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The catapult Vs wall is highly skewed in favour of the rock-lobber in the game.
Abraham Spalding is right: 1,800 Hit Points is correct for a 10ft thick stone wall (an 'average' curtain wall being about 10ft thick and 40ft high), which at 6 Hit Points average damage over and above the 8 Hardness takes 300 shots to blow through. At one shot every other round (the two full-round reload actions being done simultaneously by the crew) that's 5 shots per minute (a round being 6 seconds), or 60 minutes / 1 hour to blow a hole in the wall once you've targeted it and are 'auto-hitting' the same spot.
That's a mere 'light' catapult.
In reality, castle walls were often nigh-impregnable to such bombardment. The longest castle siege in English history took six months, despite the attackers having trebuchets, and only ended 'cos the defenders ran out of food and disease was rampant. In catapult Vs castle situations there's no real chance of a single shot 'blowing through' the wall... outside of certain blockbuster movie franchises... ;)
In fact, the hardness of stone should probably be increased to around a 25 minimum if we want to come even close to reality... which we don't really for many, many, reasons...
But an hour of bombardment is at least enough time for the PC defenders of a castle to work out a plan to go and silence those pesky siege engines, even if it's a laughably quick time to breach a castle wall in - so the rules do their job... and still leave room for the invisible PC spellcaster attacking the castle to sneak his bottom close enough to the wall to unleash some sort of magical 'nuke' to get through the thing much quicker and therefore feel all important and stuff... which is what all PC's are after anyway, right? ;)
As for ballistas - they are 'sniper' weapons, in the sense that you can target 'Bob' instead of 'the square I hope Bob is still going to be standing in' as you have to with the catapults.
Better to just equip orcs (or ogre seige gunners) with 'normal' oversized heavy crossbows. -2 to hit, 2d8 damage for the orcs with Large heavy crossbows, -2 to hit, 3d8 damage for the ogres with Huge heavy crossbows.
A ballista is a huge heavy crossbow. A large heavy crossbow, unless mounted like a ballista, is actually -6 to hit for a medium sized creature (it's -4 to hit used one-handed at medium size, and the large size bumps the 'minimum effort to use' as well as gives an extra -2, so therefore -4 to use two-handed, and -2 for the size, for a total of -6 to hit). A mounted large heavy crossbow just gets the -2 to hit for being too big for the medium sized orc (the 'effort to use' being negated by being mounted)... A huge heavy crossbow / ballista gets a -4 size penalty for being too large (-6 for a small creature) when mounted - hence the listing in the book.
AND since we can plainly see that manticores have weapon focus(spikes) we can see that it counts as a weapon -- as such it would be stopped by protection from arrow's DR.contra to this point, you can take WF (ray). Rays are spells not weapons ;-)
Edit: If you throw a dwarf at the target, does the DR apply?
(prepares to have a bad guy with DR 5/beard just in case.)
rays are spells that count as weapons for the purposes of weapon focus -- something that is given specific exception in the weapon focus feat.
Spikes are not rays, and are not spells as such could only qualify for weapon focus if they are actually a weapon of some sort.
Otherwise I intend to take weapon focus(trip) and weapon focus(bull rush) as well as weapon focus(grapple) in the near future.
stuffs
Well lets remember we have assumed the weapon is right at its minimum range too.
If we were to place it at a much safer place for the weapon (and crew) it would be about 1,400 feet out.
Assuming a level 5 sargent is firing the weapon with a +5 bonus and +2 from his stat he's still at a -13 to hit with his light catapult if he has line of sight -- if he doesn't he's at -19.
We are also assuming that the two man crew succeeds each round at a DC 10 strength check as well -- if the crew is strength 14 they are going to fail about 35% of the time each.
All of which is really going to hurt the firing of the catapult.
A wall at say... AC 3 being attacked with a -19 penalty is going to be missed almost all the time before forward observers report back... even then it's only a +1 per successive shot and the observers have to report in a timely fashion. Even at -13 he's going to miss 50% of the time.
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Without reading the seige weapon reload rates/rules, it sounds like the big problem is the massively fast reload rate of seige equipment... any catapault should take minutes to reload, nor seconds.
Although all projectile-based ranged attacks are massively sped up in the game (with a few feats you can reload a heavy crossbow as a free action) so it's just following the same game logic... which makes a certain amount of sense, since taking two full rounds to set up and fire each bow shot ('combat' shots from a high-draw longbow being a lot different from 'speed trial' shots with a modern bow), and something like five to ten full rounds to load and fire a crossbow, isn't very cinematic and heroic!.
Well lets remember we have assumed the weapon is right at its minimum range too.
If we were to place it at a much safer place for the weapon (and crew) it would be about 1,400 feet out.
Assuming a level 5 sargent is firing the weapon with a +5 bonus and +2 from his stat he's still at a -13 to hit with his light catapult if he has line of sight -- if he doesn't he's at -19.
But once he's hit the wall once (not even hitting the space he happens to aim at, just somewhere useful on the wall in general) he never has to make another attack roll. Hence I mentioned 'once you've targeted and are auto-hitting'.
We are also assuming that the two man crew succeeds each round at a DC 10 strength check as well -- if the crew is strength 14 they are going to fail about 35% of the time each.
Tell them to take 10. Unless they're insane they're way out of range of return fire anyway...
All of which is really going to hurt the firing of the catapult.
Not really, once it's sighted and they're ready to rock... (please excuse that terrible pun... ;) ).
A wall at say... AC 3 being attacked with a -19 penalty is going to be missed almost all the time before forward observers report back... even then it's only a +1 per successive shot and the observers have to report in a timely fashion. Even at -13 he's going to miss 50% of the time.
Catapults hit spaces, not individual ACs... then they keep hitting them. You can, in theory, make the catapult's job a little harder by saying that the 5ft width of wall behind the original space you targeted requires a new set of targeting rolls... but you're really just delaying the inevitable. A hardness of 8 is pretty much worthless to a castle in the long run... Even adamantine walls with their hardness of 20 crumble eventually in the face of the mighty light catapult! Good job they haven't got a heavy one... or an actual trebuchet...
Actually, you'll get through the wall quicker with a battering ram and some Strength-based PCs... but hopefully those PCs will have Protection from Arrows cast on them as they attempt the assault! (Hah - managed to get in something vaguely thread related!).
Um... no. Hardness is a huge benefit in this case -- it's reducing the damage by over half.
And you can keep firing -- as long as the wind doesn't change direction or speed -- either of those change and you have to reaim again.
A light catapult will never deal any appreciable damage to an adamantine wall. 4d6 maxes at 24 meaning all of 4 points get through at best, against 40 hp per inch and 120 inches per section we are looking at 4,800 hp.
With 360 possible ways to do damage with 4d6 you have 29 of which actually will manage to do at least 1 point of damage to the adamantine structure.
29/360 = 8.056% chance of dealing damage per hit.
meaning you are dealing actual damage 1 time in about 10 shots. Most of that is a single point. So every minute you are dealing 1 point of damage, and every 2 minutes you manage an extra point of damage, every 4 minutes you manage yet another extra point of damage and every 36 minutes you actually manage to do the full 24 points of damage. Meaning in an hour you will do 108 damage to a single section of the adamantine.
If instead of aiming at the wall you aim at a square you actually improve the AC to 5 (for a square) which means getting that initial hit isn't any easier.
Even if we go with taking 10 on the reloading it is still only going to fire (at most) 1 time per round with a two man crew (more likely every round like I suggested with a three man crew).
At which point I would suggest we would be better off considering a section of wall to be a 5x5x5 square since that is what is aimed at.
Such a square would have 900 hp for stone, and "only" 2,400 hp for admanatine.
If instead of aiming at the wall you aim at a square you actually improve the AC to 5 (for a square) which means getting that initial hit isn't any easier.
Abraham,
You keep using 'AC 3' and 'AC 5'. There is no AC involved.
Catapult, Heavy: A heavy catapult is a massive engine capable of throwing rocks or heavy objects with great force. Because the catapult throws its payload in a high arc, it can hit squares out of its line of sight. To fire a heavy catapult, the crew chief makes a special check against DC 15 using only his base attack bonus, Intelligence modifier, range increment penalty, and the appropriate modifiers from the lower section of Table: Siege Engines.
The AC 3 you keep quoting is the AC of the siege engine to be hit by someone on the walls. It's not the ac of the walls.
Even changing the wind only delays the inevitable.
4800hp for adamantine wall, doing damage 8% of the time. Let's assume it takes the full 2 rounds to fire the light catapult. (Time for college Algebra!).
.8X = 4800
X = 4800/0.8
X = 6000 attacks
5 Attacks per minute
6000/5 = 1200 minutes
About 20 hours to blow a hole in an adamantine wall. Not even a full day.
Let's assume the wind shifts every 5 minutes, and they have to spend a minute re-aligning the catapult. That would mean that, per hour, they could only get about 250 attacks on target per hour.
6000/250 = 24 hours. Only adding 4 hours to the time.
Now, put 2 catapults out there (again, light catapults). Both firing at the same spot. 10 to 12 hours to blow a hole in Adamantine.
EDIT : Note, to make it simple, I just used the 8% as doing 1hp per. Actually, that 8% should be doing an average of 2.5hps per, which would cut the time in half again.
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Um... no. Hardness is a huge benefit in this case -- it's reducing the damage by over half.
Um... yes. ;)
All that's doing is delaying the inevitable.
And you can keep firing -- as long as the wind doesn't change direction or speed -- either of those change and you have to reaim again.
Which may slow you down a little.
A light catapult will never deal any appreciable damage to an adamantine wall... Meaning in an hour you will do 108 damage to a single section of the adamantine.
So... 'appreciable damage' then, right? You're not going to be using this thing in a normal 'PC party dungeon-bash' type fight - you're flinging rocks at a stationary target until it falls down. The fact that the light catapult can damage the adamantine wall at all means that it will knock a hole in it, given enough time (and enough rocks lying about to chuck). Not only that, but by your maths (thanks for doing the hard bit! ;) ) it'll actually knock that adamantine wall down a lot faster than an average real-world historical catapult (even the heavy trebuchets) tended to be able to knock down simple stone castle walls.
If instead of aiming at the wall you aim at a square you actually improve the AC to 5 (for a square) which means getting that initial hit isn't any easier.
But a miss isn't a big deal either - the shot just scatters 1d4 squares per range increment. You've a 2 in 8 (25%) chance it scatters left or right... along the wall you're trying to hit anyway, a 3 in 8 chance it goes over the wall and into the castle you're trying to blatter (at which point you switch to lobbing in bundles of alchemist's fire, diseased cows, or even heroic adventurers with Feather Fall cast on them...), and only a 3 in 8 chance it falls short. Not bad odds...
Even if we go with taking 10 on the reloading it is still only going to fire (at most) 1 time per round with a two man crew (more likely every round like I suggested with a three man crew).
I suggested once every other round too... It's nice we can agree! ;)
At which point I would suggest we would be better off considering a section of wall to be a 5x5x5 square since that is what is aimed at.
Such a square would have 900 hp for stone, and "only" 2,400 hp for admanatine.
Not really - 'materials' have Hit Points based on thickness - a 10ft thick stone... anything... has 1,800 Hit Points at that point. If you pound a hole with a catapult, it's a 5ft hole, 'cos that's what you're hitting.
I would hardly call that college algebra mdt -- maybe middle school anymore -- and that's for the slow classes, but hey it's all good.
Anyway about it we have come to a different conclusion that I had originally thought -- that catapults do fine damage against their intended target.
HOWEVER we are still looking at a -19 or -13 against a DC 15 check -- even then it's going to take a while before you get the initial hit, and with wind adjustments it's not going to be fast going.
And even then it's 20 hours for a 5 foot hole -- not enough to actually get people through 10 feet x 10 feet x 15 feet of wall.
Besides at this point I feel that should be enough time for the defenders to be doing their stuff too.
And I still maintain we could get through it faster with the same three people in different ways (stone more than adamantine).
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What about Enemy Hammer? You make an attack roll? Is the Ogre mercenary a weapon against the evil wizard? Does the fact it's being slammed by TK allow it to bypass magic DR?
I would hardly call that college algebra mdt -- maybe middle school anymore -- and that's for the slow classes, but hey it's all good.
Anyway about it we have come to a different conclusion that I had originally thought -- that catapults do fine damage against their intended target.
HOWEVER we are still looking at a -19 or -13 against a DC 15 check -- even then it's going to take a while before you get the initial hit, and with wind adjustments it's not going to be fast going.
And even then it's 20 hours for a 5 foot hole -- not enough to actually get people through 10 feet x 10 feet x 15 feet of wall.
Besides at this point I feel that should be enough time for the defenders to be doing their stuff too.
And I still maintain we could get through it faster with the same three people in different ways (stone more than adamantine).
I'd say we're mostly agreed it's way too good. :) Remember, that 20 hours was assuming 1hp per shot on target. If we use the average damage of 2.5, it's about 9.5 hours. And 4.25 if you use two light catapults, or 2 hours if you use 4 light catapults. Considering teh cost of Adamantine, it would be cost effective to build 30 catapults and hire 90 guys to blow the wall apart in minutes. :)
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What about Enemy Hammer? You make an attack roll? Is the Ogre mercenary a weapon against the evil wizard? Does the fact it's being slammed by TK allow it to bypass magic DR?
I would say that the creature you are chucking counts as a weapon for DR. After all, you are beating on the person with the creature, not something like a force effect, etc..
You know, I have a new favorite fun spell now.
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And I still maintain we could get through it faster with the same three people in different ways (stone more than adamantine).
Well 10 level 1 Commoners with a +1 Strength bonus each, using a battering ram, do 3d6+10 damage per round (for an average 21.5 damage per round if my infants school maths is right... ;) ).
Commoner-powered battering ram Vs stone =
13.5 damage per round =
135 average damage per minute =
Battering through a 10ft thick stone wall in 13 minutes and 20 seconds, on average.
Commoner-powered battering ram Vs adamantine =
1.5 damage per round =
15 damage per minute =
Battering through a 10ft thick adamantine wall in 320 minutes (5 hours and 20 minutes)... although you may want to give them a few breaks, and the occassional cup of tea, just to keep morale up... ;)
All this talk makes me think of playing a Transmuter who carts around masterwork siege weapons with the help of Shrink Item. :)
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All this talk makes me think of playing a Transmuter who carts around a +5 ballista with the help of Shrink Item. :)
Cast Enlarge Person and he can even fire that puppy from the hip, at a -6 penalty to hit...
Of course there were actual repeating ballistas in ancient times as well... just saying... :)
All this talk makes me think of playing a Transmuter who carts around a +5 ballista with the help of Shrink Item. :)Cast Enlarge Person and he can even fire that puppy from the hip, at a -6 penalty to hit...
Of course there were actual repeating ballistas in ancient times as well... just saying... :)
I just found out that you can't Shrink magical item. :(
Protection from Arrow is a spell that will be only useful for the PCs, when they are fighting tons of mooks with non-magical ranged weapons. For the NPCs, this spell becomes 100% useless as soon as the party's archer find is first magic bow.
Yep this spell got hit by the nerf bat so bad that it was nearly nerfed out of existance. By the time a caster actually gains access it is already situational at best.
Allowing it to function vs siege weapons is a possibility, but generally I dont like the flavor of that. I think a much more useful version of this spell would be to allow it to function similar to protection from energy where you are protected for specific amount of damage.
That said it can be a great way to avoid non-magical ranged traps which are still quite common into mid-level dungeon delves, and it does completly shut down manticore attacks and giant boulders for the most part should probably be effected as well.
That brings up a question - Could a giant cleric cast magic stone upon his boulders before going Randy Johnston on the party?
Its rather simple really. Its DR 10/Magic against ranged attacks, so look at the ranged attack, if its magic it ignores the DR.
Actually, I think you are being a little too generous. The spell mentions "ranged weapons" several times. While a spear or dagger has a range increment listed, it is NOT a "ranged weapon" according to the chart.
Note about my comment about this spell shutting down some encounters:
Any encounter that is against creatures that specialize is ranged combat (using weapons or natural weapons) is going to be turned into a cake walk if you hit everyone in the party with a wand of Protection from arrows an hour before the encounter. Yes, there are many ways to mess up ranged attacks, but few that are this efficient. Goblins, drow, rangers, manticores, etc. are all going to be vastly less threatening. Not a big deal really, but I don't like the idea of a party using this spell all the time, and attempting to face everything at 100ft.
Fergie you are incorrect -- if thrown a dagger or spear are ranged weapons. It states as much in the actual text -- which is much better than the chart.
As to the "cakewalk" well:
1. that's not always a bad thing -- and so your players are prepared... this is a bad thing? Use melee attacks or spells then... not really that hard honestly.
2. So it's DR 10/magic -- first 10 points isn't a huge deal, and all you need is a magic weapon. Those goblins/drow/rangers/whatever only need a +1 and they completely ignore this spell.
3. If your party is smart enough to not want to close with a target -- good for them. The drow can drop darkness and not be hit as easily, the manticores can fly up and attack too, and goblins... I mean really come on GOBLINS?
4. Alchemical weapons are unaffected by this spell for the most part.
5. It provides -- limited protection -- 10 points per level up to a maximum of 100 points. Now that might be a bit harder to take out at caster level 10, but by then those attacks are (again) probably magical. If it's a wand it's likely to drop on after the first three hits.
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Its rather simple really. Its DR 10/Magic against ranged attacks, so look at the ranged attack, if its magic it ignores the DR.
Actually, I think you are being a little too generous. The spell mentions "ranged weapons" several times. While a spear or dagger has a range increment listed, it is NOT a "ranged weapon" according to the chart.
Note about my comment about this spell shutting down some encounters:
Any encounter that is against creatures that specialize is ranged combat (using weapons or natural weapons) is going to be turned into a cake walk if you hit everyone in the party with a wand of Protection from arrows an hour before the encounter. Yes, there are many ways to mess up ranged attacks, but few that are this efficient. Goblins, drow, rangers, manticores, etc. are all going to be vastly less threatening. Not a big deal really, but I don't like the idea of a party using this spell all the time, and attempting to face everything at 100ft.
Its rather simple really. Its DR 10/Magic against ranged attacks, so look at the ranged attack, if its magic it ignores the DR.
Actually, I think you are being a little too generous. The spell mentions "ranged weapons" several times. While a spear or dagger has a range increment listed, it is NOT a "ranged weapon" according to the chart.
Note about my comment about this spell shutting down some encounters:
Any encounter that is against creatures that specialize is ranged combat (using weapons or natural weapons) is going to be turned into a cake walk if you hit everyone in the party with a wand of Protection from arrows an hour before the encounter. Yes, there are many ways to mess up ranged attacks, but few that are this efficient. Goblins, drow, rangers, manticores, etc. are all going to be vastly less threatening. Not a big deal really, but I don't like the idea of a party using this spell all the time, and attempting to face everything at 100ft.
+1. Also, magic ammunitions, unlike magical ranged weapons, can easily be afforded by NPCs.
Fergie you are incorrect -- if thrown a dagger or spear are ranged weapons. It states as much in the actual text -- which is much better than the chart.
As to the "cakewalk" well:
1. that's not always a bad thing -- and so your players are prepared... this is a bad thing? Use melee attacks or spells then... not really that hard honestly.
Agreed. I don't think it would be much of a problem, but I can see a small window for exploitation. I view closing that window more as the GM's job then the rulebooks however.
Could you point me to that part of the rules? (Not doubting you, but I didn't find it last time I checked.)
Fergie you are incorrect -- if thrown a dagger or spear are ranged weapons. It states as much in the actual text -- which is much better than the chart.
As to the "cakewalk" well:
1. that's not always a bad thing -- and so your players are prepared... this is a bad thing? Use melee attacks or spells then... not really that hard honestly.
Agreed. I don't think it would be much of a problem, but I can see a small window for exploitation. I view closing that window more as the GM's job then the rulebooks however.
Could you point me to that part of the rules? (Not doubting you, but I didn't find it last time I checked.)
Glad to: It's buried of course in the weapons section a bit in the combat section -- here is the pertient part:
These categories pertain to what training is needed to become proficient in a weapon's use (simple, martial, or exotic), the weapon's usefulness either in close combat (melee) or at a distance (ranged, which includes both thrown and projectile weapons), its relative encumbrance (light, one-handed, or two-handed), and its size (Small, Medium, or Large).
So any weapon that is thrown is a ranged weapon as is supported in the following from the combat section:
With a ranged weapon, you can shoot or throw at any target that is within the weapon's maximum range and in line of sight. The maximum range for a thrown weapon is five range increments. For projectile weapons, it is 10 range increments. Some ranged weapons have shorter maximum ranges, as specified in their descriptions.
Hope it helps.
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I would suggest that the game has not sped up all projectile based ranged attacks, but all attacks made by the larger-than-life PCs and creatures in the world, both melee and projectile. There is a difference, however, in a bow firing off 6 shots in 6 seconds, or even a crossbow doing so (as silly as that even is), and a catapult firing as often as it does currently.
Let's see...
Welsh / English longbowman, in battle conditions, is thought to have fired at a rate of 5 to 6 shots per minute.
Crossbowman is thought to have fired at a rate of 1 or 2 shots per minute.
Level 1 archer, using Rapid Shot, fires at a rate of 20 shots per minute.
Level 1 crossbowman fires, using Rapid Reload, at a rate of 10 shots per minute.
Level 20 full BAB character, using Rapid Shot fires at a rate of 50 shots per minute (longbow or crossbow, with the right Feats... and without any magic or multiple arrows from the one shot cheese...).
So... we're looking at somewhere between 3 1/3 times and 50 times the 'historic' rate for the standard projectile weapons...
A light catapult, in the game, fires no faster than 5 shots per minute. With the same 'adjustments' for 'game speed' that means a 'real world basis' of 1 1/2 shots per minute, to 1 shot every 10 minutes... Just how long do you imagine it takes to load and fire a light catapult?
As for melee attacks... Even the game's greatest monk Flurrying his little heart out comes no-where near an 'Ip Man' level of striking speed... Looked at that way, melee attacks are slowed, a lot, in the game, not sped up. Luckily melee attacks are abstracted in the game - one 'attack' does not necessarily mean one 'swing'. Ranged attacks, which use ammunition / limited resources, can't be abstracted in the same way so, all in all, it sort of evens out over the various weapons in a way which makes them all usable in the game context.
But that's all completely off-topic for the thread... sorry! :)