Crossbow - Prone or Kneeling Fire

[JustAnotherJarhead]

It was briefly mentioned... but the whole vertical support thing vs; horizontal resting of the weight of the crossbow on something is looking squarely at skeletal support vs; muscular support of the human body.

In the prone, I am using very little muscular support, so not twitching, pulse modulations etc... in the kneeling I can get some skeletal but more impacted by muscular support. in the standing offhand it's much more muscular and even less skeletal support.

The above is difficult with a firearm, it would be much more difficult with a heavy crossbow, both the kick and the weight.

Resting on a large rock, would give a worlds of stability in comparison to a standing offhand shot leaning against a tree, because you are still plagued by the muscular support issue.

as a side note on cranquins/windlass , historically you see the wind up windlass more common on heavy draw crossbows, it's bulky clumsy and quite the rats nest of line and pulleys, but in game terms, that would be so a NORMAL strength human could load it, if you truly have a 12+ ST or 15+ ST character, you should be able to load said crossbow fairly easily with the aid of a simple cocking lever integrated into the stock, those large draw crossbows only cocked back a few inches, not like Bows at all, using a mechanical lever of even a 4;1 ratio would make short work of a reload scenario.