Ye Olde Inn

I think it should take a turn to load the crossbow. Anyone have any ideas about how to administrate this?

Ya, use action points instead of die rolls per turn...then you will have interesting things. Obviously, someone isn't going to walk or run very far if they're busy cranking their xbow and are then going to shoot it.
So I suppose you could allow some1 to reload instead of move if you stick to die rolls for movements.

Thats a good way of doing it.

Do you use an action points system? If so, do you allow moving twice or attacking twice in one turn, instead of 1 of each?

Sounds good to me, too. The description of the Crossbow needs only a bit of word modification to do this balancing stunt (using the Armory description):

Crossbow
350 Gold Coins
Weapon

This long-range weapon gives you the
attack strength of 3 combat dice. You
may fire at any monster that you can
"see." However, you cannot move,
nor can you fire at a monster that is
adjacent to you. You have an
unlimited supply of arrows. May
not be used by the Wizard.

Yeah but you would presumably have the crossbow loaded already, so you could shoot and move on one turn but not shoot and move on the next... complex.

DM has to stay on top of things, heh.

We do whatever we want - the limitation is by action points. A fast attack uses minimal action but also minimal attack dice. Same for medium attack and Long attack.

You also want to always think about saving some action for defending. Otherwise you tire yourself doing other things and cannot defend so well.

This is a way of making turn-based games more dynamic.

I think this idea would work full well with making your crossbow char reloading instead of moving; or else making a reload of crossbow cost 6 die points of roll. If they roll snake eyes, they still need 4 on the next roll to reload!
hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

I've pretty much come to the opinion crossbows should just be reduced to 2 attack dice, and it makes balance of things much better.

Ethica wrote:Yeah but you would presumably have the crossbow loaded already, so you could shoot and move on one turn but not shoot and move on the next... complex.

Here's a slightly more complex modification that may suit you better:

Crossbow
350 Gold Coins
Weapon

This long-range weapon gives you the
attack strength of 3 combat dice. You
may fire at any monster that you can
"see." However, you cannot move
and reload, nor can you fire at a
monster that is adjacent to you. You
have an unlimited supply of arrows.
May not be used by the Wizard.

I've never understood why you can't shoot at a monster adjacent to you.

Thrawn wrote:I've pretty much come to the opinion crossbows should just be reduced to 2 attack dice, and it makes balance of things much better.

This! I think so too. Too bad I'm too much of a purist to change it in our games.

Ethica wrote:I've never understood why you can't shoot at a monster adjacent to you.

Balance issues.
And I suppose its hard to aim a crossbow while in close combat with an angry orc flailing his sword at you.