Topic: problem with bows and crossbows

[vieja escuela]

in the table never de crossbow is more deadly tham a long bow. this is a mistake it is not realistic. Bolts are   much shorter than arrows, but can be several times heavier. There is an optimum weight for bolts to achieve maximum kinetic energy and historical crossbows that cross a AT13 to 350 metres 

[RandalThor]

the problem as I see it, in regards with rolemaster, are that the cost to train is the same for both.

I see this as a problem with more than just bows vs. x-bows, there are numerous examples of weapons that are easier or harder, but the assigned progression doesn't take it into consideration. Imagine trying to learn the mace and nunchaku (sp?) for example. Which do you think is harder? Yet, they both fall under one-handed concusion weapons so are the same as it pertains to ease (i.e. cost) of learning.

This is why I have been leaning towards a skill system that takes into concideration different classifications of skills, such as basic (the ones you learn growing up that aren't necessarily very complicated), simple, and complicated (or difficult, but as that will likely be the title of a level of difficulty to apply modifiers, maybe not  ). Each one has it's own cost or maybe cost multiplier attached to it, maybe they even determine the number of ranks that can be learned at any given time (1, 2, 3, whatever).

Maybe, as I am digressing from just bow/x-bows this needs to be split off onto a thread of its own. 

[vieja escuela]

Bow damage, especially at long ranges, often has most to do with projectile weight, since especially at long range, the projectile is "falling" on the target more than anything. . .hence the longbow's larger projectile doing more damage. (An X-bow firing a longbow arrow would be neigh a seige weapon)
there aren?t a long bow that cross a AT13 a 350 metres and there is a historical crossbow. and yes it isn?t normal, but There exist historical writings that  speaks about knigts with AT20 crossed by cross-bows to short distance being hurt the man to his back also and if the missile is  broadly and heavily....
 Then it does mas damage.

[vieja escuela]

crossbow power managed to be considerable in the most late version , with metal spades (the metallic missile was perforating a level of mesh AT13 to 350 m). Nevertheless, already the most ancient and less powerful versions were very secondhand(worn) weapon. The motive of this was the facility of managing of the weapon in comparison with the bow, which was allowing to train to an crosbow archer in much less time that to an archer. For example, the famous Welsh bow used with great efficiency for the english men in the Hundred Years' War,It was capable of perforating knigt's armors or of throwing an arrow to 300 m, but the necessary tension was of 75 kg. A good archer needed literally years of training.
The cross-bow could shoot body at land, afoot or astride(by foot or astride), and was not necessary so many skill as the bow to give him to the target

[vieja escuela]

The cross-bow should have the same scope(range?) that a long bow with many positives to less than 30 meters and many negatives from 100 meters. Also the maximum damage should be major in the cross-bow since its missile is more thickly and heavily (equivalent to the caliber in the modern pistols). Which leads to a hole  bigger and major capacity of penetration

[Justin]

Much is mooted about the pull strength of a longbow... 100-150lbs. Yet many more would be of a lesser rating. I use a 80lb bow myself.

Perhaps assuming that bows rated with higher pulls should have penalties applied if there isn't a specific str/training requirement. Say 1/2 ranks... And lets remember that strength is only used to pull the bow to it's optimum, not having that strength means that it simply isn't used at the optimum. Not doing so would inflict a penalty and halving the ranks..is the easiest option.

Yep, here's another place we could improve it. The short bow/long bow tables don't vary the pull strength. Maybe there should be ST reqs and range bonuses based on pull str.
What are the ranges of pull strengths of medievil short and long bows?

[Marc R]

I'm not talking about carrying them, I mean just shooting one. . .every now and then a small child kills someone accidentally with a gun. . .I doubt that came up often in households with longbows, it's just not physically possible.

I tend to resolve that akin to weapons being crafted or selected to the ST of the weilder. . .which is rarely enforced when items change hands.

i.e. you select your sword off the rack, if you are stronger, you take a heavier one. . .which is why ST affects OB.

Same with bows. . .

The replica Yew Longbows made to indicated spec are in the 100-150# pull range. . .most modern target bows are 40-80#, likely you're not interested in killing anyone wearing plate or chain at long range, so the lighter pull works fine. . .plus you're not likely to be inclined to take on the physical program to develop the strength needed. . .why bother. (IIRC the skeletons of ye olde archers are actually deformed from the rigor they put their body through constantly.)

[markc]

 A side note, there is an article in the Guild Companion that talks about strength needed to use weapons and the modifiers you recieve if you do not have the required strength.
 I can also say that it is one of the reasons that my game has so few gnomes and halflings is they do not have the ST to use common weapons.

MDC

[vieja escuela]

The replica Yew Longbows made to indicated spec are in the 100-150# pull range. . .most modern target bows are 40-80#, likely you're not interested in killing anyone wearing plate or chain at long range, so the lighter pull works fine. . .plus you're not likely to be inclined to take on the physical program to develop the strength needed. . .why bother. (IIRC the skeletons of ye olde archers are actually deformed from the rigor they put their body through constantly.)

I read that the long bow of 6 feet 1.80 metres was courting the 75 of power I never come to 150 except that we use different units of measure kg, pound etc. Whereas the crossbow duplicated this number .... how tall was the archer  to have a bow of 150 ?

[vieja escuela]

There exist diverse descriptions of the long medieval arch. Long arches previous to the 15th century do not stay. The descriptions of its length include from the 1,2 to 2,11 m . The estimations for the tension that these arches could support change considerably. The estimations done with copies(specimens) of Mary Rose were achieving a tension of 72 - 82 kg (150 pounds)
Some crossbows had prods of up to at least 800 pounds of draw, if not more. Draw-weights of 500 pounds were common

[vieja escuela]

I Think this is finish is itn?t it?

[Marc R]

Did the fat lady sing?

There's a lot of data here, but I suspect a lot of detail is lost in the smoothing effect needed to get even a system as complex as RM to move at all. . .if you really wanted to, I'm sure you could develop 50-75 pages of attack tables for bows and crossbows if you really wanted to catch all the proper nuances of tech level and strength of pull.

Like, I suspect the Foot Bows used in south america, where the shooter lay down, held the bow with both feet, held the bow and missile in both hands and drew the bow with their leg and back strength, would outperform even ye-english-longbow-of-legand. . .it fired 5' long spears, and needed leg strength to draw. (Though I doubt many PCs would be happy to lay down to engage in missile fire). . .

The number of bows you can get, of varying strengths, from a 2' toy bow up to a 9' foot bow. . .the number of crossbows you can get from a wrist mounted mini to a heavy seige ballistae, made from bone, horn, wood, or metal. . . .not to mention getting into the schenanigans of varied bow ammo.

(I recall the chaos that "Oriental Adventures" inflicted on AD&D games with the dozen or so different kinds of arrow ammo it introduced into play.)

[markc]

 I actually liked the differnt kinds of arrows. Why did it cause problems?

MDC

[Marc R]

In AD&D, the variations were smallish, but even still, by 2nd ed you had 7 I can recall:

Hand Crossbow
Light Crossbow
Heavy Crossbow
Short Bow
Long Bow
Short Composite Bow
Long Composite Bow

OA added a bunch of arrow types. . .this lead to conversion to the damage/range simple AD&D stats of the 7 bow types. . .which lead to missile abuse to no end, to the point the melee characters were complaining about it. (This is in the 2nd edition where archers were making a lot of no penalty multiple attacks via weapon specialization) it went from Robin Hood to the Avengers Hawkeye.

"I shoot the rope holding up the chandelier with a frog crotch arrow point, to drop it on the Priest standing under it, then fire a broad head hunting arrow into the mage, then fire an armor piercing arrow into the bodyguard in plate mail."

It got a little out of hand before it got reigned in.

In RM you already have a lot of bow-type attack tables, but tossing in another set of variables ("Which arrow type are you using?") sounds like it could cause much more serious issues than the AD&D damage/range modifiers. . . .a shortbow with a broad head hunting point would seem to need a totally different attack table vs ATs than an armor piercing arrrow would, not just a modifier. . .different results vs different armors and different crits and crit thresholds completely.

Looking at RM as is, that would mean a LOT more attack tables, which seems problematic. It would seem to present a really high level of detail that might be too much for casual play. I just don't see how a flat modifier would really work out all that well. If someone could come up with an easy way to do it, it'd be a lot more appealing.

[markc]

 I guess that when I used them with 1st it generally was not a problem, even if there were multiple attacks. I also let arrows break so there was no endless supply of arrows and the facotors that they cost more and some more easy to make then others may have evened it out a little bit. I will have to check my notes and see but I also think I reduced the number of arrows carried and disallowed some arrows with some missile weapons. That is of course if I can find my old notes somewhere.
 
 I think that I have used some arrrow types in RM without too many probelms but they mainly added to OB if they had a specific armor type. Also are not there some tables in the Arms Companion about different arrow types. 

MDC

[vieja escuela]

I believe that I will use the cross-bow with +20 in the table due to its facility of use and its progression will be 4/3/1. To differentiate the cross-bows mas powerful I will apply one modifier of X1,5 to the hit points in the powerful versions of the cross-bows.
With regard to the heads of special arrows. I did a historical summary. They limit enough the scope but they are interesting. For example some of them cannot be extracted without surgery and nonetheless(though) the surgery provokes serious damages, others can  cut a rope (only for cross-bows historically)etc very interesting
Again you forgive for my English

[Hurin]

Unfortunately, I think the power of the Longbow has been a bit exaggerated, and the power of the crossbow a bit understimated, both in English historiography and also (therefore) in Rolemaster.

I once took a graduate course in military history by Bert Hall of the institute for the history and philosophy of science and technology at the University of Toronto. Bert is an expert, especially on gunpowder, but also on the physics of medieval weapons. He told us he'd bet us a lot of money that a good, late-medieval steel crossbow would outperform the longbow in pretty much everything except rate of fire. The physics of the crossbow and its heavy bolt pretty much ensure this. The crossbow would not only have more penetrating power, but a bit better range to boot. Unfortunately, most books on the longbow are dominated by the mythology of it penetrating plate armor at great ranges. Don't get me wrong, the longbow was a deadly weapon, and in the hands of a trained archer could easily turn the tide of a battle... but the crossbow actually outperforms it in most ways other than rate of fire.

At least, that's what one expert said

[mocking bird]

Like, I suspect the Foot Bows used in south america, where the shooter lay down, held the bow with both feet, held the bow and missile in both hands and drew the bow with their leg and back strength, would outperform even ye-english-longbow-of-legand. . .it fired 5' long spears, and needed leg strength to draw. (Though I doubt many PCs would be happy to lay down to engage in missile fire). . .

There is also evidence Muslim armies used them upon occasion during the Crusades.  Although they seem to have used more standard arrows but with an incredible range.

[Marc R]

Just read through the arms companion looking for an answer to the question about bullets/arrows lodging in a foe. . .and there are a lot of bow/crosbow rules in there:

Varied missile heads
Variations in missile weight
variations in fletching
variations in the pull of bows
reloading aids for crossbows
firing on multiple targets with a crossbow (through and through shots)
Arbelast (Extra heavy crossbow)
Variant range modifiers for missile weapons
Various optional rules on bows
Stone bows (Sling-crossbows)
Sniping (missile ambush)
Prepared shots
Trick Shots

[dutch206]

Just one more note...the original poster was right about crossbows being more deadly.  During the middle ages, the Pope issued a Papal Bull which referred to the crossbow as 'the most deadly weapon in Christendom'.