I believe this was posted in the feats section, but I thought I'd post something here as well. Why are these weapons so bad? Historically, the sling was actually quite deadly and the crossbow all but replaced a bow for most people who weren't immensely strong. So, why are these weapons so poorly handled in this system? Yes, I suppose filling your sling with another rock would take a move action. So, of course, would drawing another arrow, nocking, aiming, and shooting. The poor crossbow is screwed. Can we get either the damage upgraded on these things, or give them the same unrealistic rain of attacks as bows?
Yes, I suppose filling your sling with another rock would take a move action.
I agree on the sling, it really shouldn't require a move action to drop a rock or lead weight into a strip of cloth, Whirl, Snap...Fling!
The crossbow on the other hand is for all intensive purposes a rifle and definitely requires an action, probably should require a lot longer than 3 seconds quite honestly. Not to mention a decent STR(pull lever), because crank operated crossbows are SLOOOOOW.
I'm assuming the bow does not require a load action due to the motion required to draw back an arrow. (aka load) Once you've loaded a bow it's a simply matter of letting go. Yes, I know, crossbow is just pull the trigger, etc.... I don't have an answer for that and will not pretend to.
I believe this was posted in the feats section, but I thought I'd post something here as well. Why are these weapons so bad? Historically, the sling was actually quite deadly and the crossbow all but replaced a bow for most people who weren't immensely strong.
In fluff terms, I'm okay with complete dominance of bows over crowssbows and firearms. All D&D characters qualify as immensely strong after a few levels and as downright superhuman after level 5-6, so it is quite logical for muscle-powered weapons to be better for them. Slings were historically inferior to bows. Although perhaps not to this extent.
I'm not okay with choices that only waste place in the books. Normal crossbows are sometimes used as secondary weapons at low levels by casters and other people, unproficient with bows. But repeating crossbows? They do nothing, except torching your feat.
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This is just a rough idea of what might be appropriate, but here goes.
Crossbows function based entirely off torque (not tension, torque, big difference in power there) by cranking the firing mechanism into the propper position. I can agree with the base damage, and the move action reload, but here's how I would suggest fixing it.
For every 2 strength bonus the character has, the attack deals an additional die of damage. For example an 18 strength fighter who chose to go with the crossbow instead of the bow, would be dealing 3d8 of damage, and would only be able to fire one shot per round without taking the rapid reload feat.
While using the rapid reload feat, the fighter is treated has having a strength bonus of two lower than he truly does. (For example, if the fighter is using rapid-shot, and has the same 18 strength, he could make two attacks for 2d8, at a -2 penalty, rather than one attack at 3d8)
In the case of the sling, its damage has almost nothing at all to do with strength. My suggestion, rather than adding the character's strength bonus to damage with it, allow it to add the character's dex bonus instead. (and for crying out loud, make it loadable with only one hand but a free action to load!)
Obviously my thoughts are a little scattered, given the time, but hopefully its food for thought, get a little discussion going and see if we can make these viable weapons.
Uh, that would mean that each crossbow hit is equal to longbow crit?!? And with rapid reload, it's multiple crits per round!
BTW, I'm all fine with crossbows as they are -- I think they're balanced to bows and other missile weapons. In some cases you're better off with your fighter slinging a crossbow than a longbow as his primary missile weapon. For example, if my PC is a melee specialist, he's most likely carrying a Heavy Crossbow (or a longbow, if he's elven-blooded).
Historically the longbow was much more deadly than a crossbow in the hands of a skilled user, the problem was that you required a lot more training to get to that level. The crossbow on the other hand you could just put in the hands of the closest man-at-arms and give him basic instructions how to use it and he was good to go. The main reason the crossbow won over the longbow was it's relative ease of use.
One way of representing that in game terms could be to give the crossbow a to hit bonus.
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I'm playing a crossbow based ranger (dwarves and longbows just don't go together) and I found crossbow based rangers are sub-par to rangers using regular bows. <snip>
You should take a look at the Arbalestier prestige class by Blackdirge Publishing.
It wouldn't hurt my feelings badly if Crossbows where 2d6 (2d4) 18-20/x2 weapons with some bonus to hit...
They are cheaper than bows, which is odd to me, considering how complex a crossbow is, their range increment is better... but I'm not sure how much that matters for any weapon past the magical 30 foot marker for sneak attacking and point blank shot... however the need for extra feats to be spent on making them worthwhile for any class turns them into a really feat expensive exotic weapon (minimum 1 feat for light crossbows, more for heavy).
In the words of a certain general, "It's A Trap!"
In PHB2 there was a feat call crossbow sniper that allowed characters to get sneak attack damage out to 60 feet with the crossbow, it almost helped to make the crossbow worthwhile.
One thing worth noting, if you have some way to reload a crossbow as a free action you can two weapon fight with them, and these are the only non-thrown ranged weapon you can do that with. The penalties for doing this with a light crossbow come out to -4 primary - 4 secondary and for a heavy crossbow are -6 primary and secondary.
I'm fairly certain a fighter build could be done that uses two crossbows effectively, but it would be a tight build and probably wouldn't ever really shine compared to an equivilent longbow build.
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Alas you young whipper snappers don't know how good you have it... Remember when the 'ole crossbow did 1d4 points of damage. You'd pull it out, act menacing and all everyone would do is laugh. Ah the days of 2e.
After reading through the thread it would seem that the common complaint is that the crossbow is an inferior weapon in skilled hands. Once archery feats and iterative attacks come to pass everyone drops it for the longbow. Ok, here's the shocker folks... Historically that's the way it went. As stated previously the crossbow was a mook weapon. You gave it to a hundred new recruits and instructed them to point it that way and pull the trigger. The composite longbow owned the fields of war in Europe for hundreds of years. Why should it be any different in Pathfinder?
It saddens me that the general undertone in nearly all of the Betatest threads is an underlying assumption that an inferior equipment or feat selection is abhorrent and should be stricken from the RAW. If I wanted a game like that I could easily find it
Having a crossbow do an extra die of damage for every +2 Str mod? Ridiculous. Giving a rate of attack equal to a longbow, also ridiculous. However I see no reason why "mighty" versions of crossbows should not exist. The draw strength differs from crossbow to crossbow and seeing as how a heavy crossbow uses torque generated by a winch to draw the string back, a heavy crossbow could have a higher str mod than you do. (Mechanical Advantage and all that)
The one idea that did strike me as logical and not over the top is the concept of giving crossbows armor piercing. 1pt for light and 2pts for heavy. This basically gives every light crossbow the weapon focus feat for free and heavy crossbows something even better to make up for the inferior rate of fire. A mid-level range feat could then increase this by 1pt.
I know I've ranted a bit but the most important point I wanted to make was that it's perfectly logical for the crossbow to fall in the hands of the non martial classes of the group while the martial boys stick to there bows. Crossbow > Longbow in the hands of the unskilled. Longbow >> Crossbow in the hands of an trained archer. Always has been always should be.
If I sound crass I'm gonna blame it on all the years of playing characters generated the old school way... (3d6 strait down, no max hps at first level, etc. etc.) Feel free to tell my old 1st ed. ass to shut up. :P
scaling damage belongs as a class feature, not a weapon feature. An in animate object is not capable of improving just becuase the person using it does. The person might be better at hitting with it, but it's just not going to do more than it can do... just like a 9mm pistol is going to throw someone through the air just because you hit them in the center of the chest.
I'm not sure it can be done realistically (from a game mechanic to real world conversion angle) which is why I don't mind the bigger jump in crit range so much. As mention the way crossbows are now makes them exotic weapons with a different feat needed, so if they show that in base ability it doesn't hurt my feelings. I don't think even with the changes I presented we would see a huge flood of people suddenly using the crossbow simply because of the need of rapid reload. Would more people use them? Yes, and this is good. Would everyone use them? No and this too is good. With my changes they deal a little more damage than a normal bow, with a little better range and a better chance to deal a fatal wound... however they are still slow as christmas, which matches pretty well to real life(TM) in my opinion.
Yeah but there is a feat that does than now, and I think that makes sense for the sling... it shouldn't really be that amazing of a weapon considering it can be had for free for anyone. There is a reason the bow and crossbow where developed, and that is becuase the sling left something to be desired... namely everything. Too much training was needed, too much work to do it well, too little damage overall, and too little range.
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The Deadly Aim feat would cover that just fine. Someone who had taken the time to train to be skilled with a sling could easily be assumed to take something like that feat to represent the increased damage.
The other thing to take into account is that the target of missile. A RW medieval soldier in the field would likely be just a Warrior 1 with about 4-5 HP. A sling or shortbow shot is more than enough to cause serious injury or, on a critical hit, kill outright.
Just my 2 cp...
Ok, here's the shocker folks... Historically that's the way it went. As stated previously the crossbow was a mook weapon. You gave it to a hundred new recruits and instructed them to point it that way and pull the trigger. The composite longbow owned the fields of war in Europe for hundreds of years. Why should it be any different in Pathfinder?
It saddens me that the general undertone in nearly all of the Betatest threads is an underlying assumption that an inferior equipment or feat selection is abhorrent and should be stricken from the RAW. If I wanted a game like that I could easily find it
Having a crossbow do an extra die of damage for every +2 Str mod? Ridiculous. Giving a rate of attack equal to a longbow, also ridiculous. However I see no reason why "mighty" versions of crossbows should not exist. The draw strength differs from crossbow to crossbow and seeing as how a heavy crossbow uses torque generated by a winch to draw the string back, a heavy crossbow could have a higher str mod than you do. (Mechanical Advantage and all that)
To an extent, yes. Not every option needs to be 100% equal. However, In a world where archers can accurately fire 5 shots in six seconds, I don't think giving the crossbow a little love is unfair. Either that, or the archer should be required to take quick draw the way the crossbow...er? is required to take rapid reload.
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I'm really not so sure why there is a problem with the crossbow compared to longbow.
The longbow requires one more feat to use than the crossbow: Martial Weapon Proficiency. The crossbow is 5% more likely to crit than a longbow. The crossbow has slightly greater range and is cheaper than a longbow.
About the only change I would make is to allow Mighty variants of the crossbow that do NOT require equal strength to use, that adds an extra point to damage.
The Heavy Crossbow already does more damage than the longbow. Out of 100 shots, the heavy crossbow will score a crit about 10 times, for an average damage of 5.5 points. A longbow will score a crit only 5 times of 100 shots for an average damage of 4.2 points. Not much, granted, but these are base level crossbows. A light crossbow averages 4.4 points. Since the damage scores are so close, I would be happy allowing Mighty to Crossbows, and it puts in within competition of the Composite Longbow.
I think adding Mighty would fix the problem.
scaling damage belongs as a class feature, not a weapon feature. An in animate object is not capable of improving just becuase the person using it does. The person might be better at hitting with it, but it's just not going to do more than it can do... just like a 9mm pistol is going to throw someone through the air just because you hit them in the center of the chest.
I disagree. Actually, the strength of the person cranking the quarrel back has alot to do with it. However, it quickly becomes a matter of mechanics as I believe the typical crossbow is only designed to be cranked back *so* far before the string/wire snaps....
This is where I believe it would end up being like the mightybow, as Krome suggested....
After reading through the thread it would seem that the common complaint is that the crossbow is an inferior weapon in skilled hands. Once archery feats and iterative attacks come to pass everyone drops it for the longbow. Ok, here's the shocker folks... Historically that's the way it went. As stated previously the crossbow was a mook weapon. You gave it to a hundred new recruits and instructed them to point it that way and pull the trigger. The composite longbow owned the fields of war in Europe for hundreds of years. Why should it be any different in Pathfinder?
Because it wasn't so in medieval Europe? Crossbow were not a mook weapon (because they were quite expensive, for starters), they were decidedly superior to most of contemporary bows (because range and penetration trumped any other factors in typical scenarios) and longbow (composite bows hardly existed in Europe) required large masses of disciplined archers, trained in proper tactics, to shine.
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The reality is, despite the crossbow fans thoughts otherwise, the yew longbow was a superior weapon in every respect. The CLASSIC example of this is 1415, The Battle of Agincourt. (You can throw Crecy in there as well, for additional French bashing purposes...)
Fact: The English longbow (the basis for the fantasy longbow, AFAICT) is composite, by design.
Fact: The longbow had a better effective range (200yds to 120yds) than the crossbow. One of the biggest factors at Agincourt was that the Genoese crossbowmen were under English bow fire for nearly a football field before they could effectively counter attack.
Fact: The longbow was better at penetrating the heaviest armors of the time. Ask the French cavalry at the time.
Fact: The longbow, in proper hands was more accurate.
Fact: The longbow wielder could loose 12 arrows a minute, compared to one bolt every 45 seconds to a minute for the crossbowman. In a battle, ammo supply willing, a longbowman could theoretically hit 30+ targets every three minutes, the crossbowman five.
Fact: The longbow was easier to maintain in the field. It took much less time to replace a bowstring on a longbow than on a crossbow.
Fact: Longbows were much less expensive than crossbows. More performance for much less cost.
Advantages for the crossbow:
Much lower training time. About a month was all it took to achieve maximum proficiency, rather than the years it took to proberly train a longbowman.
Can be cocked and loaded before combat. First shot advantage, but that disappears quickly as the combat progresses.
But, you know, y'all are having fun, don't let a pesky little thing like the truth about longbows and crossbows deter you!
:)
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ummmm anyone a necromancer? I'm just a fighter and no good at that summon dead people thing... :)
Fact: The longbow was better at penetrating the heaviest armors of the time. Ask the French cavalry at the time.
They asked the survivors, big dummy! ;)
The English longbow company was one of (if not) the most feared units of warfare in medaeval Europe. The English longbowman was a peasant, and the French nobility (knights) were famously dismissive of peasants. They didn't take the English seriously at first, due to the English army's dependance on "lesser" soldiers. The English knights didn't mind defering to the longbowmen, they even shared the ransoms for captured nobility with them, which made morale a huge factor in the 100 Years War.
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scaling damage belongs as a class feature, not a weapon feature. An in animate object is not capable of improving just becuase the person using it does. The person might be better at hitting with it, but it's just not going to do more than it can do... just like a 9mm pistol is going to throw someone through the air just because you hit them in the center of the chest.I disagree. Actually, the strength of the person cranking the quarrel back has alot to do with it. However, it quickly becomes a matter of mechanics as I believe the typical crossbow is only designed to be cranked back *so* far before the string/wire snaps....
This is where I believe it would end up being like the mightybow, as Krome suggested....
By using mechanics and different materials Mighty would be easily done.
You need some strength yes, but gears add a lot to making it easier to crank. Modify the materials in the string so it can be stretched more and deliver a stronger launch.
This is all easy things to do. *Note- I am temping in an Engineering College and popped over and grabbed a professor for an idea- he went into a long winded lecture that made my eyes gloss over and I lost five minutes of my life- but in essence he said it would be easy*
BTW Crossbows as exotic weapons- OK if the idea is that these are exotic because they are rare, then take them out of exotic and make them expensive to reflect the rarity.
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ummmm anyone a necromancer? I'm just a fighter and no good at that summon dead people thing... :)
Fact: The longbow was better at penetrating the heaviest armors of the time. Ask the French cavalry at the time.
They asked the survivors, big dummy! ;)
The English longbow company was one of (if not) the most feared units of warfare in medaeval Europe. The English longbowman was a peasant, and the French nobility (knights) were famously dismissive of peasants. They didn't take the English seriously at first, due to the English army's dependance on "lesser" soldiers. The English knights didn't mind defering to the longbowmen, they even shared the ransoms for captured nobility with them, which made morale a huge factor in the 100 Years War.
I know I know. I just reread something about that fight. The French decided to deploy their archers to the rear as they were not really necessary. The French charged into battle and were slaughtered by the English longbowmen.
Personally I am fine with everything as is, except for adding Mighty to the Crossbow.
[threadjack]
BTW this is an interesting side to another thread and one which has me wondering. Bows vs slings. From what I have read the sling had a longer range than a bow, could use a ballistic arc to overcome obstacles and could deliver devastatingly damage. So why then did the sling give way to the bow? A sling with a dart could achieve penetration of armor, but it seems they stopped developing ammunition for the sling... So what happened?[/threadjack]
The Heavy Crossbow already does more damage than the longbow. Out of 100 shots, the heavy crossbow will score a crit about 10 times, for an average damage of 5.5 points. A longbow will score a crit only 5 times of 100 shots for an average damage of 4.2 points.
Your analysis is a bit off, insofar as it neglects "hit only on a 20" situations (and crit confirmation in general). Also, a longbow does a base 1d8, and gets Str bonuses if "mighty." Assuming all shots hit and all crits auto-confirm, I get 6.05 damage (mean) for the crossbow, and 4.95 (mean) for the longbow. Add a +1 Str bonus and the longbow jumps to 6.05 -- dead even with the crossbow. And remember that the bow can attack anywhere from 2-8 times more often than the crossbow.
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[threadjack]
BTW this is an interesting side to another thread and one which has me wondering. Bows vs slings. From what I have read the sling had a longer range than a bow, could use a ballistic arc to overcome obstacles and could deliver devastatingly damage. So why then did the sling give way to the bow? A sling with a dart could achieve penetration of armor, but it seems they stopped developing ammunition for the sling... So what happened?[/threadjack]
This is pure speculation, but here goes:
Perhaps the sling wasn't as well suited to dealing with fighting formations that included heavy shield use. As far as I can tell, regular sling use in organized warfare (at least in Western history) dropped off dramatically after the introduction of the Greek phalanx. Shield walls were tighter, allowing less room for sling stones to find a random opening (I assume) and, as sling bullets and stones weren't well suited to penetrating the contemporary shield, the bow gained promenence since, at the very least, there was a chance of penetrating the shield and hitting the shield arm. As that would be quite painful, I can only assume that this one added benefit over the sling volley may have a lot to do with the sling's demise.
Again, pure speculation. I have nothing to back that up.
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The Heavy Crossbow already does more damage than the longbow. Out of 100 shots, the heavy crossbow will score a crit about 10 times, for an average damage of 5.5 points. A longbow will score a crit only 5 times of 100 shots for an average damage of 4.2 points.Your analysis is a bit off, insofar as it neglects "hit only on a 20" situations (and crit confirmation in general). Also, a longbow does a base 1d8, and gets Str bonuses if "mighty." Assuming all shots hit and all crits auto-confirm, I get 6.05 damage (mean) for the crossbow, and 4.95 (mean) for the longbow. Add a +1 Str bonus and the longbow jumps to 6.05 -- dead even with the crossbow. And remember that the bow can attack anywhere from 2-8 times more often than the crossbow.
But that doesn't matter; as pointed out, the longbow, historically, was a better weapon. It just took too long to train longbowmen, whereas you can hand a peasant a crossbow, show him how it works, and say "go to it."
Ahhh yeah I did not account for multiple shots or strength. Thanks. And I was using auto-confirms to just make the scenario easier.
Also crossbows were better guard weapons in a city or inside a building... less room needed to maneuver. Though if I *DID* see a town guardsman pull out a longbow and start to aim I would have stopped, dropped and prayed it wasn't me he was aiming for.
Re: mechanical advantage for the crossbow, and "mighty" crossbows: realistically, the difference between an arrow and a bolt is negligable; not enough to account for different crit ranges, certainly. The crossbow trades time and distance (winding/cocking) up for velocity/force, whereas a bowman has to have enough Str to pull the string. So, realistically, a light crossbow's damage output should be equal to a longbow with maybe a 14-Str equivalent, but useable by a 10-Str Commoner (1d8+2/x3). A heavy crossbow gets better mechanical advantage (say, 1d8+4/x3), but is slower.
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This is pure speculation, but here goes:Perhaps the sling wasn't as well suited to dealing with fighting formations that included heavy shield use. As far as I can tell, regular sling use in organized warfare (at least in Western history) dropped off dramatically after the introduction of the Greek phalanx. Shield walls were tighter, allowing less room for sling stones to find a random opening (I assume) and, as sling bullets and stones weren't well suited to penetrating the contemporary shield, the bow gained promenence since, at the very least, there was a chance of penetrating the shield and hitting the shield arm. As that would be quite painful, I can only assume that this one added benefit over the sling volley may have a lot to do with the sling's demise.
Again, pure speculation. I have nothing to back that up.
Actually, the heyday of the phalanx was the heyday of the sling. From what I know, the sling is an even more difficult weapon than the bow to use properly. Kings or Tyrants or what have you didn't raise levies of slingers, they had to go and hire specialists, particularly from the Balearic isles. The sling was simply never as universal as the bow, either. Only a few groups adopted it with vigor, whereas everyone used bows of some kind.
Also, there are really two different kinds of slings: there is the one that we are familiar with from DnD, which is simply made of cloth or leather. The second kind is the one that was used in the middle ages, particularly in sieges. It consists of a sling on the end of a staff. This type had a shorter range (I believe) but could knock someone cold in one shot. It was also easier to just give to peasants and say "throw this in that general direction" than the frustrating sling.
As for crossbows, I personally think they are more effective than longbows, on the whole. However, longbowmen were more effective than your average crossbowmen. Longbowmen, though they may have been peasants, were professional soldiers with years of practice and training, whereas most crossbowmen were simple levies of poorly trained troops.
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Thanks for the info on the sling! My medaeval history is a bit stronger than my ancient history, to be honest.
I must respectfully disagree about the generalization about crossbowmen, at least in Agincourt. The French employed Genoese crossbowmen for much of that campaign, and they were definitely elite troops. The longbow just proved superior at the time. I will concede that modern crossbows rock, but in the 1400's, maybe not so much.
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The reality is, despite the crossbow fans thoughts otherwise, the yew longbow was a superior weapon in every respect. The CLASSIC example of this is 1415, The Battle of Agincourt. (You can throw Crecy in there as well, for additional French bashing purposes...)
Well, actually . . .
Fact: The longbow had a better effective range (200yds to 120yds) than the crossbow. One of the biggest factors at Agincourt was that the Genoese crossbowmen were under English bow fire for nearly a football field before they could effectively counter attack.
The first part is correct. The second part is irrelevant. The French crossed the field at Agincourt with minimal casualties. It was the crossing of a muddy, broken field while wearing 50-60 lbs of armor, with the non-penetrating impacts of the arrows, that left them exhausted and overwhelmed in the melee that followed.
Fact: The longbow was better at penetrating the heaviest armors of the time. Ask the French cavalry at the time.
No, it was not. The longbow simply could not penetrate the best full body steel armor of the time. Of course not everyone had the best full body steel armor of the time, or maintained it in perfect condition. Likewise the horses of the French cavalry were not fully armored, so they were very easily killed, or at least injured. English longbowmen would carry swords or hammers to deal with the dismounted heavily armed riders.
Fact: The longbow, in proper hands was more accurate.
Yes, but even with that it was often used in massed volleys, particularly at greater ranges. The masses of archers would used arcing fire to blanket an area, ala the scenes in 300.
Fact: The longbow wielder could loose 12 arrows a minute, compared to one bolt every 45 seconds to a minute for the crossbowman. In a battle, ammo supply willing, a longbowman could theoretically hit 30+ targets every three minutes, the crossbowman five.
The issue there of course is ammo supply. Commanders often had to send people out to scavenge arrows after, and even during battles.
Fact: The longbow was easier to maintain in the field. It took much less time to replace a bowstring on a longbow than on a crossbow.
True. The problem is that a longbowman is much harder to maintain in the field than a crossbowman. The heavy pull on an English longbow required the user to be in good physical condition in addition to his years of training. A conscript half dead from dysentery could still fire a crossbow.
Fact: Longbows were much less expensive than crossbows. More performance for much less cost.
Until of course all the yew was cut down in England to make bows. Laws were passed requiring yew bows to be imported, and the price naturally rose over time.
Further, a good yet bow could take 4 years to make. A crossbow could be churned out much faster.
Missile weapon damage in DnD is hard to justify. No missile weapon should get strength bonuses. Arrows and quarrels are too light. Take a look at standard bows: Shortbow 1d6, Longbow 1d8.
The shortbow would have a typical draw weight of 50 lb. The Longbow nearly 3x that at 140 lb, minimum. Tripling the draw weight (and a somewhat larger arrow) only adds 1 point of damage on average!
It follows that adding ~90 lb of draw weight to a (composite) shortbow shouldn't give it any more than +1 to damage. How much more draw weight would be required to reach +2? How much more draw weight can be put into a shortbow without making it of spring steel? How quickly will the arrow slow down, robbing it of any extra energy to add damage?
Most of the damage from an arrow is the wound track, and arrows often penetrate through-and-through if they don't hit bone. Strength bonus might add to that if bone is struck, but that isn't a given.
A spear, at least, has significant mass to "store" the energy of a strength bonus, so let's examine a similar upgrade.
A ballista fires a spear for 3d8 damage and 6x the range (120' increment as opposed to 20'). We can assume that means roughly 6x the velocity. That's ~36x the energy for an average of +9 damage. Even if we take the maximum +16 damage, the additional energy required is huge: double the energy of the thrown spear for each +1.
Even if you say half the energy is wasted due to overpenetration of a man-sized target, you still only get +1 per 1x multiple of thrown-spear energy. It would take about 4x the energy, double the velocity, to get the +4 of Str 18.
yeah but:
The Odessey.
That's my argument against physics in this case: Good ole fashion mythlore.
To my mind what should be done with crossbows is this.
Firstly create composite crossbows, which function is such a way that their bolts always benefit from the strength bonus, even if the user does not have a strength bonus. I would also consider increasing the maximium strength bonus of such a range of crossbow far beyond that of the bow.
I'd also consider introducing a range of feats which increase its damage output.
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your forgetting a huge issue with Bows. They get to apply their full strength bonus to every single hit assuming the tiny price of an extra few hundred gold for a mighty rating (which are surprisingly easy to craft, I've played a crafting bowman before). I don't expect my idea to be perfect, or even good necessarily, but please look at both sides lol. The crossbowman has to spend an extra feat just to be able to shoot with his crossbow more than once per round. That puts the bow 1 feat ahead.
Secondly, I put a penalty for using said feat. If the crossbowman wants his max damage (for example he's not likely to be able to hit a target with his iterative attack or with the -2 rapid shot penalty) then he wouldn't use rapid reload.
I think it'd be a clunky mechanic and also unique in the game (not in any positive sense). If there is a bonus added to crossbow damage, I'd rather have it simply as your STR or DEX modifier (maybe for composite crossbows, as someone suggested?).
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Thanks for the info on the sling! My medaeval history is a bit stronger than my ancient history, to be honest.
I must respectfully disagree about the generalization about crossbowmen, at least in Agincourt. The French employed Genoese crossbowmen for much of that campaign, and they were definitely elite troops. The longbow just proved superior at the time. I will concede that modern crossbows rock, but in the 1400's, maybe not so much.
Also remember that the French did not deploy their archers in a useful fashion in that battle...