Why is Volley?

[RealAlchemy]

A bit late to the party because my first playtest characters were primary melee, but I have a hard time accepting volley as well. Having used a longbow, I don't miss much inside of 50 feet, but in game you get penalized for shooting inside 50 feet?

[Snickersnax]

Volley should be changed from a penalty to a bonus:

Volley 50: with shots over 50 feet you ignore screening. Also if the target is behind cover, but lacks cover from above you also ignore cover.

Also small creatures shouldn't be able to use a longbow. The limbs of the bow would hit the ground, they wouldn't have the arm length necessary to draw the bow.

Its really physically impossible for someone who is 3' tall to shoot a longbow.

If you want to give a longbow a penalty it should be on horsed archery. Which is where the shortbow should be king.

[Deadmanwalking]

I despise Volley and see no need for it, personally. Realism-wise, it'd be a penalty in close areas (like difficult terrain of some sorts) rather than at short ranges, and from a game mechanics perspective, Propulsive already makes ranged weapon damage terrible anyway. It makes Shortbows see more use, but surely there are other ways to achieve that (I like adding Agile, but you could probably add other stuff as well).

Also, why are Longbows Bulk 2 when a Bo Staff is Bulk 1? That makes no sense at all.

[Excaliburproxy]

I also don't care for Volley, but I do feel like Longbow could use some other drawback to represent its large size.

Perhaps it could incur a -2 penalty when you are trying to fire it while adjacent to a wall or another creature?

I also don't think giving short bows "agile" is he best idea here. "Agile" is way better on ranged weapons than melee weapons because you can expect to need to move around less and generally make your iterative attacks more often.

I could maybe see longbows losing the "deadly" and "volley" traits at the same time, but then it might be weird for shortbows to be deadly while longbows are not.

[Unicore]

Deadly and agile is a very dangerous combination on a ranged weapon with no reload. It can basically extend the ability of lower level monsters in mass to crit fish for longer as they can still get critical hits on their second and third attacks for an extra level or two.

I think the idea of the long bow as PF2's sniper rifle is an interesting idea, but it just doesn't play very well with battle mats and 5ft squares. The game doesn't have much of a system for detecting enemies at range and starting a battle from 500 to 1000 ft away. If it did, I would have no problem with the Volley trait, but it would also change a lot more about the game if the party really had to be worried about being set upon by enemies with longbows from 1000ft. I don't even know how to look up the rules for running but even with range increment penalties at 100ft intervals, taking multiple rounds of 3 arrows from each enemy is going to start sapping a lot of HP.

[Porridge]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I despise Volley and see no need for it, personally. ... It makes Shortbows see more use, but surely there are other ways to achieve that (I like adding Agile, but you could probably add other stuff as well).

I like having something to make shortbows more attractive than longbows in certain respects. In that respect I'm happy with Volley, though I'd be happy with some other way of giving the shortbows an edge in certain circumstances.

One problem, though, with just removing Volley from longbows and giving shortbows a further perk (like making them Agile) is that it makes the gap between shortbows/longbows and the other ranged weapons even greater.

As things stand, shortbows and longbows are the best ranged weapons. (See the expected damage calculations starting here, and in the posts that follow.) The halfling sling staff yields pretty much the same expected damage, but costs at least one extra feat (since it's exotic), for no real gain in expected damage. Likewise, while a crossbow using ranger with the right feats can yield pretty much the same expected damage, its cost an extra class feat.

In both cases, you're usually just better off using a shortbow/longbow and spending your feats on something else.

If Volley is removed from longbows, and shortbows are made Agile, then the disparity between shortbows/longbows and the other ranged weapons grows even larger. Even a crossbow-focused ranger who sinks class feats into improving crossbows will be better off ignoring crossbows and using a shortbow/longbow instead.

So if longbows and shortbows are made stronger, then the other ranged options really need to be given a substantial boost to keep them viable.

[Deadmanwalking]

If it were up to me, I'd remove Reload from basically all ranged weapons (I'd probably leave it on the heavy crossbow, but only at Reload 1, and have it nowhere else). That'd compensate fairly well for Longbow losing Volley and Shortbow receiving something (possibly not Agile, for reasons noted above). It's a tad unrealistic on crossbows, but frankly I don't care. Having to spend actions reloading is a fun-killing experience I'd be happy to get rid of for the most part.

For a lower impact change, changing Volley to something that only causes penalties within 10 feet (or even 20) makes it much more workable and less crippling.

[Vidmaster7]

I do like the ideal that in some situations a short bow is more practical then a long bow. for example on horseback long bow shouldn't even be an option unless were talking Yumi bows which were made for that purpose.

[CommanderCoyler]

May seem a little weird, but how would you feel about adding the 'Charge' trait to Shortbows instead of Longbows having Volley? Encourages you to stay mobile with Shortbows.

There are a few other changes I'd make to ranged weapons, but they're less relevant here.

[Unicore]

Shortening the volley range penalty is one idea worth playing with, but I think 10ft might be too little to really offset the short bow and the longbow. I think 20 or 25ft would probably be a good place to start with testing and see how differently it plays than 50ft.

Another possibility that would make sense to me is to make it more difficult to fire the longbow after moving in a round. Maybe have a -2 penalty if the character had moved prior to shooting. This would allow the short bow to still occupy a very specific niche for characters that want to be more mobile with a bow. It would also factor in enough to be relevant because if your enemy takes cover or closes to melee and has an AoO, you would probably be better off with the shortbow, meaning that characters that want to use their bow as their exclusive weapon might still be better off using the shortbow than the longbow, which felt like the idea behind the volley trait in the first place.

[Vidmaster7]

I like your penalty to hit from moving idea.

[Deadmanwalking]

The core idea of the distance drop for Volley, for me, is putting it within one action's movement for a character so that they can spend one action and counteract it in all but the most cramped conditions. I'd thus prefer 20 feet so that Dwarves and Gnomes can benefit appropriately. I think 20 feet would work pretty well, though.

Having it apply after movement, I think, is a bad idea. Not because it wouldn't work (it would work fine) but because it would encourage the kind of static combat PF2 is meant to avoid, at least for longbow users.

[Unicore]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Having it apply after movement, I think, is a bad idea. Not because it wouldn't work (it would work fine) but because it would encourage the kind of static combat PF2 is meant to avoid, at least for longbow users.

The place where I see PF2 failing in this regard right now is that standing still and firing is already the most tactically sound option in the game. Ranged combat has a huge advantage over melee right now because they removed all of the penalties for shooting into combat and very few monsters get attacks of opportunity, meaning that most archers are just going to stand still and fire because there are very few tactical advantages that can be gained from movement that are better than another shot.

I understand that a big part of rebalancing that is to drop the attribute bonus from ranged combat, but by putting deadly on the bow, they have made that difference negligible, as the main reason to focus on using a bow is to fish for critical hits and get all the extra damage dice.

While I understand that players hate critical failure, and that it often feels like critical failure applies more harshly to PCs than players, the lack of consequences for standing still and firing three times is pretty unchecked right now, meaning taking more shots is always better than not. (a problem my idea doesn't really address).
It would be my personal preference for at least all ranged combat to have a minor negative effect on a critical failure. Something like critically failing on a ranged attack roll leaves you flatfooted to all enemies until the start of your next turn.

[pauljathome]

Unicore wrote:

Something like critically failing on a ranged attack roll leaves you flatfooted to all enemies until the start of your next turn.

How about if a critical failure allowed ALL threatening enemies an attack of opportunity, even those who would normally not get one? The PF1 mechanics. That would act to make moving an attractive option while still allowing 3 shots if you REALLY want to put the enemy down NOW

[N N 959]

Why is Volley? To nerf ranged damage and create more design space. It's part of the tight-math paradigm whereby Paizo creates mechanics to control the range of outcomes.

Volley's -2 penalty can be as much as a 20% reduction in damage. This allows Paizo to have Point Blank Shot remove the penalty and thus determine who does what, who wins at archery.

Because of volley, most "archers" are going to use shortbows and Paizo benefits from reducing ranged damage, which gets a real bad rap for being overpowered in 1e. Some of that is probably justified in that there is less risk for ranged damage, so it stands to reason that ranged attacks should do less damage than melee attacks. There is a question of fairness if longbow and longsword do the same damage, but the longbow user avoids melee combat. The nerf to ranged damage is also why STR benefit has been cut in half.

The real problem with Volley is that we are coming from 1e. Had we not played 1e, most players wouldn't even think about it, they'd just accept that PBS is meant to give the Fighter the edge in ranged combat and effect the idea that the Fighter is simply better at using all weapons.

Despite the fact that an Archery Ranger is my thing in 1e. I can actually live with the changes. The idea that my Ranger should really be using a shortbow in combat, is not a show stopper. The fact that I'm doing less damage is probably fair given the benefits of ranged combat. Also, the Ranger gets compensated by having the Animal Companion potentially doing more damage. Far more egregious is Hunt Target only benefiting my 2nd and 3rd attacks.

[PossibleCabbage]

I have to imagine part of this is recognizing that "Long-bow archery was the king of combat styles in PF1" so the best thing to do is to knock it down a few pegs knowing that we can always just print more stuff to bring it back to par if it's not as good as we wanted.

Adding agile to shortbows is not a terrible idea, but that runs the risk of the shortbow being the undisputed king of archery (and again we can always print an exotic agile shortbow later.)

[Unicore]

pauljathome wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Something like critically failing on a ranged attack roll leaves you flatfooted to all enemies until the start of your next turn.

How about if a critical failure allowed ALL threatening enemies an attack of opportunity, even those who would normally not get one? The PF1 mechanics. That would act to make moving an attractive option while still allowing 3 shots if you REALLY want to put the enemy down NOW

Your idea is interesting, but seems like it would be more complicated in practice than makes for a good core rule. Having basic rules that give other characters actions to take that they don't have recorded on their character sheet is a recipe for slowing down play and creating confusion. Even Fighter's Attack of Opportunity doesn't work quite like it did in PF1 so characters would probably all need to have it listed on their sheet what an attack of opportunity reaction is, which kind of defeats the point of having removed attack of opportunity from the general ability list in the first place.

Being made Flatfooted, on the other hand, still leaves the character open to serious consequences if they leave themselves exposed to attack in the next round. But it doesn't lead to interrupting actions and having to look up actions from other classes.

[RealAlchemy]

Both the idea of a critical failure making you flatfooted (accidentally misfiring with a bow is annoying and can damage arrowes or bows,) and the agile property on shortbows sound more reasonable to me than the volley property. Another possibility is a penalty for using a longbow while within someone's threat range, because it can be hard to aim with a sword in your face.

[swordchucks]

The part about bows that I find hardest to swallow is the Reload 0. With all of the other things that take just an instant of time taking an action to pull off, it seems weird that arrows just teleport onto the string. That's not even a game-balance statement, but a suspension-of-disbelief statement.

That said, longbows are overused to the extent that I can't recall ever seeing a PC in PF1 (or any recent D&D for that matter) that had proficiency in both choosing to use the shortbow.

I'd be fine with longbows instead having a problem if you moved on the turn you shot with them or shortbows having Agile. There definitely needs to be some reason to use a shortbow.

[Data Lore]

Volley needs to be removed. Give shortbows the agile trait while removing the deadly trait (edit: or reduce it to deadly d8) then remove volley from longbows.

Change point blank shot to do something else. Maybe just add damage equal to the number of damage dice (so it gets better as item gets magicky) when within 30 feet.

Bam, now all bows feel good and a bunch of changes don't need to be made.

[JakBlitz]

Volley is garbage.

[Igor Horvat]

I would rather put str categories on bows.

shortbow 8 str, 1d6 damage

longbow 10 str, 1d8 damage

greatbow 12 str, 1d10 damage

dragonbone bow, 14 str, 1d12 damage

No, str bonus to damage.

[Kot]

(Disclaimer: I'm Polish, so English is my second language, and this is my first post here, as far as I know. Also, I don't grasp the probability curves involved in most of the discussion here, so any feedback on that will be appreciated.)

Okay, I'll bite into the topics, but it will go against the usual D&D weapon moulds. Realism issues and real life archery info was already discussed here, but...

You might have noticed, that there are three types of crossbows: a hand crossbow, a regular crossbow and a heavy crossbow. Why not apply the same classification to bows, to get a more realistic and rules-savvy system?

First, we get the >Shortbow. It stays the same, a 60-ft. range, 1d6 piercing damage weapon with deadly 1d10.
For realism purposes, those are small hunting bows, usually below 1 meter of height, and quite small pull (tension strength? I don't know the proper English term for that). They were used to hunt birds and small game animals, like rabbits, and were mostly used by commoners, and almost never in regular warfare.
On the other hand, the composite shortbow is a different animal altogether. It's the same size, or even smaller as a regular shortbow, so it's use is similar, but the materials are radically different wood laminates, cartilage, and bone (mostly*). That gives them both a disproportional stopping power (for their size), and makes them a great cavalry weapon. Think middle-eastern and eastern cavalry, for example, the Tatar and Mongol people were masters of mounted composite shortbow archery.
So, a >Composite Shortbow would be a 90-ft. range, 1d6 piercing damage weapon with deadly 1d10 and propulsive.
The change in range is to show how much a composite bow is stronger than the regular one, and that easily converts into effective weapon range. Most experts give composite bows half as much power as a regular one of the same size.

Second, we have the bow. The regular one, that's so often mistaken for a longbow in fantasy settings. There's a difference, but let's leave that for later. It's usually slightly shorter in height than the user (at least to the sternum, but mostly up to his chin), and has a significantly better power than the shortbow, even composite(but a range on par with a composite one).
The >Bow would be a 90-ft. range, 1d8 piercing weapon with deadly 1d10. No changes. besides the range, so that composite shortbow users can't effectively outrage regular bows.
So again, a >Composite Bow would be a 120-ft, 1d8 piercing damage weapon with deadly 1d10 and propulsive.
A change in range again, but we have diminishing returns here, because a part of the composite features are curvature, that makes them even smaller (~10-20% less than the length of a regular bow).

Third, we have the longbow. Not just a bow, but a real monster. It has power, that most people can't even tame. It's way too hard to use if you're not a tall, muscular person with one arm significantly more developed though years of training. It's taller than you are, with a length of around 2 meters (6 ft. 2 in.), and can't be really fired in rapid succession. It would kill your arm to do so. They tended to have 100 to 180 pounds of draw strength. That's roughly 45 to 80 kilograms. they would be longer than the average height of even a tall person.
But that doesn't mean you couldn't shoot people up close, since at short ranges it would work like a crossbow, with an almost flat trajectory. That means we need something to simulate it's real-life properties in PF2, and not make it outstrip the heavy crossbow. So...
The >Longbow would be a 120-ft. range 1d10 piercing damage weapon with deadly 1d10, propulsive, and volley.
Where >Volley means that the weapon in question is hard and very exhausting to operate. A second attack with this weapon imposes a -6 penalty, and a third one a -12 (so, the opposite of Agile).
Optionally, beyond making a >Longbow a Exotic weapon, there are two additional effects I would consider, but they're probably too complicated, and too much of a penalty.
1. A critical failure result while attacking with this weapon makes you >Sluggish 1, as the resulting strain to your muscles causes you to yelp in pain and forces you to cower and flex them. If you critically fail an attack with this weapon while still >Sluggish 1 from a previous failure, you become >Fatigued 1 in addition to increasing your >Sluggish condition.
2. Unwieldy: This weapon needs a significant amount of space to use freely, and imposes a -2 penalty to attacks if there are less than three adjacent squares free and unoccupied**, or if there are hostile creatures in adjacent squares.

This is what I came up on a short notice, without any testing, so constructive criticism would be more than welcome. As I wrote at the beginning, the numbers need crunching, and my math skills aren't up to speed for that.

* Though there are oriental composite shortbows made of Damascus steel, one of them, a collapsible version, is displayed in the Malbork Castle Musueum in Poland. That's where I work as a tour guide, and had contact with both types of weapons in historical reenactments and museum pieces alike. If you wish, I can provide photos of the composite bows from our oriental weapons collection display.
** So no easy shooting in dungeon corridors or in a tight party formation. A 2-meter bow is really tough to work with in confined spaces.

[GwynHawk]

Volley doesn't make any sense to me. A character with a Longbow suffers a -2 penalty to hit a target 50 feet away, but if it's 55 feet away his accuracy increases. Meanwhile, a Glaive is perfectly effective at hitting an adjacent enemy, even if they're punching you two feet away and you therefore can't reasonably hit them with the blade of your weapon.

In addition, why don't regular bows let characters add at least part of their STR modifier to the damage? It takes a considerable amount of strength to draw back a bow, and you can definitely put more power behind it if you're stronger, doubly so if the weapon is built for it.

I would revise the Martial Ranged Weapon table thusly:

Bow: 45 sp, 1d6 P, 60 feet, Bulk 1, Hands 1+, Deadly d10, Propulsive
Composite Bow: 170 sp, 1d6 P, 100 feet, Bulk 2, Hands 1+, Deadly d10, Powerful

Powerful: This ranged weapon requires great strength to draw, but confers more force to its projectiles. You add your Strength modifier to damage rolls with a powerful ranged weapon, but you can't use it unless your Strength is 12 or higher.

With this version, the regular bow is well-suited for Dexterity-oriented characters who mainly want a cheap secondary weapon without too much Bulk. A composite bow has greater range and is more deadly in the hands of a very strong character, but it's also twice as bulky and nearly four times as expensive.

If the designers feel like they want to keep bow ranges shorter so that ranged characters can't 'cheese' encounters against melee-only enemies and get free hits in, they can easily cut the ranges of bows in half. But as it stands, Volley just makes no sense, and I think any GM would be wise to just ignore that weapon trait entirely.

[Megistone]

Volley is there because longbows are big and awkward. They are built to throw powerful shots at long distances, not for direct shots.
Legolas uses a shortbow. Robin Hood does, too.
Volley is there because longbows are not "like shortbows, but better in any circumstance", they are a different thing, made for a different purpouse: warfare.

[Loreguard]

I like the idea of them having an Unwieldy trait.

An Unwieldy weapon takes a -2 circumstance bonus if any of the following apply; this is the first attack this turn after the wielder has moved this turn, if the wielder is being threatened by a nearby creature in melee, or if there is not space around the wielder, as if the wielder was one size category larger that they are.

The last might in effect give small archers a little tactical advantage on being an archer, but yet it seems to make sense.

i have to admit, just boosting shortbows with making them agile would seem to leave other ranged weapons left out a bit in the cold. So I lean towards the above idea to replace volley with something else that makes sense.

Honestly however, I think that crossbows should have a 'Cranked #' trait. The number represents a strength rating the device is designed to operate at. The crossbow adds a STR bonus based on the STR rating of their Cranked trait, added to their damage. If someone wielding a crossbow has a STR higher than the Cranked trait, they may optionally treat the crossbow's Reload value as 0, but taking a -1 circumstance penalty to the attack. Hand crossbows get a Cranked 12 trait, Light Crossbows get Cranked 16 and Heavy Crossbows get Cranked 20. Crossbows of expert quality, or larger sizes can be made that have larger Cranked values for additional cost.

The idea is that the crossbow is designed to help weaker normal soldiers to be able to maximize the force on the quarrel. This really makes sense to be a set defined STR bonus based on the device. Cranking the string back is what takes so long to reload, as it the mechanism to allow people who don't have that STR to still be able to use the device. If someone has enough strength to simply pull it back to cock it, why not allow them to have option of getting a much quicker reload as a result. And for the record, I'm not giving them propulsive, because with a bow you have to hold the string in place as you aim it, with a crossbow, even if you pull it back by hand, you can maximize your pull, and then the latch holds it for you, allowing you access to a potentially higher peak of your strength.

This means weaker soldiers that aren't as well trained would make good use of crossbows (which is how they were used). However, a strong enough adventurer might be able to use a crossbow to give themselves a different advantage than others would find with one of the bows.

[Captain Morgan]

I like longbows being the long range artillery weapon of choice, and I am pretty cool with volley conceptually as a way to give both the shortbow and a longbow utility. If you fight outdoors, it isn't hard to get 50 feet away from an enemy, and a shortbow can essentially be your back up melee weapon since AoO is so rare.

I do think the sweet spot for a longbow is too narrow right now-- needing to be further than 50 feet but less than 100. The shortbow already has a 60 foot increment, which is good enough for many battles, and with Hunt Target doubling that you're pretty much covered for everything. I think either dropping the volley distance or buffing the range increment on the longbow could fix this problem. A point blank shot equivalent for Rangers would also make me pretty happy.

[LordVanya]

Regardless, it realistically looks dumb to anyone that thinks about for a second.
Volley should be exclusive to siege weapons.
The Longbow can be given utility easily without stretching believability, as other have suggested above.

[Gloom]

I think there's a pretty big disconnect when it comes to Longbows and Shortbows and the way that they're perceived by players. When they picture a Ranger carrying a bow, they picture a bow that is about a meter long and capable of being wielded to devastating results.

This example is almost always a Shortbow.

Longbows are typically used in large scale engagements as portable siege weapons. They're typically almost as tall as a person and can be very annoying to aim. Shots fired through a Longbow are usually arcing shots meant to hit distant targets. Volley in this example is a very apt weapon property.

With that said, I do think that Rangers similar to fighters should be an exception to this given their proficiency with bows.

My suggestion rather than adding additional feats such as Point-Blank Shot would be to instead bake some additional bonuses into the Hunter's Edge 'Precision' class feature that let you ignore the Volley penalty on your Longbow against your hunt target.

[Captain Morgan]

Gloom wrote:

I think there's a pretty big disconnect when it comes to Longbows and Shortbows and the way that they're perceived by players. When they picture a Ranger carrying a bow, they picture a bow that is about a meter long and capable of being wielded to devastating results.

This example is almost always a Shortbow.

Longbows are typically used in large scale engagements as portable siege weapons. They're typically almost as tall as a person and can be very annoying to aim. Shots fired through a Longbow are usually arcing shots meant to hit distant targets. Volley in this example is a very apt weapon property.

With that said, I do think that Rangers similar to fighters should be an exception to this given their proficiency with bows.

My suggestion rather than adding additional feats such as Point-Blank Shot would be to instead bake some additional bonuses into the Hunter's Edge 'Precision' class feature that let you ignore the Volley penalty on your Longbow against your hunt target.

I like where your head is at, but that feels like it might make longbows the default choice. I think the Ranger DPR on shortbows and crossbows is pretty close right now, and removing Volley might take longbows over both.

[Gloom]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Gloom wrote:

I think there's a pretty big disconnect when it comes to Longbows and Shortbows and the way that they're perceived by players. When they picture a Ranger carrying a bow, they picture a bow that is about a meter long and capable of being wielded to devastating results.

This example is almost always a Shortbow.

Longbows are typically used in large scale engagements as portable siege weapons. They're typically almost as tall as a person and can be very annoying to aim. Shots fired through a Longbow are usually arcing shots meant to hit distant targets. Volley in this example is a very apt weapon property.

With that said, I do think that Rangers similar to fighters should be an exception to this given their proficiency with bows.

My suggestion rather than adding additional feats such as Point-Blank Shot would be to instead bake some additional bonuses into the Hunter's Edge 'Precision' class feature that let you ignore the Volley penalty on your Longbow against your hunt target.

I like where your head is at, but that feels like it might make longbows the default choice. I think the Ranger DPR on shortbows and crossbows is pretty close right now, and removing Volley might take longbows over both.

It would only remove Volley when using the Precision Hunter's Edge. That means it would be limited to use only on their Hunt Target, and it would lock them out of using Flurry.

That's a little bit of a loss compared to letting them have Flurry with a Longbow that doesn't suffer from the Volley penalty.

Additionally there is a little bit of an action economy tax to declare a new Hunt Target, while they would already be doing that it would prevent a Ranger from swapping around a ton while using a Longbow unless they want to start suffering from Volley again.

[Loreguard]

Perhaps they need a picture of the longbow near the volley trait. More and more I'm getting the idea a longbow may be tall enough that its bottom may normally be on the ground, and may have to be tilted back simply to be able to pull the string back fully, as it is taller than most of the archers. That might be why they are expected to aim up, rather than direct fire the bow.

One issue I see with this however, is lacking size being a determining factor for damage, someone's going to suggest that some human pick up a halfling longbow and use it.

I still feel like taking a penalty if they have moved, or don't have sufficient safe space around them would work better than just applying to short range shots. Alternatively, have the volley trait mean shots under 50' do damage as per a shortbow, rather than longbow, since they can't use the bow at the proper angle so they are forced to direct fire, which may normally not allow the string to be pulled back as far as they are designed. However, even at that, then a longbow is strictly better than a shortbow, save for price and weight, so that doesn't seem to achieve its apparent purpose.

[Igor Horvat]

IMHO there should only be bows.

Their damage/range tied to minimum str needed to use them.

str 8, 1d6, range 40, agile 12 str

str 10, 1d8, range 60, agile 14 str

str 12, 1d10, range 80, agile 16 str

str 14, 1d12, range 100, agile 18 str

special; if you have str 4 pts higher that bows rating, it gains agile trait.

No deadly, no volley, no propulsive.

[Gloom]

Deadly fits much more aptly than Agile for a Bow. Especially when you consider that Rangers already have the "Flurry" Hunter's Edge as an option.

I still think that if you tweak the "Precision" Hunter's Edge to negate Volley penalties on your Hunt target things would balance out quite well, since the advantage to using a Shortbow at that point would be the option to use the "Flurry" Hunter's Edge.

[nicholas storm]

The unrealistic thing about volley is thinking that it should be more accurate at long range. If you think a longbow is shooting at an arc like you see in battles, they aren't aiming at anyone, just shooting at an army and figuring it will hit a target because there are so many.

In this light, if you think that is what is occuring, longbows should be -2 to hit always.

[Ninja in the Rye]

nicholas storm wrote:

The unrealistic thing about volley is thinking that it should be more accurate at long range. If you think a longbow is shooting at an arc like you see in battles, they aren't aiming at anyone, just shooting at an army and figuring it will hit a target because there are so many.

This is true, when I first saw that there was a volley property on long bows I assumed that it meant that you'd be able to link up a group of archers and fire an area effect attack volley of arrows that worked like a fireball. Which would have been an interesting way to allow, say, large groups of low level soldiers to pose some level of threat to higher level enemies.