Player has a specific idea for a character, that I don't know how to implement.

[rg9000]

As title, my player has in mind a character with heavy armor and a handmade crossbow, which he can upgrade as he levels. Is there a simple solution? Will I need homebrew? What's the best I can do with Core+Supplements? (no Dragon.)

[CharonsHelper]

It's not hard - it just takes a few feats to make a light crossbow decent in 3.5. (they're horrid in Pathfinder though since there is no equivalent I'm aware of to Crossbow Sniper)

1. Rapid Reload

2. Crossbow Sniper (which has a prerequisite of Weapon Focus)

3. All the normal archery feats (Point-Blank / Rapid Shot / Precise Shot etc.)

So - very feat intensive. A dip into Fighter wouldn't go amiss to help him get the build up and running, though I'd probably go with a Dex race rather than human due to how SAD the build is.

Mechanically he'd be better off in light armor since he's going to have to jack up his dexterity to be good with the crossbow, but mithril full plate would be okay (though again - probably better off with a mithril breastplate).

As to upgrading - if he himself wants to do the upgrading he'll have to be a spellcaster of some sort to take Craft: Magic Weapon, unless you bring in the Pathfinder rules which allow you to circumvent the spellcasting requirements with an extra feat.

[MicHag]

I think Weapons of Legacy had a feature that lets a weapon level as the character levels.

[Matrota]

I think Weapons of Legacy had a feature that lets a weapon level as the character levels.

Weapons of Legacy do indeed have that feature, but also have drawbacks that hardly make them worth it. As far as I've heard though, most DMs either lessen the penalties or remove them completely when a PC wants to use a weapon of legacy, as there's gold, feat, and xp investment already, and therefore no need for drawbacks like -4 con and a penalty to six different skill checks.

[Darrin]

Don't use the Weapon of Legacy rules. What you're looking for is the Ancestral Relic feat in Book of Exalted Deeds. This allows him to sacrifice loot towards upgrading his crossbow, which he can do without taking the Craft Weapons and Armor feat. He can also sacrifice the direct value of the loot on a 1:1 ratio rather than trading in items he doesn't want for a 50% discount, and then paying that GP to someone else to enchant the crossbow.

If he wants additional enchantment options, the Anointed Knight PrC (Book of Exalted Deeds) and Kensai (Complete Warrior) can be used for enchanting a signature weapon.

[Deadline]

As a potential alternative, you could look at the Artificer class (Eberron Campaign Setting). I believe it gets heavy armor, and the various weapon infusions could easily represent various "improvements" or "tweaks" to a crossbow.

And if that doesn't float your boat, I believe there's a gnome inventor or tinkerer class in one of the 3.0 Forgotten Realms books that has a nifty crossbow invention they can create.

[umbergod]

As a potential alternative, you could look at the Artificer class (Eberron Campaign Setting). I believe it gets heavy armor, and the various weapon infusions could easily represent various "improvements" or "tweaks" to a crossbow.

And if that doesn't float your boat, I believe there's a gnome inventor or tinkerer class in one of the 3.0 Forgotten Realms books that has a nifty crossbow invention they can create.

Artificer only gets medium armor prof normally. The FR prestige class youre thinking of is the Gnomish Artificer.

[Deadline]

Artificer only gets medium armor prof normally. The FR prestige class youre thinking of is the Gnomish Artificer.

Yep, and having had a chance to look at it, Gnome Artificer is really bad. Scratch that suggestion.

As to the armor prof on Artificer, thanks for the correction. Still regular Breastplate until you can afford Mithril Full-Plate should be good enough.

[shawshank]

Any chance of you allowing a pathfinder class into your 3.5 game? If so, there are many excellent options to do exactly what your player wants.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

If I am not wrong you can upgrade your item familiar without the normal requirements(I am sure about the feat requirements but not about the spell).

Am Item Familiar also upgrad itself as you level up and you can always make it also an Ancestral Relic if you want it to be stronger.

[Lvl45DM!]

As title, my player has in mind a character with heavy armor and a handmade crossbow, which he can upgrade as he levels. Is there a simple solution? Will I need homebrew? What's the best I can do with Core+Supplements? (no Dragon.)

The Kensai prestige class from complete warrior upgrades their weapon as they level. Fighter base is good way to get into it.
Psychic Warrior has heavy weapon and can have a soulbound weapon as an alternative class feature.

That or artificer with a fighter dip.

[Thurbane]

There's a 3rd party feat that is really great fro crossbow users: Crossbow Mastery.

[Matrota]

There's a wonderful enchantment called quickloading in the MIC that stores 100 bolts in an extradimensional space and allows you to reload as a free action. Iirc it's a +1 enchantment.

[Bronk]

Since he's making his crossbow himself, in addition to enhancing it magically, you could let him improve the object itself.

Maybe, start with a backstory of having a below average crossbow, and start the game just having upgraded it to a legit light crossbow. Then a heavy crossbow, and finally upgrading it to a great crossbow. While he's doing that, he can gradually upgrade the whole thing to a different material (maybe serrenwood?) and experiment with different bolts. He can also put in wand chambers and other gimmicks. At some point, he can switch it out to a bladed crossbow, and he can start upgrading and enchanting the blade on top of everything else.

[rg9000]

Thanks for the advice!

So, I got the character type covered, but the books I need, a bit less so. I was hoping I could loan any book I didn't own from Core, but I can't find anyone with Psionics, Forgotten Realms, or BoED, so Psychic Warrior, Artificer, and Legacy are out.

I don't think the game will be able to get much farther than 7th level by the end.

I hesitate to ask... but any homebrew suggestions?

[DrMotives]

A&EG has a nonmagical item, the gnomish crossbow sight. For a mere 150gp you can treat distant targets as being 2 range increment closer for the sake of penalty to hit. You could also mount a bayonet on your crowwbow, which is mainly there so you still technically threaten nearby spaces and can still use AoO's if they happen. There was somewhere in the magazine I think, a rule for a steel-plated butt stock instead (or in addition to) a bayonet. Lets you swing the stock of your crossbow, counts as a club. Of course, like double weapons, armor spikes, and shields used offensively; enchantments on a melee portion of your crossbow are done separately, so you may not want to spend much wealth on that.

[gorfnab]

Slightly cheesy but fun for crossbow builds (might need a lenient DM):
Feat - Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Hand Crossbow
Feat - Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Great Crossbow (RoS)
Feat - Hand Crossbow Focus (DoTU)
Magic Item - +x Aptitude (ToB) Great Crossbow (RoS)
Item - Gnomish Crossbow Sight (A&EG)

Two levels of Fighter pretty much cover the feats (can grab the missing one with a character level feat) and 8600gp is the cost of a +1 Aptitude (+1) Great Crossbow with a Gnomish Crossbow Sight. The Aptitude weapon enhancement basically allows a weapon to count as a different weapon for feats and abilities. In this case it would, with a loose reading of the rules, allow a Great Crossbow to count as a Hand Crossbow for Hand Crossbow Focus (free action reloading, and +1 to hit as Weapon Focus). This is basically a character walking around with a mini ballista. If more gold is available, the magic item Strongarm Bracers (MIC) with the Sizing (+1, MIC) magic weapon enhancement added to the Great Crossbow will up its damage by a size category. And for even more ridiculousness the Splitting (+3, CoR) doubles the amount of bolts being fired.

Also some light reading that includes some decent stuff for crossbow based builds: The Archery Handbook


Build Idea (not the most optimal but it gets you a Crossbow wielder in Heavy Armor)

Human
1. Fighter - Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Fighter Bonus: Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Hand Crossbow
2. Fighter Bonus - Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Great Crossbow
3. Fighter - Hand Crossbow Focus
4. Fighter - Rapid Shot
5. Fighter
6. Fighter - Woodland Archer (RotW), Fighter Bonus: Crossbow Sniper (PHB II) or Weapon Specialization: Hand Crossbow (Ranged Weapon Mastery [PHB II] at 8th level)

[OracleofWuffing]

Weapon Augment Crystals from Magic Item Compendium come to mind. They're pretty much stickers you can slap on to a weapon to make them better. Not too many options to pick from, but will at least get you started.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

I'm wondering what the guy has in mind for upgrading his crossbow as he levels.. like physically improving it? Or increasing its enhancement bonus and or abilities it has?

[Fizban]

As title, my player has in mind a character with heavy armor and a handmade crossbow, which he can upgrade as he levels. Is there a simple solution? Will I need homebrew? What's the best I can do with Core+Supplements? (no Dragon.)

So you've got two main problems: one, that bows are often considered inferior to melee in general, and two, that crossbows are deliberately worse than normal bows. The main reason to use a crossbow over a normal bow is to avoid strength penalties, but a bow character should have a strength bonus for extra damage. Other than that, there's the exotic Great Crossbow (Races of Stone) with 2d8 damage at medium, which goes great with size increases but can't actually be improved into firing at full speed (Rapid Reload specifically says hand, light, or heavy), or the feat that gives sneak attack greater range with a crossbow, which is just a sneak attack build.

And there's the third problem that all significant upgrades in 3.5 come from magic, as in crafting magic items, which means being less good at basic ranged attacking. Unless they're fine with just making a gish that just buffs their weapon.

The first thing you need to figure out is your own game's power level. Its entirely possible that a Fighter with Weapon Mastery line and Ancestral Relic or Kensai will be sufficient, if the player will accept one of those as their upgrade vector. Otherwise you'll need to use one of the rarer options that lets a non-caster craft magic items. Ironsoul Forgemaster is the only one I can remember off the top of my head, which is very armor focused but also uses Incarnum and loses plenty of BAB.

-Wait, what am I saying, I'm the guy who's always going on about Bonding rituals. DMG2 bonding rituals let anyone empower a magic item that only works for them after doing a thing and then paying the normal costs, the examples generally being "fight or land the killing blow on something strong" or "spend a long time doing a thing." You could easily make up a couple new tasks more suited to the character and then boom, they can dictate the abilities their weapon gets without even spending a feat. Apply to whatever heavy-armor ranged build you prefer* and that's it. The only problem is that they limit you to no more than one bonded item, but the DM can ignore that (in order to let the player make their own Augment Crystals and/or Quiver of Energy, maybe Strongarm Bracers for a bigger crossbow [those are all Magic Item Compendium]), or you could just let them find or buy those.

Weather you're using Ancestral Relic or DMG2 weapon bonding, one very useful thing is that neither actually cares what abilities you're adding -they just give you gp worth of abilities. This means you could also put in all sorts of effects (even with limited charges), though the price increases for stuff usable by anyone and putting non-weapon stuff on a weapon will add up quick.

Really I think the biggest problem is going to be that the player doesn't want what DnD 3.5 has for "upgrading" a weapon. Because I hear the phrase "handmade crossbow which he can upgrade as he levels" and that sounds to me like someone who wants an x-buster, or gadget gun, or something like that.

*There is of course the max dex in heavy armor problem, but its not really a problem- max AC is mostly the same weather you're in heavy or light armor as long as you hit the dex cap. Having higher dex just means its easier to max out your AC in Mithril (though Celestial Armor or Millenial Chainmail would be better in the end), so in the end you're basing paying for more expensive heavy armor instead of medium, in exchange for higher AC when you're denied dex. This is in fact an advantage, since even if you had Uncanny Dodge, there are are couple situations where it doesn't work. Making a high dex-heavy armor character feel like they made a good choice naturally means putting them/the party in some of those situations.

If you're already wearing heavy armor, you don't care about load penalties, so dump str- as long as your max load can carry your stuff, you're fine. That means more room for other stats.

Now, as for the class/feats, again I'd just say Weapon Focus/Spec/Ranged Weapon Mastery (PHB2)/etc. Plain fighter will get the job done and give you the feats to fit all of those along with the other ranged feats (Point Blank, Precise, Rapid, and Improved Precise). You also want Rapid Reload of course.

One thing you could do is let them start out with a light crossbow, take Rapid Reload, and then as they get magic items that would work with a larger bow, let the bow get bigger and carry over the feats. So when they add Quick Loading they'd go up to heavy, if they got a Strongarm Bracers effect it would increase by one size, and if you let Great Crossbow work with Rapid Reload then they could take the EWP feat later and have the bow get bigger again.

I do have a simple enough hombrew feat line for improving crossbow use if you want it, but its in my experimental category and never been tested.

Spoiler

Show

Crossbow, Critical [General, Fighter]
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus [any crossbow]
Benefit: When wielding a crossbow for which you have the Weapon Focus feat, you may make your first attack in a round especially deadly. When you take your first attack, instead of rolling once you may roll twice. If both rolls are high enough to hit, the attack counts as a critical hit with a x2 modifier regardless of the weapon's normal threat range and multiplier. If one roll hits, the attack is resolved as normal (and may still threaten a critical hit). If both rolls miss, then the attack misses as normal.
Special: Some effects that trigger on a critical hit may not trigger by use of this feat or its later versions, at DM's discretion. Basic damage effects including Burst weapons and Telling Blow are intended to trigger by default.
Adaptation: The thrown weapon version of this feat works the same, but works only with weapons you throw in one hand and you get no strength bonus to damage.

Crossbow, Deadly [General, Fighter]
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus [any crossbow], Critical Crossbow, BAB +6
Benefit: When using the Critical Crossbow feat, you may now roll three attacks in place of your first attack. If all three attacks hit, then the attack counts as a critical hit with a x3 modifier, otherwise it functions as the previous feat.

Crossbow, Lethal [General, Fighter]
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus [any crossbow], Critical Crossbow, Deadly Crossbow, BAB +11
Benefit: You make four rolls when using Critical Crossbow. If all four rolls hit the attack is a critical hit with a x4 modifier, otherwise it functions as the previous feats.

And the Black Rain discipline, while meant for guns, has an "eh you could use it with crossbows I guess" note. There's also plenty of other ranged marital discipline homebrews around.

[Eldariel]

Artificer is a great suggestion. You get the option to buff the weapon from level 1 with Infusions and the ability to craft further improvements as you go. You can just pick up Heavy Armor Proficiency as a feat on level 1 (or play Warforged and just go Adamantine Body if he wants to be the armor/weapon instead). Other than that, yeah, Ancestral Relic [Book of Exalted Deeds] and Item Familiar [Unearthed Arcana] give you the option of particularly improving a specific weapon at extra efficiency without requiring feats. Fighter 4 or Pious Templar 3 for Ranged Weapon Mastery isn't bad either and Knowledge Devotion plus high Int/skill is always solid for damage.

[ShurikVch]

Question: if Heavy Armor will hamper PC's Dex mod, then maybe it will be better to damp the Dex (i. e. no higher than 13) and pump up the Wis?
Illumian with Aeshoon word and Zen Archery...
Or even better - Shiba Protector!

[Bronk]

Question: if Heavy Armor will hamper PC's Dex mod, then maybe it will be better to damp the Dex (i. e. no higher than 13) and pump up the Wis?
Illumian with Aeshoon word and Zen Archery...
Or even better - Shiba Protector!

Maybe when he upgrades the crossbow to a bladed crossbow, he can incorporate the blade as a ringsword, slot in a ring of force shield (or a ring of force wall?), and have the mod work like a slot in a transparent riot shield version of a tower shield.

[JyP]

to craft his own crossbow & improve it over time, some solutions :

- default : sell loot at 50% and ask a magic weapon crafter to improve crossbow, again losing some 50% WBL in the process
- Ancestral Weapon feat : convert loot at 100% in the crossbow, still part of WBL.
- crafter class : convert loot himself so less costly in gold, but must pay xp, still part of WBL
- kensai or other weapon focused class : don't need to spend WBL at all, but you won't gain other class features.
- weapon of legacy : small xp cost, WBL cost at 30% of normal magic item cost once you balance penalties with other magic items (so more magic item body slots will be used on the crossbow).
- weapon of legacy + legacy champion prestige class : reduced costs, but you keep class features from other classes.

[Bronk]

You know, this would work much better thematically if the character was also a tinker gnome.

I could see a tinker gnome starting out at level 1 with a crossbow cobbled together from bits of string and old springs, and ending up with a much better one at level 20, but covered in sights and crystals, firing force bolts from a magical force turret like some kind of Star Wars turbo laser.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Improving An Item Familiar
An item familiar can be improved as other magic items can be. By spending gold pieces (and time and experience points, assuming the character is the one doing the work), a character can add new abilities to his item familiar. If a character links himself to a +1 longsword, for example, it only costs 6,000 gp (or 3,000 gp and 240 XP) to add another +1 of enhancement bonus or, perhaps, a special ability that is equivalent to a +1 bonus (such as spell storing or flaming). The character can accomplish this even without having the requisite item creation feats.

This type of improvement has nothing to do with the master’s character level, though it may affect the item’s eventual Ego score.

I think this will help :)

[EldritchWeaver]

It's not hard - it just takes a few feats to make a light crossbow decent in 3.5. (they're horrid in Pathfinder though since there is no equivalent I'm aware of to Crossbow Sniper)

There is the Bolt Ace archetype for the Gunslinger, which is supposed to be decent.

But if the player doesn't care the usual solutions (crossbow is just an enchanted weapon), then maybe the Technician's Improved Crossbow is the solution. It provides actual tech upgrades like a Far-Sight Scope. Two issues might be, that it is a PF 3PP class and that it is part of Spheres of Might package.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Pathfinder also has some good or at least decent builds based on combining crossbowman archetype fighter with overwatch style and making multiple attacks with each readied action against opponents flat-footed ACs.

Bolt ace is simpler in Pathfinder but there are other options.

As far as upgrading the homemade crossbow, you could also adopt the master Craftsman feat to allow him to upgrade the crossbow without being a spellcaster.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

If he wants additional enchantment options, the Anointed Knight PrC (Book of Exalted Deeds) and Kensai (Complete Warrior) can be used for enchanting a signature weapon.

Do these stack with Ancestral Relic? If so an Artificer/Kensai/Anointed Knight build hyper-focused on making the BEST version of whatever their favored weapon is (or three different weapons if they don’t stack?)

[Thurbane]

Question: if Heavy Armor will hamper PC's Dex mod, then maybe it will be better to damp the Dex (i. e. no higher than 13) and pump up the Wis?

You could also pump up Cha and use the Charming the Arrow feat (if the character is Fey)...