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I have been playing a lot Diablo 3 and loving the demon hunter idea, dual wielding hand crossbow. I was trying to come up with a character concept. The reloading hand crossbow takes a move action, but with the feat Rapid Reload it is turned to a free action. I this works with both the crossbow or if it only applies to only one. If this feat doesn't do this it will cause this concept fall apart. Can anyone help me out on this idea.

I know that the hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon and I know that it requires a move action to reload this weapon by itself. Taking the rapid reload feat allows you to make this a free action. I have seen a discussion on this stating it still takes 2 hands to reload which makes no sense to me really. Let me go over the mechanics of why this make no sense.

Lets first look at the light crossbow. The light crossbow takes the exact same action as a hand crossbow to reload with or without the rapid reload feat. This weapon is a simple weapon meaning anyone that is proficient with simple weapons are able to use it, which I believe every starting class can use a light crossbow. This weapon does a 1d8 damage with a range of 80 ft. and only costs the player 35 gold. This weapon can be held in one hand with a -2 penalty on attack roll but still requires to hands to reload.

The hand crossbow is a exotic weapon that requires the player to take a feat to even use the weapon unless it comes as a class proficiency i.e. Rogue. Which means just to use the weapon you have to take a feat away from most classes. Weapon is only doing 1d4 damage with a range of only 30 ft. The cost of a standard hand crossbow is 100 gp and still require 2 hands to reload or suffer penalties (Which the book does not state what those penalties are "You may shoot, but not load, a hand crossbow with each hand, at no penalty" pg 145 crb).

The hand crossbow damage is 2 die size smaller then the light crossbow, cost is about x3 as much and requires the player to take a feat to use it. The only advantage the this has over the light hand crossbow is that it can be used as a 1h weapon with out any penalties. If a wielder is not able to dual wield with this weapon and reload it, what is the point of this weapon? A hand crossbow is basically have a very bad light crossbow.

In the core rule book it states that the hand crossbow can be reloaded by hand unlike the light crossbow which is a lever. So please tell me why a hand crossbow is even a option if not to be dual wield with another weapon like a melee weapon or another hand crossbow. What makes it a good option to use at all. If their isn't one the I suggest making the weapon a simple weapon and reduce the cost of the item. There is no reason crappier version of a weapon cost so much to use unless it has a reason for being that expensive.

If someone can enlighten me on this reason I would really appreciate it.