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In the real world the English longbowman is not shooting 6 arrows in 6 seconds .Hes lucky to get one off in that time.
The bow is only a super weapon in roleplay games.
Also most works of fiction that have elite archers, if you see a guy who is supposed to be awesome carrying a bow, he might as well be walking around with an assault rifle.
Mmm, com games can be as bad as pen and paper games. I've been furious at the rate of fire and effectiveness of longbowmen in shogun 2. The armour, it rarely works. Sam getting taken down in 1 arrow and a few seconds later, another volley. Arrgh :D
In the real world the English longbowman is not shooting 6 arrows in 6 seconds .Hes lucky to get one off in that time.
The bow is only a super weapon in roleplay games.
in the real world, he only needs to get off that one. It will stop the charging person. A charging person is only superhuman in roleplay games.
only in a roleplaying game could you have the drop on a melee type character with a double barrel shotgun and have him say--I charge because my hps can take both barrels of the shotgun to the face and still leave me alive to beat him up in hand to hand.
welcome to fantasy
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in the real world, he only needs to get off that one. It will stop the charging person. A charging person is only superhuman in roleplay games.In the real world the English longbowman is not shooting 6 arrows in 6 seconds .Hes lucky to get one off in that time.
The bow is only a super weapon in roleplay games.
I think your real world is the fantasy world.
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Erg, in reality too (sorta). 10 arrows/minute (1/round) was the minimum to be accepted as a longbowman in the English army, and 12 arrows/minute was the expected usage. Highly experienced longbowmen, say those level 5 +, were reported to be able to manage over twice the standard rate and shoot 24 arrows in a minute (2+/round, maybe picked up a feat like rapid shot). It is reported that a truly exceptional longbowman once put 3 arrows into the air before the first arrow landed which would be 12 arrows/round. A longbowman shooting 6 arrows in a round is not the run of the mill soldier, he is the greatest archer the land has ever seen, if we could only expect such a rate of fire from a character at least level 16 it would not to be too far from reality.In the real world the English longbowman is not shooting 6 arrows in 6 seconds .Hes lucky to get one off in that time.
The bow is only a super weapon in roleplay games.
That is very believable to me. The super shooting 10 arrows in 6 seconds from composite longbows is not. Also archers shooting melee combatants 10 feet away is not.
The bow was only a super weapon in the real world when used en masse in wartime scenarios.
"Longbows" as realized in Pathfinder are not remotely comparable to "longbows" as employed in the English military.
A real longbow was usually taller than the man shooting it. The bows called "longbows" in the game are treated more like hunting bows. I'd like to see you crawl through a dungeon with a seven foot longbow slung across your back...
There are a number of techniques for shooting a bow that would allow a reasonably well-trained archer to shoot at a rate of one shot per second. The biggest problem with that fire rate is how quickly you run out of ammo.
The bow was only a super weapon in the real world when used en masse in wartime scenarios.
The Mongol Hordes would disagree with you.
Erg, in reality too (sorta). 10 arrows/minute (1/round) was the minimum to be accepted as a longbowman in the English army, and 12 arrows/minute was the expected usage. Highly experienced longbowmen, say those level 5 +, were reported to be able to manage over twice the standard rate and shoot 24 arrows in a minute (2+/round, maybe picked up a feat like rapid shot). It is reported that a truly exceptional longbowman once put 3 arrows into the air before the first arrow landed which would be 12 arrows/round. A longbowman shooting 6 arrows in a round is not the run of the mill soldier, he is the greatest archer the land has ever seen, if we could only expect such a rate of fire from a character at least level 16 it would not to be too far from reality.In the real world the English longbowman is not shooting 6 arrows in 6 seconds .Hes lucky to get one off in that time.
The bow is only a super weapon in roleplay games.
That is very believable to me. The super shooting 10 arrows in 6 seconds from composite longbows is not. Also archers shooting melee combatants 10 feet away is not.
The bow was only a super weapon in the real world when used en masse in wartime scenarios.
well we differ bigkilla--to me what is unbelievable is someone at range faced with a range weapon who can charge through the range weapon fire to melee. Ask the french at agincourt how that worked? ask the world war 1 troopers charging trenches how that works? ask anyone in real life facing down the barrel of a gun how they feel about charging in under fire?
the archers have to have that many shots--or why carry a bow at all in fantasy when unlilke real life (where people dont have ten times as many hps as you do) the threat of an arrow pointed at them makes people not charge.
imagine firing one arrow--doing d8 damage to someone with 32 hps--then they get to you, hit you 2 times, then you spend next round switching weapons and they hit you twice more? why EVER carry a bow?
they let archers fire that many times because it approaches the damage they would to to a real person in real life that is charging them with only one arrow or two. It makes the melee try to use cover when charging rather than just accepting the measly 10 or so points the archer will do til they can just run at five times speed up to him and then next round slaughter him since he is in melee with no melee weapon.
maybe the solution is archers not having so many shots--but they hit touch ac just like gunslingers? or maybe they get a super high crit range--with actual crit results--ie you are charging them and they crit you and cripple your leg to slow you to half speed. or cripple your arm and you drop a weapon. otherwise--the one round you spend shooting at people charging (geting one or two shots for measly damage-compared to the 6 at high level) they just make back the next round while you are switching weapons--making bows uselss.
maybe the solution is archers not having so many shots--but they hit touch ac just like gunslingers? or maybe they get a super high crit range--with actual crit results--ie you are charging them and they crit you and cripple your leg to slow you to half speed. or cripple your arm and you drop a weapon. otherwise--the one round you spend shooting at people charging (geting one or two shots for measly damage-compared to the 6 at high level) they just make back the next round while you are switching weapons--making bows uselss.
There are game systems which use these sorts of mechanics.
Also, in PF there are plenty of ways for archers to avoid the problem you describe. The easiest is probably just fighting from a mount.
yeah I look at it like this. at first level when that archer is firing one shot, he can take down a caster and if lucky take down a d8 type character and put a huge hurt on even a fighter.
but as their hps go up--his damage per arrow does not.
there is no given way yet for him to still threaten a life with one or two very solid hits--so the only way to keep them viable is with multi shots. I would not mind seeing a different system that keeps them viable. It would add flavor besides just a bunch of attacks (same as everyone else gets) just at a distance.
Adamantine--mounts dont work well in PFS. course in PFS you should not worry about that archer being too far away anyhow--probably one move action.
Apparently, we've completely overlooked the increase in speed when you're holding arrows in your hand instead of keeping them in the quiver. (Warning: the computer-generated commentary is really, really annoying. Still, the video is fairly impressive.)
only in a roleplaying game could you have the drop on a melee type character with a double barrel shotgun and have him say--I charge because my hps can take both barrels of the shotgun to the face and still leave me alive to beat him up in hand to hand.
welcome to fantasy
I would call that poorly designed or incomplete combat rules. Yes, I realize this is the way PF works.
Archers deal crazy damage. but their damage isn't as high as the charging hulk with the massive zweihander and pounce. and they definitely don't deal anywhere near as much as the raging pouncing mounted barbarian with the lance in both hands.
Realism, schmealism is my attitude. BUT my two pence is that the increasing number of attacks of higher-level characters in Pathfinder isn't necessarily characters acting faster, but the greater likelihood that they'll land blows. More skillful fighters will be more likely to land blows in the same amount of time, so they have "more attacks."
One could hardly imagine a Level 1 rogue able to swing his rapier only once every six seconds, after all.