Arrows.

    Each of the most powerful crossbows in BG1 has some pretty powerful effects too. The Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy provides a whopping -5 Bonus to your Thac0, turning even a bard into an ace marksman. The Light Crossbow of Speed provides +1 APR, which means at this point you're pretty much just operating a better bow.
    Artona
  • monicomonico Member Posts: 571
    Both are very good, but very different.

    Bows with their increased APR (sure, there is a +1 APR crossbow, but there's also a +1 APR shortbow in early BG2) make for nice machine guns.
    So, especially when thac0 matters, having 3 chances per round to hit for some low/mild damage is better than 1 or 2 chances per round to hit for heavier damage.

    At higher levels though, especially as a fighter with Greater Whirlwind, the APR and thac0 become irrelevant, and the massive damage from Crossbows, especially the Firetooth one, makes them very deadly, deadlier than bows actually. The thing is, when comparing only endgame with access to GWW, crossbows are also outmatched and by far by slings and throwing weapons, so if you only focus on the endgame (which you shouldn't do), crossbow still isn't your best bet.

    And also note that while crossbows, slings and other ranged weapons need GWW to get to 10 APR, a bow user with Improved Haste gets the same APR for longer duration and allowing use of other HLA's.
    So bow users can still be considered to have an edge over other ranged weapons.

    The real difference in fact, as stated above already, is not the DPS of different weapons, but the usage of each one.
    Pros for bows:
    - For example, if you play an assassin with poison weapon, or any ability that puts debuffs on hit, you'll want to use the weapon with the highest rate of fire (darts and bows mainly, throwing daggers have good RoF, but lower range and the animation seems to take forever for the missile to actually launch, although they are supposed to have a low speed factor)
    - Technically, an archer who gets +1 damage every 3level benefits also from higher RoF. If looked at very superficially, the difference between an arrow and a bolt is only 2 max damage (1d8 for bolts vs. 1d6 for arrows), so a lvl6 archer with his +2 dmg added to arrows already outdamages a normal bolt (well, same maximum damage, but better consistency).

    Pros for crossbows:
    - the real seller is the special ammunition. While bows have some fantastic ones (detonation, dispelling, biting), crossbows also have bolts of biting of their own (not exactly the same, but do the same job at disrupting spellcasters who fail their saves), a devastating Bolt of Lightning (4d4 electrical damage, saving throw allowed for half, also lightning being the least resisted elemental damage), and very useful paralytic bolts dropped by kuo-toans and sahuagins.
    - the Firetooth crossbows deserves a special mention: although not documented in your character screen, it does massive damage. It fires "fantom" bolts if nothing is equiped in the quiver, with +2 fire damage on top. But the real seller is that, in fact, if you equip something in your quiver, you will do the bolt damage AND the fantom bolt damage on top of that (not documented but tested again and again), and off course the +2 fire damage that is so good at disrupting spellcasters since it bypasses mirror images and stoneskin. There you have great utility and massive damage on top. Note that this works also for Gesen Bow, but the base damage from its fantom arrows (outside the electrical damage) is only 2.
    Also, Firetooth can be acquired anytime you want, and can damage enemies requiring +4 weapons (so does Gesen's bow)
    SkatanAerakarJuliusBorisov
  • ChroniclerChronicler Member Posts: 1,391
    monico wrote: »
    - the Firetooth crossbows deserves a special mention: although not documented in your character screen, it does massive damage. It fires "fantom" bolts if nothing is equiped in the quiver, with +2 fire damage on top. But the real seller is that, in fact, if you equip something in your quiver, you will do the bolt damage AND the fantom bolt damage on top of that (not documented but tested again and again),

    I think this bug has been fixed.
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    Chronicler wrote: »
    I think this bug has been fixed.
    There are mods that fix it, but it's still live in game version 2.5. I've seen 20 physical damage on a non-critical hit (from Firetooth) by a non-warrior. 1d8 damage from the bolt being used, another 1d8+4 from the phantom bolt.

    The displayed damage on the inventory screen is incorrect for auto-ammo launchers, when also using real ammo. Instead, look at the damage dealt in the combat log.
    SkatanmonicoAerakarJuliusBorisov
  • monicomonico Member Posts: 571
    Funny, it never occurred to me that it could be considered as a bug. To me it is just an awesome feature of awesome weapons :smiley:
    Aerakar
  • Phoenix_VIIPhoenix_VII Member Posts: 9
    Did beamdog ever call it a bug? Doesn't sound like one to me.
  • ChroniclerChronicler Member Posts: 1,391
    At a bare minimum if the inventory screen is listing the wrong damage that's a bug.

    This double ammo feature isn't listed anywhere in the description of the weapon, so that's also something that would need to be fixed if we're to present this as intentional.

    Also, from what I understand, this behavior isn't uniform among the auto-ammo launchers. Some of them let you double up on ammo and some of them do not. Again, nowhere in the game does it list which of these launchers do or don't. It's just up to the player to observe when their weapon is doing double its listed damage, which isn't really how any other weapon in the game works.

    I'd personally say it's a bug, but if it's a feature then there's some work that should be done in that department too.
    Aerakarmonico
  • monicomonico Member Posts: 571
    I actually agree with you, it seems to me that it is not proper behaviour (or at least should be consistent).

    It is just that I always took it for granted, and considered it as "unintended feature" more than something that should be removed/corrected.
    Plus, ranged builds are a bit underwhelming in late BG2/ToB, so this very few weapons rebalance things a little.
  • BelacRLJBelacRLJ Member Posts: 51
    Flavor-wise, it'd make sense that a bow that fires phantom projectiles, but has the physical capacity to fire real ones too, would fire both if loaded with physical ones rather than just firing one or the other.
    Balrog99ConjurerDragon
  • ChroniclerChronicler Member Posts: 1,391
    BelacRLJ wrote: »
    Flavor-wise, it'd make sense that a bow that fires phantom projectiles, but has the physical capacity to fire real ones too, would fire both if loaded with physical ones rather than just firing one or the other.

    Typically how these weapons work is they come with a magic quiver that replenishes itself as you go along. It's not like they have any special loading mechanism that would allow you to double up that way. Though that's not to say that's how it always has to work.
    monico
  • PingwinPingwin Member Posts: 262
    Have they always had that extra damage bug even in the original BG2?
  • masteralephmasteraleph Member Posts: 270
    Pingwin wrote: »
    Have they always had that extra damage bug even in the original BG2?

    Yes. And Beamdog doesn't seem to consider it a bug.
    monico
  • monicomonico Member Posts: 571
    Pingwin wrote: »
    Have they always had that extra damage bug even in the original BG2?

    Yes. And Beamdog doesn't seem to consider it a bug.

    And i'm glad that they don't :D
  • jmerryjmerry Member Posts: 3,822
    I see it as a bug - but properly fixing it would require rebalancing all of the bows and crossbows in BG2. As it is now, bows that don't have free ammo are severely underpowered, and that's not how things should be. If the bug were blindly "fixed" by removing that extra damage, the auto-ammo bows would be just as underpowered as everything else.

    And - well, rebalancing a class of items on that scale is beyond the scope of what Beamdog is trying to do with their patches.
    monico
  • ChroniclerChronicler Member Posts: 1,391
    jmerry wrote: »
    I see it as a bug - but properly fixing it would require rebalancing all of the bows and crossbows in BG2. As it is now, bows that don't have free ammo are severely underpowered, and that's not how things should be. If the bug were blindly "fixed" by removing that extra damage, the auto-ammo bows would be just as underpowered as everything else.

    And - well, rebalancing a class of items on that scale is beyond the scope of what Beamdog is trying to do with their patches.

    Doing things like making the inventory screen display the correct damage I think would be within the scope of the changes Beamdog tries to do though.

    I'd imagine that this whole issue has just been a low priority for them. It's not hurting anybody. If it's a bug, it's a bug that's beloved by many fans, and none of the quirks in the presentation are gamebreaking or anything.
    StummvonBordwehrmonico
Sign In or Register to comment.