#Repeating pistol crossbow free

It reloads itself after firing, not cocking. You are not reading the description of the repeating hand crossbow. This is exactly like assuming that reducing the Action Cost of a Spell eliminates some of the casting Components as well, it does not. Now when you have a new item that needs more or less actions to swap the magazine, you can just have it be Repeating 2 or Repeating 4 rather than needing to print yet another item which changes the number of actions it takes - and it's much better for people who don't dig through all the items to find the one item which makes their reloading better. Such as putting it inherent to the weapon 'Unlike a regular repeating weapon, a repeating hand crossbow only needs 2 interact actions to swap the magazine' or just having the trait be Repeating X where X is the number of actions it needs to swap the magazine. Ignoring the three magazine restriction because 20 bolts is far in excess of what you're going to fire in any combat, so I can't imagine it's a balancing concern at all, there are far more elegant and efficient ways of doing this than printing an extra item which people may not see if trying to use the weapon, but is an expected part of the weapon's balance. The repeating trait applies to multiple weapons. The bandolier only holds three magazines and only applies to a specific weapon. It would be one thing if it was introduced later to fix issues with the weapon (though i'd still be grumpy about doing that instead of just reprinting the weapon) but in the same book? Why not just have the repeating crossbow take 2 actions to swap the magazine by base and remove this item? As far as I can tell there's no penalty to having it aside from the trivial 1gp cost. Why does this item exist? It's in the same book as the repeating crossbow.

Maybe future reloading weapons will require 1+ hands. I do agree that this could use clarification though because otherwise there WILL be contingents of players expecting the weapon to cock itself which even modern technology cannot safely do without high-powered electrical motors and sensors that would render the weapon too unwieldy to use in the first place. You need two hands to reload the weapon even if it 'happens automatically' because it does not say you do NOT need it. Even real competition athletes have to practically use their whole body to accomplish cocking a crossbow, even a small hand crossbow cannot be cocked without grabbing the string. I often wonder how many people here have actually used or seen a real crossbow in action much less a repeating one, it's not like a revolver, you still need to exert JUST as much physical force to pull the string back despite the bolt falling into place on its own. That is unless you're talking about how Repeating weapons are either innately magical or are somehow perfectly crafted perpetual motion machines that can draw a 150 lb weight by applying one-half pound of force to the trigger. Yes, you're right it 'reloads itself' in that it drops a new bolt into place after you cock the weapon again, this is something that requires no Actions but is ABSOLUTELY requires you to use both hands. Maybe there will be other repeating weapons that function in a different way, but the repeating handcross bow states very clearly that it requires one hand and reloads itself automatically after firing if it has bolts left in its magazine. The repeating repeating crossbow description is incredibly explicit: The repeat crossbow loads itself after each firing. The weapon would be 1+ handed if it required a second hand to use in its normal function. The Action savings you net from this are from not needing to play the quiver-grabass game every time you need the weapon reloaded and the Trait does not remove the need to put both hands on it to Reload (if it did that it would absolutely say so), it just makes the process MUCH faster than normal, you still need both hands if you want to fire it more than once.

#Repeating pistol crossbow free

Just like you need a free hand to draw the arrow for a bow despite not needing to spend actions so too do repeating weapons require you to have another hand to cock the weapon. the benefit of Repeating Weapons is that you're saving on Actions.