also, a quick rules question: would I need to take the "many shot" (or whatever it's called) feat to fire a repeating crossbow twice in a round?
Edit: Actually, I think you want Rapid Fire, not Manyshot (see the bottom for many shot).
Edit 2: Ok, I just looked it up.
At low levels, yes, and iirc correctly there's a penalty for using it. At low levels, you want Rapid Shot to fire multiple times per round. Once your Base Attack Bonus (BAB) gets to +5, you get a second attack (when using the full attack action) at BAB-5; this continues up through 20th level. If you're a fighter, ranger, or barbarian, you have +1/lvl BAB, so at level 5 you'd get +5/+0 for attacks, at 10 you'd have +10/+5/+0, etc.
A repeating crossbow just eliminates (temporarily) the action required to reload. Heavy crossbow is standard action, Light crossbow is move action.
I can't remember if hand crossbows are
free or move (I
think move; the benefit of a hand crossbow is only needing 1 free hand to use it). Repeating crossbows are a free action to load the next bolt in the clip; the clip holds 5 bolts, and then
I think it is a standard a full round action to put in a new clip that is already full.
I do not recall the action(s) to refill a clip. Apparently refilling a clip isn't defined (that I saw).
There's also the feat/
ability (can't remember if its a feat, or a class ability) "Rapid Reload". It reduces the loading action by one step (stand to move, move to free). I'm fairly certain it was a 3.5 feat. For Light and Hand crossbows, this allows you to use the Full Attack action to get all the attacks you are normally allows.
This is all from memory, so I *might* be off. Probably good if someone double checked me. I double checked myself
The difference between rapid shot and many shot is: Rapid shot allows you to shoot 1 extra time in a round when using the full attack action, and allows you to fire at multiple target.
while Manyshot, iirc, allows you to shoot several targets, each with one projectile, as a standard action. I don't remember the rules for how many targets you can hit, though I think they have to be within a certain distance from each other. The main differences are that rapid shot requires you to use a full attack, but all shots can be on one target, while many shot lets you keep moving, and pepper a group of targets, but not with many attacks per target.Manyshot is a standard action and lets you fire an extra shot at a single target at close range (30 feet). Additionally, they have different rules for the attack rolls.
Rapid Shot: Extra attack in a full attack action, at highest attack bonus, but with a -2 penalty to all attacks. Assuming a BAB of 13, you would get +11/+11/+6/+1 for your attacks. Each attack can individually do precision based damage (crit, sneak attack, etc. Point Blank Shot may be considered precision based damage)..
Manyshot: Fire your regular full attack worth of arrows (up to 4) at a single target as a standard action. Uses a single attack roll, with -2 penalty for each arrow. Assuming 13 BAB, you get 1 roll with a +7 attack bonus, to determine if all 3 shots hit. Precision based damage only applies once (if you crit or SA, you only apply it to one arrow).