archery standard vs rifleman standard

[Wiggz]

I was doing a little research on the speculative use of longbows in the era of firearms such as in the Civil War or even during the Napolenonic era and found it fascinating reading. Apparently the only real benefit of using guns over bows is that 1) you could fire them from any position, such as prone and 2) you could use them relatively untrained - even the humblest peasant could point and shoot. Not exactly the subject of heroic fantasy.

At any rate, germaine to some of the discussion I see right now about weapon cords and rapid fire dual-wielding of pistols and gun-juggling and whatnot, I found this interesting.

The 'standard' for the use of musket by a trained soldier was four shots per minute. The standard for a longbow used by a trained soldier was fifteen shots a minute with three in the air at any given time.

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

[Jamie Charlan]

The training required of longbows [and slings for that matter] is extremely ill-portrayed under the d20 system. Reaching *proficiency* just for regular massed-formation volleys required years. You can actually see it in the bones.

So "relatively untrained" was YEARS of difference, as opposed to two weeks of boot camp. By the time you're proficient in the longbow you're a grandmaster with the crossbow or the musket.

Firing from any position is also worth a lot, something not portrayed, again, under this system. Cover is HUGE. Being able to go prone also.

But these advantages aren't used. As long as the longbow deals more damage per hit AND the damage equation is all about how many shots you can get out, there's nothing for the musket or crossbow - not when only the most basic general weapon training will let you snipe with a longbow and apply strength as though you're Herakles

edit: another I forgot: that's a LOT of strain on the muscles, using bows. Very, very tiring if appropriate to your strength.

[Chengar Qordath]

Jamie Charlan wrote:

The training required of longbows [and slings for that matter] is extremely ill-portrayed under the d20 system. Reaching *proficiency* just for regular massed-formation volleys required years. You can actually see it in the bones.

Indeed. The way weapon proficiency in general is handled has a lot of realism issues. Crossbows and a lot of other ranged weapons would have a much more valid niche if getting longbow proficiency required a realistic expenditure of character resources instead of being a freebie for most classes with any combat focus.

There'a also the ammunition issue. Arrows are heavier, bulkier, and take a lot more work to craft than a simple lead musket ball. When your archers fire fifteen arrows a minute they tend to need resupplying just about constantly. IIRC, part of why the longbow died out in England was that between actual battle and the legally required weekly training was one of the things contributing to a major shortage in available timber.

[SeeleyOne]

In regards to tiring, that is very true. Even with my crossbow, which has a stirrup, spending an hour or so shooting at targets can get tiring. As for shooting firearms, I have not noticed any such strain.

The only game system that I can think of that attempts to simulate the difference between learning different weapon types is GURPS. In that system, a gun is an easy skill while a bow is hard. There is also an "average" medium level, where swords is placed at.

If I were to do similar in Pathfinder, I would just add a "feat tax" to learning to use the bow. Given such a feat tax, I might be inclined to have it apply to all bows (so you do not need to declare if it is long or short). I would also declare bows as NOT being a part of "all martial weapons", and maybe just make "All Bows" be roughly equivalent to an Exotic Weapon Proficiency.

But to be honest, I don't care all that much as it does not, in my opinion, add to nor subtract from, the game to keep bows slapped in as they are. However, I could see it being modified for certain settings, as kind of a reverse of what the "Guns in your campaign" do with guns.

[Jamie Charlan]

It certainly has an impact on balance.

[Kimera757]

Wiggz wrote:

I was doing a little research on the speculative use of longbows in the era of firearms such as in the Civil War or even during the Napolenonic era and found it fascinating reading. Apparently the only real benefit of using guns over bows is that 1) you could fire them from any position, such as prone and 2) you could use them relatively untrained - even the humblest peasant could point and shoot. Not exactly the subject of heroic fantasy.

At any rate, germaine to some of the discussion I see right now about weapon cords and rapid fire dual-wielding of pistols and gun-juggling and whatnot, I found this interesting.

The 'standard' for the use of musket by a trained soldier was four shots per minute. The standard for a longbow used by a trained soldier was fifteen shots a minute with three in the air at any given time.

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

While I think the gunslinger is a poorly-balanced class (indeed broken, as it's not following the rules of other classes, plus heavily dependent on disparate equipment), I'm against realistic combat rules.

Guns, especially, cause problems here. There is no way to realistically replicate old guns without creating complicated and unfun rules. (Long reload times aren't fun.) Unfortunately, people tend to know a lot more about (old) guns than bows or swords. People will accept ridiculously unrealistic rules revolving around guns and bows due to this lack of knowledge, and indeed d20 rules around guns and bows are not realistic. They were never intended to be.

The issues with gunslingers and stringed double pistols and repeating rifles and what have you is an issue of clarity, partly caused by having some campaigns with simple guns and some with advanced guns and then pretending they're balanced with each other when that's not remotely possible. (I wouldn't recommend anyone do this for obvious reasons, but if a DM said they didn't like warhammers and were banning them, but similar weapons like bastard swords were perfectly fine, it wouldn't affect game balance all that much. You might find skeletons are slightly harder to fight. But if one DM says they only want simple guns, and the other says they want advanced, and the third is banning stringed guns, you have a really serious game balance issue.)

[Dasrak]

I'd agree with the general sentiment here; I'm not particularly happy with the way guns are presented in Pathfinder. I want to use guns in my next campaign (got a Conquistador-themed scenario in mind) but I can't find any way to reconcile what I want from guns and how the rules portray them.

[Bruunwald]

Was it Gygax himself who said the game was meant to simulate combat and not to replicate it? There are a great many ways in which the game balances fun and variety in simulation at the expense of any real replication at all, and that is well and good.

I've tried myself to adapt rules and even make entire game systems, that were more "realistic." The level of detail required for such an undertaking invariably crushed all fun beneath its weight. It was in no way worth the trouble and the long hours I spent in libraries researching it all (though I appreciate the knowledge I gained).

I'm not saying there aren't people who would find that sort of thing interesting or that you shouldn't pursue it yourself if hyper-realism between, say, bows and guns, is a favorite hobby of yours. But don't expect your average player to stick around and pretend to enjoy the cumbersome rules additions that will come with it.

That's my experience, anyway. Simple may hurt our sense of realism, but it helps the game along.

[Chengar Qordath]

Bruunwald wrote:

Was it Gygax himself who said the game was meant to simulate combat and not to replicate it? There are a great many ways in which the game balances fun and variety in simulation at the expense of any real replication at all, and that is well and good.

I've tried myself to adapt rules and even make entire game systems, that were more "realistic." The level of detail required for such an undertaking invariably crushed all fun beneath its weight. It was in no way worth the trouble and the long hours I spent in libraries researching it all (though I appreciate the knowledge I gained).

I'm not saying there aren't people who would find that sort of thing interesting or that you shouldn't pursue it yourself if hyper-realism between, say, bows and guns, is a favorite hobby of yours. But don't expect your average player to stick around and pretend to enjoy the cumbersome rules additions that will come with it.

That's my experience, anyway. Simple may hurt our sense of realism, but it helps the game along.

Have to agree with this, to a large extent. Where a lot of the problems come in with Pathfinder, in my opinion, is from very inconsistent ideas about how much realism should be applied to different things. Crossbows and guns are expected to abide by realistic limits, while the longbow gets its weaknesses and limitations handwaved away.

The realism issue also highlights the big problem of mundane characters versus magical ones. A lot of people will say, even with multiple feats and class features invested along with a high dexterity, a mundane character shouldn't be able to reload a firearm or crossbow too many times in a single round. However, a magic gun that reloads itself is totally fine.

Personally, I'm all for handwaving away realism in the name of making the game fun. I'm also of the opinion that the game is more fun when more options are viable.

[CWheezy]

Kimera757 wrote:

, as it's not following the rules of other classes,

Am I the only person on this forum that has played a wizard to high level potential, haha?

Wizards clerics druids do whatever they want, the martials are just "I full attack, or I move and attack"

[Dasrak]

Quote:

Crossbows and guns are expected to abide by realistic limits, while the longbow gets its weaknesses and limitations handwaved away.

But the limits don't actually make sense given the real-world firearms that they're modeling.

Why are firearms and their ammunition so expensive? Bows and their ammunition require far more time and specialized labor to produce, and if anything guns and their ammunition should be the less expensive equipment. Why are firearms so difficult to be proficient with? Again, basic proficiency with a musket can be reached with only a day or two of instruction, while bows will take months of training and practice. Why do firearms misfire so readily? They're no more fragile than any other kind of weapon, and only prone to misfires if they're of poor quality or used incorrectly (no different than a bow can snap or a sword can break).

I'm not asking to model the finer details of how to string a bow or fire a gun. It's a game, and the requirements of good gameplay take precedence. I do, however, expect the in-game rules to give a reasonable representation of their real-world counterparts. I don't feel firearms do that very well at all, as many of the mechanical weaknesses they've been assigned in Pathfinder are actually their strengths.

[Bluenose]

Wiggz wrote:

I was doing a little research on the speculative use of longbows in the era of firearms such as in the Civil War or even during the Napoleonic era and found it fascinating reading. Apparently the only real benefit of using guns over bows is that 1) you could fire them from any position, such as prone and 2) you could use them relatively untrained - even the humblest peasant could point and shoot. Not exactly the subject of heroic fantasy.

3) Longbows are tiring to use. Military campaigning is inherently tiring. Military campaigning in poor conditions is even more so. It was reckoned that a three month campaign was the upper limit for what you could manage with a longbowman if you wanted them to still fight effectively, and this assumes that you're not campaigning in bad weather and getting a reasonable amount of supplies to them. Any worse than that would mean you needed to replace most of them for next years campaign.

Now apply that to firearms. A half-starved peasant can fire their musket as accurately and powerfully as one who has a full belly. So you can campaign all year round, in bad weather, in muddy trenches, without wrecking your soldiers. They fight just as effectively outside the medieval "campaigning season" as they do within it. This isn't to say that there aren't consequences, as winter campaigning has a bad effect on armies, but it's the difference between wrecking an army through bad logistics and having an army that can't fight effectively.

Logistics, people. More effective in deciding wars than any amount of "special" weapons.

[Kimera757]

CWheezy wrote:

Kimera757 wrote:

, as it's not following the rules of other classes,

Am I the only person on this forum that has played a wizard to high level potential, haha?

Wizards clerics druids do whatever they want, the martials are just "I full attack, or I move and attack"

Okay, not following the same rules as the other martial classes :)

[Coriat]

Wiggz wrote:

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Talk about guns? I still await the day when the injustices done to the noble sling shall be justly requited.

:p

[Wiggz]

Coriat wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Talk about guns? I still await the day when the injustices done to the noble sling shall be justly requited.

:p

I'm all for looking at the rules (or the relative feats) concerning slings and crossbows - they at least fit the fantasy mileu. If I wanted to play and RPG with guns there are TONS of options out there with much less cumbersome and much better balanced rules... We've banned guns and consequently gunslingers in our campaigns for the combined reasons of the poorly put together class/gun rules and the fact that guns just 'feel wrong' in a fantasy setting.

[Cerberus Seven]

Wiggz wrote:

Coriat wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Talk about guns? I still await the day when the injustices done to the noble sling shall be justly requited.

:p

I'm all for looking at the rules (or the relative feats) concerning slings and crossbows - they at least fit the fantasy mileu. If I wanted to play and RPG with guns there are TONS of options out there with much less cumbersome and much better balanced rules... We've banned guns and consequently gunslingers in our campaigns for the combined reasons of the poorly put together class/gun rules and the fact that guns just 'feel wrong' in a fantasy setting.

Not having read the series, this may be a bit wrong on my part, but aren't Steven King's "Dark Tower" books fantasy, among other things? Pathfinder may have the medieval times Golarion as its example world, but the system can also apply to a place earlier or later in the technological development pipeline.

That said, guns hitting touch AC is rubbish and shouldn't have been done that way. Early firearms are cumbersome enough that I'm fine with their limitations as is. I simply won't run something with advanced firearms after seeing the casual bloodbath a decent BAB class can dish out without breaking a sweat.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

Cerberus Seven wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Coriat wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Talk about guns? I still await the day when the injustices done to the noble sling shall be justly requited.

:p

I'm all for looking at the rules (or the relative feats) concerning slings and crossbows - they at least fit the fantasy mileu. If I wanted to play and RPG with guns there are TONS of options out there with much less cumbersome and much better balanced rules... We've banned guns and consequently gunslingers in our campaigns for the combined reasons of the poorly put together class/gun rules and the fact that guns just 'feel wrong' in a fantasy setting.

Not having read the series, this may be a bit wrong on my part, but aren't Steven King's "Dark Tower" books fantasy, among other things? Pathfinder may have the medieval times Golarion as its example world, but the system can also apply to a place earlier or later in the technological development pipeline.

That said, guns hitting touch AC is rubbish and shouldn't have been done that way. Early firearms are cumbersome enough that I'm fine with their limitations as is. I simply won't run something with advanced firearms after seeing the casual bloodbath a decent BAB class can dish out without breaking a sweat.

I believe that the hero of those books was using a pair of revolvers with metal cartridges. Placing a single metal cartridge in a cylinder as a free action, along the lines of 'Up to six metal cartridges may be placed in a cylinder as a free action' would still be superhuman (I'd say swift action), but is consistent with fantasy gunslingers.

Reloading muzzle loaders as a free action is ridiculous. It takes twelve seconds IRL, based on 5 shots per minute. This should never have been reduced to a free action.

[Wiggz]

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Cerberus Seven wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Coriat wrote:

Wiggz wrote:

Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Talk about guns? I still await the day when the injustices done to the noble sling shall be justly requited.

:p

I'm all for looking at the rules (or the relative feats) concerning slings and crossbows - they at least fit the fantasy mileu. If I wanted to play and RPG with guns there are TONS of options out there with much less cumbersome and much better balanced rules... We've banned guns and consequently gunslingers in our campaigns for the combined reasons of the poorly put together class/gun rules and the fact that guns just 'feel wrong' in a fantasy setting.

Not having read the series, this may be a bit wrong on my part, but aren't Steven King's "Dark Tower" books fantasy, among other things? Pathfinder may have the medieval times Golarion as its example world, but the system can also apply to a place earlier or later in the technological development pipeline.

That said, guns hitting touch AC is rubbish and shouldn't have been done that way. Early firearms are cumbersome enough that I'm fine with their limitations as is. I simply won't run something with advanced firearms after seeing the casual bloodbath a decent BAB class can dish out without breaking a sweat.

I believe that the hero of those books was using a pair of revolvers with metal cartridges. Placing a single metal cartridge in a cylinder as a free action, along the lines of 'Up to six metal cartridges may be placed in a cylinder as a free action' would still be superhuman (I'd say swift action), but is consistent with fantasy gunslingers.

Reloading muzzle loaders as a free action is ridiculous. It takes twelve seconds IRL, based on 5 shots per minute. This should never have been reduced to a free action.

See, I can get behind primative firearms as a compliment to melee weapons... you load a shot, you take it before discarding the weapon and drawing your sword to close into melee, or using it as a melee weapon itself. If anyone has ever seen Last of the Mohicans or The Patriot (as just two of many examples out there), you'll know what I mean. That, or with the weapon used at range as a sniper's weapon would be fine... its trying to replicate automatic fire with feats and class abilities that are ridiculous in my opinion.

I could allow firearms with the rules as listed, if only as an exotic option or an oddity, but the gunslinger class absolutely not.

[Samasboy1]

It seems like you could "reskin" the class to be a Crossbow user. Pistol = Hand crossbow, Musket = Heavy or light crossbow

[LazarX]

Wiggz wrote:

I was doing a little research on the speculative use of longbows in the era of firearms such as in the Civil War or even during the Napolenonic era and found it fascinating reading.

Keep in mind that the guns of the Golarion setting are modeled after weapons that would be considered primitive, dangerous, and extremely hard to use by even Napoleon's standards.

[Kudaku]

I've played around with a crossbow using gunslinger before - I think a crossbow-focused archetype for the gunslinger would be very, very interesting. Maybe something for the new class book?

[Joe Hell]

It's really not worth stressing about realism in d20. Some rules evoke reality, but in no way is the game realistic. Play WHFRP 2nd ed if you want more realism in your gun battles. I'm happy with the sound of the gunslinger class, even if they wouldn't appear in our games.