Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Crossbow - Loading property removed?

I've read in a few places that Larian may be removing the crossbow "loading" property from the game, which concerns me. This is meant to represent that crossbows are slow to load (which they most certainly are) and in D&D 5e means you can't use your Extra Attack with them, unless you have the Crossbow Expert feat. If they remove this, then they just become better than shortbows and longbows in every way and make regular bows pointless - why would they do this?

I'm very much hoping that this won't be the case, it makes no sense.

Depends on the crossbow Chinese repeating crossbows are 2000 years old

Simple Weapons becoming strictly better than Martial Weapons.

"Loading isn't fun" -Larian Studios

At this point is becoming bloody obvious that while BG3 will be the product of an impressive amount of effort and care, Larian game designers would fail to keep the balance of a game even in a rock/paper/scissors tournament.
And absolutely fail to grasp why certain features (loading, attunement, exhaustion, ANY sort of deterrent to abusing long rest, etc) were things that existed in the first place.

They have the Crossbow Expert feat, so I hope the "loading" property stays and is true to 5E.

Then again, given some of their recent choices...

Yes, but that's not what we're talking about, and those were underpowered and inaccurate.

I don't see how loading matters in any way. Crossbows are nothing special even if you don't have to load them.

Crossbow, hand 1D6
Crossbow, heavy 1D10 (two handed)
Crossbow, light 1D8 (two handed)

I mean what is so special about crossbows that makes them OP if you take the loading action away???

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...=ioscss&utm_content=3&utm_term=1

Apparently this is the new Crossbow Expert feat. Quite disappointing.

Level cap allows only 3 feats (4 for fighters and rogues), Variant Human doesnt exist and some feats are implemented as less powerful than their 5e counterpart. What is the point of implementing feats if opportunities to take feats are rare and they are underpowered?

What the hell have they done? That's nowhere near the 5E feat... sorry, but BG 3 looks more and more disappointing to me. The game was much better in patch 9 than it is now.

Well ... they do potentially give double dmg.

It may not seem as much when you compare two regular weapons ...
Problem starts appearing as you add other modifiers ...

You know ...
When you have +1 crossbow its up to 11 extra damage ...
When you have Githyani crossbow and +1 enchant (from wizard) and half HP its up to 15 extra damage ...
When you apply poison on Githyanki crossbow and have half HP its up to 19 extra damage ...
When you aply wywern posion on it its up to 60 extra damage ...

See?
It adds up.

Add that hand crossbow attacks on bonus action xD

There is also variety of playstyle ...

With Heavy Crossbow, you want to make every shot count ... bcs you dont get another chance in your turn (unless you have feat, but there we go in matter of corelation between gain and cost.
Wich is actually not bad for Rogue, bcs you dont get Extra attack anyway ... your Sneak Attack get stronger instead ...
Meaning Rogue with Heavy Crossbow play for single big number ... with potential risk of loosing the only attack they have and do nothing.

With Bow, you have two attacks (and more on higher levels ... not sure if BG-3 gets high enough tho).
So what you get is potentialy even biger number, with option to divide that number on two targets.
Not so good for Rogues, since they still dont have Extra Attack, still can shoot only once ... but good enough for Fighters who can be more deadly now.
> If crossbow can shoot twice, why bother with bow? You only loose up to 2 points of damage per attack, there is no benefit ... ergo no point.

Then there are Hand Crossbow ... weak, but can dual wield ... meaning your Rogue can attack twice ...
And therefore have double chance to apply Sneak Attack.
Quadruple with Larian rules. If offhand will be capable of dealing it.

You are posing the issue as if using a crossbow were a valid alternative to bow, but I think it isn't. Or maybe I haven't got what you are saying.

One big hit against multiple attacks would be a cool concept, but it isn't true. The "big hit" is only 1 damage more in average than a single attack, and two attacks against the same target have a vastly higher average damage than a "big hit".

Bow has been always been a superior weapon, with slightly less damage but multiple attacks and longer range, and that's why it's a martial weapon while light crossbows are simple weapons. The only reason to take a crossbow over a bow are (in 5e) not having the proficiency, roleplay, going OP with feats.

That said, I wander how they will make the bow feel like it deserve its martial proficiency now. If they are adding multiple shots to the crossbow, they should add something to the bow.

I think they're adding a feat called...''sniper something'' or something along those lines that takes chance to hit and adds flat damage (like the other melee feat I also forgot lol) but that's also better on hand crosbows.

Ok this here is what annoys me the most.

Piercing Shot inflicts Gaping Wounds for twice as long.

Niche. Weak. Gimmicky. Homebrew.

Even a simple +2 damage would be fine. But with Larian there always has to be a gimmick and a condition to create a fake impression of tactical depth.

If they want to use their own homebrew abilities, just giving more uses would be better. I.e. why isnt the expert archer also better at pinning shots?

Larian's new minor conditions don't really feel like D&D either. They feel like generic video game stuff that doesn't need to make sense. Wounds and diseases that last for seconds.

Because it makes Shortbows (1d6 damage) and Longbows (1d8 damage) pointless. With loading, if you have an Extra Attack, then you need to decide whether to make one attack with a crossbow at 1d8/1d10 or two attacks with a regular bow at 1d6/1d8 (unless you have the Crowsbow Expert Feat). Without loading, there is no point in using a regular bow, unless it has some special ability you want to use. Crossbows still have a point in 5e, because if you don't have an Extra Attack, then they do more damage, and if you're willing to take the Crossbow Expert feat, you can do more damage AND use them for your Extra Attack.

Okay, it's not a game changer, but it can't be that hard to implement to make this work properly and to leave regular bows as a viable alternative option.

That really is a blow. As long as the crossbow isn't Varrics Bianca, it should have loading property, otherwise, why bother with bows, other than roleplay reasons?

I'm hoping this is just due to what we've seen not being the final version, even if the tag was inactive, crossbows in EA had the loading property. Having crossbows and bows play by the same rules doesn't make sense when one is clearly superior...

This is a windlass crossbow, but the principle remains. A Crossbow even if a medium, light or hand crossbow. Takes a long time to fire compared to a regular bow, or in this case a longbow. Point is loading should definitely be a property of crossbows in BG3 like in D&D. Unless you get the feat.

Enjoy! 0:45 - 1:50

akimbo crossbows!!!