Need advice for houserule about longbows

[Laurefindel]

Forever tinkering with rules and whatnots, here's this week's redesign: the longbow.

As far as these rules are concerned, there are only two kinds of bow: short and long. Both allows tension to be adjusted to user's strength to get Str bonus to damage.

- Short bow (simply called "bow") should be quick and unobtrusive, usable from horseback.
- Longbow should be more powerful but cumbersome and unwieldy.

Base damage difference is 1 point in average. I'm not sure if that's "enough".

Range increments have been standardized and simplified for ease of play, so the longbow's superior range isn't going to be a mechanical advantage. I've thought of giving it an "extreme" range, but I'm not sure if this is going to contribute to an adventurer's life as the long range already virtually covers the whole tactical map even on a large-ish table...

Longbow could benefit from increased Str bonus similar to how 2-handed weapons increase one's contribution to damage?

If the longbow becomes far superior, it could become an exotic weapon. This wouldn't be far from an historical perceptive. However, I'm also trying to write the exotic category off my games. I don't want to work at cross-purpose.

Crossbows, hammers and military maces already have an ability called "armour penetration", whereas these grant a circumstantial +2 bonus on attack rolls against armoured opponents (manufactured or natural). Longbow could possess this ability as well? ...or allow arrows with this ability?

Then there's the question of speed and wieldy-ness. I don't have speed factors ( and don't want them) but the short bow could grant a free attack on the first round of battle, or during surprise round? Is the high encumbrance of the longbow enough as a balancing factor?

thoughts, comments, advices?

'findel

[Mosaic]

I've considered giving longbow a minimum range (maybe avoidable with a feat) to keep them out of melee, giving shortbow a niche. Maybe shorted the range on a shortbow?

Also, maybe create a Greatbow as an exotic weapon, better damage die, penetration. The "longbow" RAW is pretty easy to learn, whereas historically, I think a real longbow was a more specialized weapon. (BTW - not looking for a historical debate, so if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.)

[BlueEyedDevil]

Here's a number of things I have considered changing about bow, based on my own mechanical and historical knowledge.
Nothing here is necessarily cohesive with anything else here, idea-wise.

*Longbows cannot be used with any sort of plate armor. This would be historically accurate; the flanges and plates around shoulder and elbow would both prevent proper extension of the arm, and would block the path of the bowstring. Specially designed "Archer's Plate" could be possible.
*Longbows are two-handed weapons: i.e. one applies 1 1/2 times one's strength mod to damage with the weapon. This is accurate to the yew longbows of Britain; the drawing of the bow was a complicated muscular task that involved every bit of strength that both sides of the upper body had to offer.

-On a historical note, very few bows would actually conform to the idea of a "shortbow". Most bows used from horseback were mechanically altered in some way, either by offsetting the center, as with the Japanese daikyuu, or recurving the length, such as with the composite recurves of the various steppes archers. Recurved bows, if flattened, would usually actually be as long as normal longbows.

Consider the four possible draw lengths of a bow: Anywhere from the elbow to the shoulder (these are usually called "snap" bows by my archer and bowyer friends), to the shoulder/breast (often called breastbows), to the corner of the mouth (this is the normal, Olympic draw that most everyone knows), and the full clothyard arrow draw(this is what British war archers would use, drawing to the point where the thumb of the drawing hand is under the ear, (this measurement gets its name from the way of measuring a "yard" of cloth in relation to someone's frame).

Shortbows (i.e. "snap" bows) don't get shot the same way as other bows. By and large, an instinctive "point-don't-aim" method gets used when firing, allowing for much much faster firing.

*Shortbows allow the user to make AOOs, they threaten a range of 10-15'.
This can allowed through feats or some other special training. Maybe a feat tree would allow the "reach" on a shortbow to increase.

*Shortbows, because of their swift firing time, come in a surprising speed and angles, allowing the wielder to make Bluff checks to catch an opponent flat-footed.

*Allow "re-stringing" of a bow for different shooting. Some cultures created bows with alterable pull-lengths for use in different terrain ("Princess Mononoke" shows this at the beginning, where the main hero quickly restrings his bow from one length to another before jumping on horseback). Allow one certain type of bow to be quickly shifted from longbow for ground fighting to a shorter draw for horseback use. Allow another model of bow, the Warbow, that acts as a normal longbow (normal attack rate, etc.) and can be restrung for a deeper, heavier draw, that allows a full-round action draw to shoot full clothyard arrows (which were incredibly heavy, and would have higher damage, knockback/knockdown, power attack, or all of the above).

[Laurefindel]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

@Mosaic

Indeed longbowmen required years of training, a particular built/physique and ease of movement; everything that would translate in a feat in terms of gaming language.

I do not want to create a third type of bow, but I'm not too concerned about preserving RaW. I'm also not too concerned about preserving (or instigating) historical realism, although history still and ever remains a source of inspiration.

Ideally, I want to create two weapons: the bow and a special sub-category of bows called the longbow (basically a light and heavy version). I'm hoping to have them balanced enough to be able to do without the expenditure of a feat.

@B. Eyed D.

Armour restriction is a good idea but I'm afraid it would create a precedent for other weapons to suffer from armours and complicate the game for little gain.

I like the AoO idea however; this represents well the swift firing speed that can make the (short) bow more than an inferior version of the longbow.

[Haladir]

Historically, there's no such thing as a "composite longbow." A composite bow that, when strung, was the size of a longbow would be difficult-to-impossible to string. The advantage of a composite bow was that it had the equivalent pull of a longbow, but was small enough to shoot from horseback. The composite bow was the signature weapon of Eastern steppe peoples, with the Mongols being the primary example. Composite bows never appeared in lands with a lot of rain because water tended to dissolve the glues that held a composite bow together.

My home rules for bows:

There are no "composite longbows" or "composite shortbows" in my game.

There is a separate martial weapon, "composite bow." Its stats are those for a longbow, except that one can fire it from horseback. Cost = 100gp.

Both longbows and composite bows can be made with heavy pulls for high strength characters.

Rogues are proficient with the composite bow.

If a composite bow gets wet (ie used in the rain for more than an hour, or is submerged), it automatically gains the "broken" condition. A magic composite bow gets a Fort save (DC 15) to avoid this.

[Laurefindel]

Haladir wrote:

Historically, there's no such thing as a "composite longbow."

As far as I understand, longbows were self bows only until the low middle ages / early renaissance and made of different layers of wood thereafter. Considering that the game borrows immensely from the renaissance and beyond the middle ages (and takes "fantastic" liberties), it isn't inconceivable that longbows could be made of composite materials.

But as far as the game is concerned, I find the RaW differences between composite and self bows is exaggerated; as any bow should be set to variable draw. Perhaps the "composite" qualitative could allow a Str bonus superior to, lets say, +3, but I'm heading toward doing without the composite qualitative with this redesign for simplicity sake. Instead, I'd rather consider that bows used by armies and adventurers will be adequate to their need, whether they are unusually strong self bows, laminated composite or re-curved.

That leaves just enough room, I think, for a shorter and quicker bow, and a stronger and more powerful one. The rest is a bit superfluous IMO. A very small snap bow might fill a niche comparable to the hand-crossbow which IMO, is a nice fetish but otherwise disappointing item by RaW.

As you mentioned, the use for cavalry is definitely in for the "non-longbow" (whatever I decide to call it; probably just "bow"). The dissolving glue is a nice addition, but I'm not certain if I want to go in that level of details.

'findel

[cranewings]

Laurefindel, how much are you going to try to keep play similar to RAW? I think a small bonus of +2 vs. armor conveys the idea without being too big of a deal. That might be as far as you need to go.

In my games, I have two levels of armor penetration, standard and greater.

Standard AR Penetration allows you to ignore all armor except plate steal at the first range increment. Short bows and small crossbows have this.

Greater AR Penetration allows you to ignore plate steel at the first range increment and all other armor at the second. War Bows, Percussion Cap Pistols, and Heavy Crossbows have this.

In addition, if a shooter takes a full attack action and has not been attacked sense his last turn, he gains an additional +4 to strike.

Defense gives a couple of options. Firing from long range, using even a sling, is enough to deny the extra +4 bonus for taking the aimed shot. Slingers are used against shortbowmen like this for example. Artillery against riflemen for the same reason.

I also doubled the bonus for cover, so having cover grants a +8. Characters with large shields capable of stopping the bullet can gain a total of +8 by "Taking Cover" which allows them to advance while being very protected.

Characters that are "Shaken" lose both the extra +4 for the aimed shot and armor penetration, so being real intimidating while charging on a horse is a big advantage.

Other Rules:

CMB Roll to 5' Step: unless your opponent is covered by an ally (threatened) you have to make a CMB roll to 5' step without suffering an AoO.

[BlueEyedDevil]

Haladir wrote:

Historically, there's no such thing as a "composite longbow." A composite bow that, when strung, was the size of a longbow would be difficult-to-impossible to string. The advantage of a composite bow was that it had the equivalent pull of a longbow, but was small enough to shoot from horseback. The composite bow was the signature weapon of Eastern steppe peoples, with the Mongols being the primary example. Composite bows never appeared in lands with a lot of rain because water tended to dissolve the glues that held a composite bow together.

Uhh, I wasn't saying that the bows were the size of longbows when strung, I was saying their staves, previous to shaping, were the same length as a longbow's.

Moisture has always been bad for bows, irrespective of where they originated of what style they were made in. The Turks and the Mongols as history and the systematic pillaging of Europe and Asia have shown, managed to keep their bows in working order wherever they went. Both made laminated leather cases that the entire strung bow could be placed in to keep the whole thing dry.