That's sad. I hope (not really...) that they balance bows and crossbows better. The Dnd weapon and armor system is of course quite primitiv due to the TT background but BG3 does it even worse right now. That a fat non-magical crossbow can shoot as fast as a bow or that the hand crossbow has the same range as the bigger crossbows and the same damage as a shortbow are truely insults to the tiny bits of realism one can expect even from a high fantasy game. At least I want javelins as ranged weapons, for strength based chars, as compensation.
Well, we actually don't know what the final game will look like. That is a whole separate framework that most of us have not seen yet.
The good news is that this is fairly easy to mod - you could set specific range requirements to bow, and you could add the loading feature for Crossbows with its corresponding Feat for wanting to bypass it.
Crossbow, hand 1d6 piercing (range 30/120), light, loading
Crossbow, heavy 1d10 piercing (range 100/400), heavy, loading, two-handed
Longbow 1d8 piercing (range 150/600), heavy, two-handed
Crossbow, light 1d8 piercing (range 80/320), loading, two-handed
Shortbow 1d6 piercing (range 80/320), two-handed
Sling 1d4 bludgeoning (range 30/120)*
It really DOES feel like excluding the weapon ranges is kind of bullshit honestly. RAW I would take a Longbow over everything else because of that crazy 150 foot range. However, it also clarifies that you could ranged sneak attack to the 80 foot range of Superior Darkvision with anything short of a Sling or Hand Crossbow.
Hand Crossbows end up winning in Bg3 because they get to ignore the range limit AND the reload penalty. Making them ultra broken.
Applying the rules to them correctly would still make them a great thematic weapon - especially for bards or any short range skirmisher, such as possible rogue builds - use BA disengage, pop pop and run away. If someone wanted to play a type of pirate or swashbuckler they are great. The current lack of limitations really kind of ruins them.
RANGEA weapon that can be used to make a ranged Attack has a range in parentheses after the Ammunition or thrown property. The range lists two numbers. The first is the weapon’s normal range in feet, and the second indicates the weapon’s Long Range. When Attacking a target beyond normal range, you have disadvantage on the Attack roll. You can’t Attack a target beyond the weapon’s Long Range.
LoadingBecause of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of Ammunition from it when you use an Action, bonus Action, or Reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of Attacks you can normally make.
*No Sling is not in game, but there are rumors it may be in the final release.