(I'm just adding a post in this mystery thread ... perhaps the original post will show up too :)
Edit: Hey, check it out! It worked!!
Plus, there was always the problematic double-trebuchet wielding fighter build out there, which used multiple enlarge persons plus a gallon of vodka on the DM to absolutely dominate games.
I've found that gallons of vodka dominate games regardless of which siege engines are in use.
Don't bemoan the absence of things from the OGL Pathfinder rules. Submit!
In absolute seriousness, if you find something missing, please please write it up and post it for all to see! That's what keeps the OGL strong.
"Catapult, Heavy" - there it is.
Seriously. Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.
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"Catapult, Heavy" - there it is.
Seriously. Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.
Shouldn't your reply had been.
"It's not? Well then just wait while I at 4 Winds starts on our book of war with all the war machines a aspiring conquering army could ever way."
Or something to that effect only said cooler.
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I was disappointed to note the lack of the trebuchet in the siege engines section in the core PF rulebook. Trebuchets were the most powerful siege engines prior to the invention of the cannon. Why the omission?Do you have any idea how much a trebuchet weighs? One of the design goals was to be able to carry the book around in a backpack.
o_0
ROFL, never expected a joke here.
@ Marcus Aurelius
You can use the statistics for the heavy catapult to much the same effect, no doubt you'll need to change the way you describe it though.
I have to say that given the extreme unlikelihood of encountering the double-trebuchet wielding fighter are so scarce as to be non-existant, maybe they just decided to skip on them.
PCs are unlikely to use them, and even less likely to get hit by them, outside of a seige. Maybe the rules for them will come out in a stronghold-builder's guide ...
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I was disappointed to note the lack of the trebuchet in the siege engines section in the core PF rulebook. Trebuchets were the most powerful siege engines prior to the invention of the cannon. Why the omission?Do you have any idea how much a trebuchet weighs? One of the design goals was to be able to carry the book around in a backpack.
Now come on ;) You can't carry a heavy catapult around either, and I know I've seen one! I was more thinking along GMing lines. A city could have trebuchets with crews for defensive purposes.
Besides those things rock ...
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Plus, there was always the problematic double-trebuchet wielding fighter build out there, which used multiple enlarge persons plus a gallon of vodka on the DM to absolutely dominate games.I've found that gallons of vodka dominate games regardless of which siege engines are in use.
No kidding. Try DMing on a half pint of vodka!
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Don't bemoan the absence of things from the OGL Pathfinder rules. Submit!
In absolute seriousness, if you find something missing, please please write it up and post it for all to see! That's what keeps the OGL strong.
Thanks for the link. I was worried my serious request was somehow going to degenerate into a drinking contest. I have seen trebuchets and studied them because I'm a medieval history and mechanics nerd. I would be honored to do the research and submit a listing.
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"Catapult, Heavy" - there it is.
Seriously. Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.
Nope. The trebuchet works by completely different mechanics. Catapults rely on torsion whereas trebs rely on the counterweight mechanism.
Trebuchet. Consists of frame (with wheels for lateral movement on firing, as well as for general movement) One counterweight, usually a wooden crate filled with sand or heavy rocks. To this is attached a beam called the boom (or arm), hinged over the weight. To the boom is attached a leather or canvas sling.
At rest the trebuchet stands weight down, boom vertical. To fire, a complex winch mechanism is used to lift the weight to the apex of the main structure, as this is done the arm is swung around and down. In full loading position the sling is tucked into a space beneath the main structure. The projectile is then placed in the sling.
To fire the ratchet on the weight is unlocked and the weight drops vertically, this jerks the boom upwards until the boom hits a crossbar at the apex. Once that happens the energy is transferred to the sling that releases the projectile. The whiplash effect of this increases the velocity of the projectile and its power is far greater than a heavy catapult.
Someone built a replica a few years back and loaded it with a Mini Cooper. It threw this car over a stand of trees about 500 feet away.
Creative Director
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We couldn't put every siege engine ever into the book, just like we can't put every possible weapon into the equipment chapter. Some day, if we do something that stats up more siege engines, we might add more to the list (including trebuchets).
Until then, you can fake trebuchets by just using catapult stats, of course. Trebuchets work on different mechanics, yeah, but the in-game effect is the same; it throws a heavy object and when that object lands on you, it does damage. A blinded, deafened person would likely be unable to tell the difference between himself getting hit by a catapult or a trebuchet, so the stats can work identically.
Of course, if you want your trebuchets to work better than catapults, it's a simple matter to extend the progression of light catapult to heavy catapult to one more slot:
Trebuchet: Cost 1,200 gp; Damage 8d6; Critical —; Range Increment 250 feet (100 ft. minimum); Typical Crew 4.
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I was disappointed to note the lack of the trebuchet in the siege engines section in the core PF rulebook. Trebuchets were the most powerful siege engines prior to the invention of the cannon. Why the omission?Do you have any idea how much a trebuchet weighs? One of the design goals was to be able to carry the book around in a backpack.o_0
ROFL, never expected a joke here.
@ Marcus Aurelius
You can use the statistics for the heavy catapult to much the same effect, no doubt you'll need to change the way you describe it though.
See my post to Lying Bastard above.
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We couldn't put every siege engine ever into the book, just like we can't put every possible weapon into the equipment chapter. Some day, if we do something that stats up more siege engines, we might add more to the list (including trebuchets).
Until then, you can fake trebuchets by just using catapult stats, of course. Trebuchets work on different mechanics, yeah, but the in-game effect is the same; it throws a heavy object and when that object lands on you, it does damage. A blinded, deafened person would likely be unable to tell the difference between himself getting hit by a catapult or a trebuchet, so the stats can work identically.
Of course, if you want your trebuchets to work better than catapults, it's a simple matter to extend the progression of light catapult to heavy catapult to one more slot:
Trebuchet: Cost 1,200 gp; Damage 8d6; Critical —; Range Increment 250 feet (100 ft. minimum); Typical Crew 4.
Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
Try not to be too defensive, the PF book is a fine tome, and after all its only a game when all's said and done :)
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Creative Director
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Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
Then let them do 10d6 or 20d6 damage on a hit if you want, depending on what "considerably more damage" means to you. But I should point out that a typical reinforced masonry wall that's say, a foot thick, has hardness 8 and 180 hit points. Against a heavy catapult, which deals an average of 21 points of damage on a hit, it'll take 14 rounds to break the wall. Against a trebuchet that deals 8d6 points of damage for an average of 28 points of damage on a hit, that same wall will go down in only 9 rounds. That feels like the 8d6 trebuchet is doing considerably more damage to me.
Try not to be too defensive, the PF book is a fine tome, and after all its only a game when all's said and done :)
It's hard not to be defensive when you work hard on a product and someone starts a thread by saying "I was disappointed...". And on top of that, since Paizo pays my paycheck, it's only natural for me to defend what we do! It may only be a game to most, but it's also a job and a livelihood to me! :-)
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Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
I believe IRL, it took days, if not months to break through a castle walls even with trebuchets and / or catapults.
Hunger was the best weapon. The rest were just here to scare the peasants.
A blinded, deafened person would likely be unable to tell the difference between himself getting hit by a catapult or a trebuchet
You, sir, win the #QuoteOfTheDay award. Excuse me while I tell twitter about this.
Dark_Mistress, it's funny you should mention that. Two of the weapons available in Albion Armitage's Astounding Arsenal are siege weapons, both real world ones as well: the Polybolos, and the Hwa'Cha.
And when you consider "catapult" is a catchall much the same as "firearm" - which incorporates rifles, shotguns, muskets, pistols, etc - referring to devices that hurl stones or other munitions, then there's no reason a trebuchet couldn't fall under that. Yes, it used a sling instead of a basket, and a counterweight instead of tension or torsion. But the main function and effect were primarily the same - both hurled stones (or occasionally dead animals or people), both fired in an arc, both were used for centuries... the main difference was that a trebuchet was usually more reliable - a mangonel or onager were more prone to break themselves.
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It's hard not to be defensive when you work hard on a product and someone starts a thread by saying "I was disappointed...". And on top of that, since Paizo pays my paycheck, it's only natural for me to defend what we do! It may only be a game to most, but it's also a job and a livelihood to me! :-)
Actually I was actually paraphrasing your comment to me on another thread a day or two ago when you told me the exact same thing ;) I was joking but I failed. I'm sorry.
I'll tell you what let us know how we should phrase topic discussion titles before we post them - I really didn't mean to offend you, and I think the way we use disappointed in Britain isn't as powerfully emotive as it is Stateside (I come across this a lot, language nuances are very different on either side of the pond). I was disappointed was maybe a little strong but it was only one aspect of what is to me and all the other people here (I can't speak for them all) a mighty fine game. The fact that so many people engage these forums is at least to me a sign that you're doing it right.
If nobody bothered to come here and debate then I would be truly disappointed. I happen to think you guys are doing a great job with Pathfinder and the fact that you take an interest in the role playing community and engage with us is to your credit.
In other words I love PathFinder! As soon as my wife allows me I'll be investing in more product lines. Many kind regards. Mark
... since Paizo pays my paycheck, it's only natural for me to defend what we do! It may only be a game to most, but it's also a job and a livelihood to me! :-)
And trust me, some of us are very envious of that :)
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Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
I believe IRL, it took days, if not months to break through a castle walls even with trebuchets and / or catapults.
Hunger was the best weapon. The rest were just here to scare the peasants.
It depended on the walled city/castle and its location. Starving people out was easier and cheaper on the lives of attacking soldiers than making a hole and barging in. Mostly this was done when they hadn't sufficient infantry force available to cut off a stronghold. Normally it took hours to days to smash through walls with catapults and less with trebuchets. Walls kept getting thicker as the newer siege equipment came online. Some crusader castles in the Levant had walls 50' thick built at an angle to lessen the force of the projectile. This was also why never castles developed round rather than square towers.
It was the advent of the cannon that put an end to castle building. They could reduce walls in minutes.
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Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.This was always my understanding, although you can go the extrapolation route that James suggests as well.
Rez
I never said that the extrapolation rule was wrong, but there is a difference to how the trebuchet hits a target and torsion weapons. But play it as you want. I only started this thread because it was a weapon used in Ed. 1, and I'm kind of fond of them. ;)
I never said that the extrapolation rule was wrong, but there is a difference to how the trebuchet hits a target and torsion weapons. But play it as you want. I only started this thread because it was a weapon used in Ed. 1, and I'm kind of fond of them. ;)Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.This was always my understanding, although you can go the extrapolation route that James suggests as well.
Rez
So what would the difference be?
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How much more power are we talking about here that there is going to be a statistical difference for what its intended to do? Whether torsion powered, counter-weighted, or magically built there isn't going to be much more deviation than a few dice of damage and a bit of range.
Why not just customize based on the size and scale that you want? Each piece of seige artillery was custom built historically anyway, so you might as well do custom stats everytime you want a seige engine.
Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
I believe IRL, it took days, if not months to break through a castle walls even with trebuchets and / or catapults.
Hunger was the best weapon. The rest were just here to scare the peasants.
It depended on the walled city/castle and its location. Starving people out was easier and cheaper on the lives of attacking soldiers than making a hole and barging in. Mostly this was done when they hadn't sufficient infantry force available to cut off a stronghold. Normally it took hours to days to smash through walls with catapults and less with trebuchets. Walls kept getting thicker as the newer siege equipment came online. Some crusader castles in the Levant had walls 50' thick built at an angle to lessen the force of the projectile. This was also why never castles developed round rather than square towers.
It was the advent of the cannon that put an end to castle building. They could reduce walls in minutes.
Except that they couldn't and it didn't. Cannon merely changed the nature of castles. Earth-backed ramparts could absorb impact of cannon quite well, and fortresses based off castle technology - bastions, curtain walls, firing ports, earthworks - were built well into the 19th century. Fort Sumter, Vicksburg, Fort Ticonderoga, none of them had the majesty of a medieval castle, but they were the same fort of engineering and were built with cannon in mind. Vicksburg was under constant assault for nearly a year.
Likewise, even in the age of Cromwell - when musketeers and cannon were the mainstay of armies - few castles were taken by storm; most were taken by treachery.
When you get right down to it, the major fortresses of WWI were castles as well. Only with high explosives and long-range mortars did the they become less practical. Even in WWII there was no shortage of fortifications.
What ended the era of the medieval castle was essentially economics. Lords were no longer going into the field to battle, so instead of fortresses, they built Manor Houses - comfortable, beautiful places to live, that were also quite defensible.
But with all this interest, I'm going to have to include trebuchets somewhere in one of our products.
To answer the OP, I'm pretty sure the game deisgn specifications included a desire to avoid French words.
After more than a decade of watching people misspell "rouge" and mispronounce "coop dee graycee", they didn't dare tempt fate with "trabyooshay".
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So what would the difference be?I never said that the extrapolation rule was wrong, but there is a difference to how the trebuchet hits a target and torsion weapons. But play it as you want. I only started this thread because it was a weapon used in Ed. 1, and I'm kind of fond of them. ;)Catapult, Light is your onager/mangonel type; Catapult, Heavy is the big trebuchet type.This was always my understanding, although you can go the extrapolation route that James suggests as well.
Rez
Maximum elevation of the shot at high speed, due to sling whiplash effect. Catapults and similar weapons are best fired at angles of around 45 degrees for distance. The trebuchet fires at a higher angle and increase in speed due to whiplash means the projectile can achieve much greater heights too. It achieved its pinnacle of design in the fifteenth century (Leonardo da Vinci improved its design for even greater distance), unfortunately by Leonardo's time the cannon was coming into play. Apparently Napoleon built one though.
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If you make trebuchet too much more powerful than catapaults, you reduce the incentive to have castles. They become too expensive for the defensive boost they give.
They were an improvement on catapults and could reduce castles and walled cities to rubble faster, but they were only a progression along that line using gravity and leverage over old fashioned torsion. So the damage though significantly more than catapults was not to the degree that cannon soon became. Cannon could reduce 40' thick walls in minutes! It was the cannon and not the trebuchet that ended the days of castles. Besides the idea behind trebuchets had been around since ancient China and imperfect versions were used around 500AD during the European Dark Ages. The problem is that trebuchets put a lot more stress on their frames than catapults so it took a lot longer to engineer them to perfection. One innovation was to add wheels, not so much to transport them (many were built at site) but to allow backward/forward motion of the frame to reduce stress as they were fired.
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How much more power are we talking about here that there is going to be a statistical difference for what its intended to do? Whether torsion powered, counter-weighted, or magically built there isn't going to be much more deviation than a few dice of damage and a bit of range.
Why not just customize based on the size and scale that you want? Each piece of seige artillery was custom built historically anyway, so you might as well do custom stats everytime you want a seige engine.
For game purposes you can do this, but siege engineers custom built to a known working designs. You build a trebuchet ad hoc it'll likely collapse before it finishes its shot. You get a lot more margin of error on a catapult, a lot less can go wrong.
But as I said, I like a little realism, which is the war gamer side of me coming out. I was just pointing out that there was a difference. It's your game. I like trebuchets, they are a fantastic engineering feat. They did crop up in Ed. 1 of D&D but they were never specced.
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Actually they would in effect do considerably more damage than a catapult, their mechanics generate more power, they also get better elevation attacks than catapults and can be used to strike over city walls with devastating effects.
I believe IRL, it took days, if not months to break through a castle walls even with trebuchets and / or catapults.
Hunger was the best weapon. The rest were just here to scare the peasants.
It depended on the walled city/castle and its location. Starving people out was easier and cheaper on the lives of attacking soldiers than making a hole and barging in. Mostly this was done when they hadn't sufficient infantry force available to cut off a stronghold. Normally it took hours to days to smash through walls with catapults and less with trebuchets. Walls kept getting thicker as the newer siege equipment came online. Some crusader castles in the Levant had walls 50' thick built at an angle to lessen the force of the projectile. This was also why never castles developed round rather than square towers.
It was the advent of the cannon that put an end to castle building. They could reduce walls in minutes.
Except that they couldn't and it didn't. Cannon merely changed the nature of castles. Earth-backed ramparts could absorb impact of cannon quite well, and fortresses based off castle technology - bastions, curtain walls, firing ports, earthworks - were built well into the 19th century. Fort Sumter, Vicksburg, Fort Ticonderoga, none of them had the majesty of a medieval castle, but they were the same fort of engineering and were built with cannon in mind. Vicksburg was under constant assault for nearly a year.
Likewise, even in the age of Cromwell - when musketeers and cannon were the mainstay of armies - few castles were taken by storm; most were taken by treachery.
When you get right down to it, the major fortresses of WWI were castles as well. Only with high...
I agree that fortifications are used even today, a lot to do with small arms fire protection and field artillery cover. Most of these fortifications end up being dug underground and reinforced with concrete though. The shooting position is the top storey of such fortifications.
The castles in Cromwellian times were ridiculously reinforced and fired mounted cannon themselves. The one problem with cannon at that point was it took a long time to move them from place to place, so they weren't as effective during the English Civil War as one might be led to believe.
I agree it was economics. Most landowners during Tudor times decided castles were just about indefensible so they couldn't see the point in using them any more as they cost to much to build and the costs were getting higher.
A small percentage of castles were taken by treachery. Most of them had the **** kicked out of them by cannon/catapult/trebuchet fire. Besides castles have been taken by treachery throughout history.
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To answer the OP, I'm pretty sure the game deisgn specifications included a desire to avoid French words.
After more than a decade of watching people misspell "rouge" and mispronounce "coop dee graycee", they didn't dare tempt fate with "trabyooshay".
Really. I always thought it was pronounced "tree bucket" ;) <runs for cover>
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How much more power are we talking about here that there is going to be a statistical difference for what its intended to do? Whether torsion powered, counter-weighted, or magically built there isn't going to be much more deviation than a few dice of damage and a bit of range.
Why not just customize based on the size and scale that you want? Each piece of seige artillery was custom built historically anyway, so you might as well do custom stats everytime you want a seige engine.
For game purposes you can do this, but siege engineers custom built to a known working designs. You build a trebuchet ad hoc it'll likely collapse before it finishes its shot. You get a lot more margin of error on a catapult, a lot less can go wrong.
But as I said, I like a little realism, which is the war gamer side of me coming out. I was just pointing out that there was a difference. It's your game. I like trebuchets, they are a fantastic engineering feat. They did crop up in Ed. 1 of D&D but they were never specced.
I don't mean ad hoc, I mean that they're at best haphazard. Each trebuchet would have different stats from the next.
Perhaps just some general rules of thumb for seige stats would be nice... perhaps in a book on warfare in Golarion (hint to Paizo).
Trebuchets and other catapults largely didn't damage the stone structure of the castle. Oh, they chipped a few fragments off the walls, but they were mainly deployed to smash the wooden hourding that overhung the walls to allow the defenders to destroy the attackers more easily, and also shielded them more effectively from missile fire. They would also smash through roofs and the like, making the defender's lives uncomfortable, and then those stones hit stone they shattered spreading stone shards over a wide area that could be lethal to any soldiers nearby.
Most castle walls that were destroyed before canons came into the equation were destroyed by mining or undermining. 'Mining' was done by attacking the walls directly to cut a deep niche into which firewood and pig's carcasses' were packed and fired. The pig's carcasses' would explode in the confined space (hence the origin of the 'land mine'). Undermining was literally tunnelling under the foundations of the castle, then retreating and setting fire to the pit-props, and preventing these were the real reasons for having moats. Usually, just telling the person you were undermining that you had done this was enough to get them to surrender - King John was known as 'John the Bastard' because he didn't do this, he collapsed the castle, defeated the lord and then left him with the bill to rebuild.
...given the extreme unlikelihood of encountering the double-trebuchet wielding fighter...
Dude! Its a common 40 point buy build, I think Treantmonk has a guide for it. ;)
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Trebuchets and other catapults largely didn't damage the stone structure of the castle. Oh, they chipped a few fragments off the walls, but they were mainly deployed to smash the wooden hourding that overhung the walls to allow the defenders to destroy the attackers more easily, and also shielded them more effectively from missile fire. They would also smash through roofs and the like, making the defender's lives uncomfortable, and then those stones hit stone they shattered spreading stone shards over a wide area that could be lethal to any soldiers nearby.
Most castle walls that were destroyed before canons came into the equation were destroyed by mining or undermining. 'Mining' was done by attacking the walls directly to cut a deep niche into which firewood and pig's carcasses' were packed and fired. The pig's carcasses' would explode in the confined space (hence the origin of the 'land mine'). Undermining was literally tunnelling under the foundations of the castle, then retreating and setting fire to the pit-props, and preventing these were the real reasons for having moats. Usually, just telling the person you were undermining that you had done this was enough to get them to surrender - King John was known as 'John the Bastard' because he didn't do this, he collapsed the castle, defeated the lord and then left him with the bill to rebuild.
Not true, well yes they did smash wooden hoardings, but if you read a little on ballistics and shock damage by being struck by something with high velocity, you may realize that they certainly did smash through walls. Besides some of the projectiles were made of iron as well as stone. The projectiles were transported with the siege engineers.
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I'll tell you what let us know how we should phrase topic discussion titles before we post them - I really didn't mean to offend you...No worries! I wasn't offended at all. Just a little defensive. One can be defensive without being offended, after all. I do it all the time! :-)
I can understand you feeling that since the barbarian profession discussion has degenerated to the point of silliness :(
Its still not as good as the two handed heliopolis build....given the extreme unlikelihood of encountering the double-trebuchet wielding fighter...Dude! Its a common 40 point buy build, I think Treantmonk has a guide for it. ;)
True. You really can't compete with the 1.5x Dam bonus and the 18+ on crits.