starter stuff

[Narihama]

is there a one-handed variant for the crossbow in the starting choice for weapons?

[Murasaki]

Generally ranged weapons other than throwing weapons are most commonly found as two-handed weapons. If you find a crossbow type that's historically used one-handed normally, let us know and we'll see what we can do.

[Narihama]

Repeating Crossbow!

Origin: China

Link to the Wikipediaz

the link would tell you more about it but i will give you a brief summary on what it is:

The Repeating Crossbow also known as the lián nǔ (simplified Chinese: 连弩; traditional Chinese: 連弩; which literally means "continuous crossbow"), is a crossbow where the separate actions of stringing the bow, placing the bolt and shooting it can be accomplished with a simple one-handed movement  while keeping the crossbow stationary. This allows a higher rate of fire than a normal crossbow: there is a magazine containing a number of bolts on top of the bow, and the mechanism is worked by moving a rectangular lever forward and backward. -copied strait off the Wiki

it's a bit like a bow version of a standard SMG but the clip is much smaller and i think its heavier than a modern SMG too

the size of it would have to change depending on what bolts are used and the weapon itself is usually stationary in some cases but can be held with one hand and fired with one hand in some variations of the bow/arrow-gun-thing.

personally i think it doesn't really work as a Starter weapon, but it can possibly be a new type of the crossbow?

the decision is yours though

[Murasaki]

Possibly could work as a lower-mid tier weapon.

I'll leave it for people to research, but I don't think it should be available as a starter weapon either. It would have an edge compared to bows otherwise.

[Sylvestra]

I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions here.



To begin with, for most intents and purposes, the repeating crossbow is not a one-handed weapon. While it is true that smaller designed crossbows, including non-repeating crossbows, are light enough to be aimed with one hand, this is not the reason why the crossbows require two hands to use.



In a normal crossbow, once an bolt has been fired the wielder must then brace the weapon against their feet or the ground, because pulling the string back and placing a bolt to rearm the weapon generally requires the use of two hands. What the repeating crossbow accomplishes is that the actual rearming process is reduced to a one-handed movement through mechanical advantage of a lever and automatic placement of a bolt. However, what you should keep in mind is that this "one-handed" motion is only regarding the lever, as the other arm must still be used in bracing the crossbow against the motion of a level. A nice representation of this can be found here:

SPOILER: Click to show

This action is really not analogous at all to a modern day SMG, as a machine gun, by its very definition requires no human input in the cocking, clearing, or loading the weapon. A repeating crossbow is more akin to a modern bolt-action weapon, which I'm sure you would be very aware requires both hands to effectively use.



So yes, while in theory you could only use one hand in the actual aiming and firing of a small single-hand crossbow, you would need to keep your other hand free for a majority of the time to fire more than a single shot during the course of a battle.

[Haneroze]

Well, I've already seen a MMORPG where a character dual-wields one-handed crossbows. How does she recharge? I have no idea!

But yeah, here, we are not limited to the normal rules. If regular mechanisms are not enough, we just have to add some magic!

[Bast]

To be honest we wouldn't even need magic the design work for machine guns clips and firing methods could easily be adapted by a mechanic to crossbows it's just something that requires work, skill and people leveling up mechanics to build such a thing. But it isn't a standard starter weapon though a enchanter could get it quicker I guess since you could have a crank with a screwed coil adaption that needs a reverse spin on it to reload the crank and have an attached cartridge to reload the bolt...they could then just use there fast spam spell of Inversion on the bow and they have an AssualtBow(Enchanter:Inversion style) fire able with 1 hand and 1 spell instead of the extra hand.

But for starter weapon it's a bit advance. But it does seem a fun thing to put some research into.

[Narihama]

Bast, then would want to research the idea then?

it does seem like a awesome weapon but i'm a Alchemist and i want to stay that way (me saying that i'm to lazy to change jobs :P).

but anyway, i think you should research it since you haven't touched the researching in this forum by yourself so why not do it now?