The caster's crossbow is my reimagining of the bow of bone seen in older thaums, Just like the bow of bone it will automatically fire arrows when the right mouse button is held down.

The crossbow cant be enchanted but instead it can be augmented with only ONE of these possible augments:

<Vaporous Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to fly farther and deal knockback at the cost of dealing less damage.

<Fiery Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to be ignited and deal fire damage.

<Earthen Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to deal more damage but fly less far.

<Aqueous Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to deal slowness.

<Orderly Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to bypass a large amount of the target's armor but deal less damage.

<Chaotic Arrow Augment: Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to inflict the wither status effect but the arrow itself deal less damage.

<Burst Augment: Instead of automatically firing arrows when the right mouse button is held the crossbow will now load and store up to 5(?) that can be rapidly discharged by releasing the right might button.

<Void Shot Augment: The crossbow will use impetus as ammo instead of arrows, Causes all arrows shot from the crossbow to appear voidy and no longer obey gravity but instead will target any nearby enemy/mob and move towards it in short bursts of movement until it hits the mob, if a target cant be found then the arrow will destroy itself. (causes all arrows shot to act like the TC5 vis shard focus)

I know that IF this gets added it will be a long time aways and will most likely be very very changed but either way i hope you like the idea :D

assets:
crossbow.zip

There immune to poison but not weakness (just tested it)

I'm thinking of curing villagers for that one. Poison and instant damage should both be nullified

I think this sounds cool, only thought so far is that the chaotic arrows might be a bit less useful of an option compared to the others because wither would not work on anything undead or any midgame or later thaumaturge (due to verdant charms). Maybe a custom potion effect would work here?

Edit: although I guess if augment kits get added this would be less of an issue

I remember crimson cultist archers being teased a long time ago, I feel like they would use something like this.
Don't feel like it would be a good player weapon though.

Hm for the chaotic arrows they instead could have a chain lightning effect like the shock focus from older thaums had while keeping the lesser damage making it worse against single enemies but better against groups of enemies?

And the old teased crimson archers did have crossbows but they were more like 1.14 pillager crossbows flat and boring and by how hazard (the person who modeled them) talked about they seemed to be planned to function like 1.14 pillagers. and i think its a good player weapon both mechanically and theme wise, mechanically since its basically a revamped version of the bow of bone from older thaums, and theme wise because the player/thaumaturge already has crossbows in the form of turrets so i think it makes complete sense you could make a handheld version for personal use and tbh being able to wield a giant artifice crossbow is just sick imo.

Why wouldn't wither work on undead? I've applied withering to skeletons and zombies and it deals damage over time to them.

Why wouldn't wither work on undead? I've applied withering to skeletons and zombies and it deals damage over time to them.

Huh I guess I was thinking of something else then. Maybe poison?

Why wouldn't wither work on undead? I've applied withering to skeletons and zombies and it deals damage over time to them.

Huh I guess I was thinking of something else then. Maybe poison?

I think undead are immune to weakness and instant damage, maybe poison?

There immune to poison but not weakness (just tested it)

The idea seems interesting, although I should point out that Thaumic Wonders has already added the Bow of Bone and Primal Arrows, which doesn't mean the crossbow can't be added but it'd have to be kept in mind. Also with the mention of cultists that use crossbows, I'm also reminded of this picture by the same artist (Mr. Hazard):

Ya i tried my best to not make it too similar to the bow of bone thaumic wonders added mostly by making 90% of the crossbow's features rely on augments instead of new arrows.

and ya am pretty sure i've seen that model before must of been in my subconscious when i made this crossbow lol

I think one way to make it stand out more from Thaumic Wonders is to have all the arrows fired disintegrate when they hit something, it makes them more situational that way. The automatic firing could also be done for an upgraded version of the weapon instead while the standard version is more akin to the crossbow from future versions of Minecraft.

Id personally say instead of having a standard version be like the crossbow of newer versions of minecraft simply switch around the burst augment to be standard and have automatic be the augment.

aka you would load up to 5(?) arrows into the crossbow by holding right click then letting go of right click would fire them really quickly right after another so then it still keeps that idea of mass firing arrows without just being automatic while keeping automatic as a option in a augment but at the cost of loosing elemental arrows,
could also have the elemental upgrades effect how many arrows you can load aswell maybe the aer augment allows you to load up to 7 instead of 5 or maybe the perditio augment lessen the number to 3 or hell could even have a additonal augment that makes it functions closer to the vanilla crossbow like:
loads only up to one, double the loading time but double the damage with a slight aoe where it lands kind of deal could be fun