Ok. The Crossbows have always bothered me.
They put out more damage than the bows but anyone can use them

Light Crossbow vs Heavy Crossbow
They both have the same weapon feat requirements. So why on earth would anyone ever use a Light Crossbow.

My suggestion would be to make Heavy Crossbow require Martial Weapons, while leaving Light Crossbow as Simple.

This affects all my PCs so it's not a selfish thing.

Spirit Shamans can only use light ones. Heavy ones are heavy. When you get higher level you are limited to one shot per round with an xbow.

Most important reason not to change things, could be spending that time working toward world peace.

the difference is actually supposed to be in your carry capacity and character size. small size characters shouldn't be able to use a heavy xbow but should be able to use a light one.

The difference between a bow and an xbow is actually the rate of fire. Bows are extremely faster when you invest feats into them. Bows end up with rapid shot, improved rapid shot, and multishot as well as being allowed to use your full attacks/round. Xbows get rapid reload, which gives only 1 extra shot per round reguardless of your attacks/round and with a penalty.
And like so many things in nwn2... if rapid/imp/multi are working with xbows... its only a bug T_T

Edit the 2da, does what DarkOak says about the size

Make Heavy Crossbow a Large sized weapon.
Make Light Crossbow a medium sized weapon.

Small PCs can't use Large Weapons.

Heavy Crossbows are not "Large" weapons. They are two-handed weapons. They are actually "medium" weapons. They just weigh more and do more damage than a light crossbow.

There is no problem with a small character using a heavy crossbow if they have the strength or carrying capacity to have one.

Actually. yes there is.

In pnp small size characters use weapons that are one die size smaller than medium characters - just like Large size characters use one die increment up from medium characters. Small characters that use large xbows get only 1d8 instead of 1d10, and if they use small xbows they get only 1d6 instead of 1d8.
So yes. I have problems with small size characters getting 1d10 on an xbow. They should not be allowed to.

Sure. But this isn't pnp.

In pnp, there is a "small" version and a "medium" version of every weapon. So there are small heavy crossbows that do less damage than medium heavy crossbows, of course.

But... there are also different sized longswords, and shortswords, and warhammers, and longbows, and daggers, and scythes, and battleaxes,... blah blah blah.

Do we really want to go down this long path of creating a "small" version of every weapon out there, just so some random halfling character can't do 1d10 damage with a crossbow?

This is really a non-issue in my opinion. Do we want to create a small version of every weapon or do we want to punish the tiny percentage of our player base who'd create a small character who uses a heavy crossbow?


In NWN, they just assign a single size to each weapon...

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Weapon_size

Heavy crossbows are medium weapons. Small characters can use medium weapons if they use it two-handed.

In general the NWN size thing works for me. Sorry I brought it up.

The nwn2 system mostly takes care of the size difference by assigning things sizes. Such as, a hin wields a longsword 2h and can not wield them 1h (monkey grip excluded) - much like a human weilds a greatsword. It just so happens that longswords are the one die step down from greatswords. Likewise longswords and shortswords are also that difference and wielded similarly by small size characters.