what about:
Heavy X-Bow = 1.5 x ST mighty bonus
Light X-Bow = 1.0 x ST mighty bonus
Hand X-Bow = 0.5 x ST mighty bonusalso,
all x-bows are +1 to hit (regardless of masterwork? stacks?)
all x-bows get +3 for Deadly Aim increment
That seems like a good way to do it. So far I've just kept the 2hander ruling (1.5[STR]) across all of the crossbows outside of hand. I think hand crossbows are more of a gimmicky thing anyways, for the most part, though (.5)STR seems alright. Most of my players never think about them, though, so it hasn't really come up at my table.
My crossbow ruling is that EVERY crossbow gets a +1 untyped bonus to hit, and so this stacks with masterwork and everything. It's easier to shoot a crossbow than use practically any other ranged weapon, so the +1 is there to reflect this.
As for Deadly Aim, I just use the 2hander rulings for Power Attack (they're the exact same feat, pretty much...) and just change the wording so that Deadly Aim's increase applies only to crossbows. So yes, crossbows do get a +3 increment, just like any 2hander with Power Attack would. So far this has been working out well.
As for whether someone can reload a crossbow with different strength scores, I've just been ruling that if you aren't strong enough to reload it you can't without a windlass. It can be a lot more complicated than that, but my players so far haven't made any kind of fuss. The idea of increasing the time to reload up until "impossible" sounds pretty good though, and I might have to steal that one. Makes the windlass more useful, for sure.
The Longbow wasn't widespread on European battlefields in the 5th or 6th centuries. You're think of the Shortbow.Heh. Leave it to the English to adopt a weapon ten+ centuries after it became widespread on European battlefields and three centuries after archers (both untrained conscripts and elite warrior castes) on the Continent had abandoned it in droves, use it as their primary weapon in one war in which they get crushed in the end, and then spend all future time claiming that it was their weapon and it was the best weapon ever.True, but IIRC that's not because crossbows were as good as bows (they weren't), but because they were drastically easier to learn.
The (English/Welsh style) longbow was pretty much the most devastating ranged weapon up till guns were fairly developed (they overlapped with guns by a couple of centuries). But to be really good with them you had to train from the age of 6 (or something like that). As I understand it, very few people alive today could use a full strength English/Welsh longbow, because just being strong isn't enough -- they used specific muscle groups that were developed in the training. The draw weights of those things were just colossal, much more than any hunting bow nowadays, because they were made to go through armor.
I'm actually not thinking of the shortbow.
But we've been through this dance before as far as aiming for accuracy when discussing history goes, and it's off topic, so I'll spoiler an example citation.
The citation link leads to the book "Die Bewaffnung der Germanen in der jüngeren römischen Kaiserzeit"
(in English, that is, "The Weapons of the Germans in the late Roman Iron Age")
Heh. Leave it to the English to adopt a weapon ten+ centuries after it became widespread on European battlefields and three centuries after archers (both untrained conscripts and elite warrior castes) on the Continent had abandoned it in droves, use it as their primary weapon in one war in which they get crushed in the end, and then spend all future time claiming that it was their weapon and it was the best weapon ever.
I take it you don't know much about the Welsh longbow? The weapon they "abandoned" on the continent was nothing like an "English" Longbow. The system that produced longbowmen was different from anything on the continent as well. The combination of a superior weapon and highly trained archers made it devastating. They used a long bow in the North, it wasn't necessarily a Longbow in the sense your implying.
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I take it you don't know much about the Welsh longbow? The weapon they "abandoned" on the continent was nothing like an "English" Longbow.
Since you're gainsaying the German academic source cited above, I'd love to take a glance at yours now, ideally in spoilers so that our little tangent doesn't ruin the thread for people interested in crossbows.
While you look, here's a couple more that I read.
"There is no fundamental difference between the Nydam bows from the Roman period, the Norman bows on the Bayeux Tapestry, and the longbows of the Hundred Years' War.[26]
[...]
[26]On Nydam bows see J.G.D. Clark, 'Neolithic Bows,' p.87; H.C. Engelhardt, Nydam Mosefund; and Tucker, 'Nydam' p.7.
There is good evidence to show that the longbow was introduced into England from the Scandinavian Countries, the question that remains is when. The best answer is probably sometime during the many Danish invasions before the 1066 landing of William the Conqueror.[79] E.G. Heath, author of The Grey Goose Wing and A history of Target Archery, notes that several well-preserved longbows were recovered from Saxon burial galleys found at Nydam Moor in Denmark in 1863. "These bows have been scientifically dated between 200 and 400 A.D..."[80] Dr. Elizabeth Munksgaard, Assistant Keeper of the Prehistoric Department, verified that the Migration Period, Nydam Find artifacts are in the National Museum of Danmark. There are seven Nydam bows which closely resemble the Flodden, Mary Rose, Hedgeley Moor and Mendlesham artifacts. The Nydam bows are self wooden bows, of 5 feet 7 inches to 6 feet long, 'D'-shaped, and one of the bows has a nock of horn. These bows differ from the Renaissance English weapons in only two ways: they have ornamental carvings and have a binding of thread and pitch.[81]
Bolding mine.
So that's a number of academic sources now that disagree with attributing the "English" longbow's invention to Wales and instead place it within the Germanic tradition of archery with large, powerful yew bows - a tradition that stretches back to the Migration Age as we have already seen.
To my scrutiny (which is admittedly that of a mere layperson to the field of archaeological study of ancient archery) it makes perfect sense. The written English import records from the Hundred Years' War period reveal that native English yew made for poor bows anyway, and the English preferred to get their bowstaves from... Germany. ;)
(And also the Mediterranean, but there seems no reason to expect the place with the crappy native yew would have been the birthplace of serious yew archery).
(Incidental to the English tariff and trade records which are of course the primary source here, during research for the sling thread a while ago I stumbled across a Bavarian complaint to the Holy Roman Emperor asking him to do something about the deforestation of the German yew caused by English demand during the Hundred Years' War. I mention it because I was amused by its charmingly proto-environmentalist sentiment).
Anyway, though, as far as I can tell (I do really miss having access to better libraries), the idea that the English-style longbow was a Welsh invention was an early 20th century hypothesis based on manuscript tradition, that has been challenged by 20th century archaeology showing English-style yew longbows popping up all the heck over Northern Europe from the Migration Age on (and a handful of primitive ones earlier). As far as I can tell, an alternate theory is that the manuscript was misinterpreted/mistranslated, and that the manuscript actually referred to the English being inspired to focus on an already existing longbow archery tradition, likely transmitted via the Saxon migrations or the Vikings, due to experiences fighting against the Welsh.
"Especially we get from Gerald (Gerald de Barri or Giraldus Cambrensis) a valuable picture of the archers of Gwent, with their 'bows made of wild elm, unpolished, rude and uncouth, not only calculated to shoot an arrow to a great distance, but also to inflict very severe wounds in a close fight'."[76]The correct translation of this passage according to Foster and Hoare, The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, should be: "Yet the bows used by these people (the Venta) are not made of horn, ivory, or yew, but of wild elm; unpolished, rude and uncouth, but stout; not calculated to shoot an arrow to a great distance, but to inflict very severe wounds in a close fight."
For what it is worth, I went to Gutenberg for the original text of the book in question to try to fact-check Kaiser here. Here's the fuller passage according to Gutenberg.org's translation:
William de Braose also testifies that one of his
soldiers, in a conflict with the Welsh, was wounded by an arrow,
which passed through his thigh and the armour with which it was
cased on both sides, and, through that part of the saddle which is
called the alva, mortally wounded the horse. Another soldier had
his hip, equally sheathed in armour, penetrated by an arrow quite to
the saddle, and on turning his horse round, received a similar wound
on the opposite hip, which fixed him on both sides of his seat.
What more could be expected from a balista? Yet the bows used by
this people are not made of horn, ivory, or yew, but of wild elm;
unpolished, rude, and uncouth, but stout; not calculated to shoot an
arrow to a great distance, but to inflict very severe wounds in
close fight.
The erroneous form of the quote in Morris can be confirmed via Google Books.
I think something that would boost them to decent status would be to actually make feats that work for the crossbow. The big problem I see with the crossbow is that the way the system is set up, it wants you to full attack whenever possible, meaning crossbows have to spend feats so they can do that, and even when they do, they're not nearly as good as archers. However, if there were more ranged feats that focused on single attacks (especially if they could be used along side Vital Strike) I think the crossbow would be decent, and serve a niche not held by many others.
** spoiler omitted **
I take it you don't know much about the Welsh longbow? The weapon they "abandoned" on the continent was nothing like an "English" Longbow.
...
Nicely researched Coriat. I'll give you your research on the origins of the longbow. They have the right shape and are yew, but pull weights are questionable (as they are on English medieval longbows).
Whatever the mechanical similarities are, and I can see assuming similar pull weights, the merits of the archers using it are debatable. The yeomanry of England produced a large pool of highly trained archers making the weapon more militarily valuable. Skipping Scandinavia and Britain and sitting on the continent you're left with short bows. Abandoning them for the crossbow would make a good deal of sense. Not so for the longbow. Whatever the origins of the bow type I can't see disparaging it's effectiveness or were you just poking the English? :)
Just give the crossbows a strength bonus much like a composite longbow depending on construction. A Heavy crossbow counts as a two-handed weapon for this purpose.
Increase price to that of a composite shortbow / composite longbow respectively. +100 gold per increase in strength bonus for the light crossbow, +150 gold per increase in strength bonus for the heavy crossbow.
They should be martial weapons too.
You can use a crossbow with a lower strength modifier but you need to spend an additional move/standard action reloading per point of difference of your strength modifier. Perhaps the rapid reload feat could cut this in half.
I would limit the damage bonus up to the maximum dice damage of the crossbow and reduce the damage die by one step.
A +2 bonus to hit when you ready an action to shoot.
Masterwork Heavy crossbow (+8), cost 1600 gold, damage 1D8+12 (19-20)
Masterwork Light Crossbow (+6), cost 975 gold, damage 1d6+6 (19-20)
EDIT: you would of course have to review the existing crossbow options out there since you fundamentally change how the weapon works it could lead to some feats and arhetypes among others that are more powerful or weaker than they should be.
Why would a crossbow need to be a martial weapon? You don't need training to use a crossbow, it's effectively a "point-and-shoot" weapon, and that's why they're simple for the most part. Lords would arm their peasants with crossbows for exactly this reason.
Why would a crossbow need to be a martial weapon? You don't need training to use a crossbow, it's effectively a "point-and-shoot" weapon, and that's why they're simple for the most part. Lords would arm their peasants with crossbows for exactly this reason.
guns are point and shoot as well but they are exotic, yes there is more to guns but the lack of proficiency really only gives a -4 to hit. I am only suggesting to make it martial for game balance reasons. Buffing it up as a weapon to rival martial weapons is all well and good but this should be reflected in it's efficiency somehow.
Nicely researched Coriat. I'll give you your research on the origins of the longbow. They have the right shape and are yew, but pull weights are questionable (as they are on English medieval longbows).
Whatever the mechanical similarities are, and I can see assuming similar pull weights, the merits of the archers using it are debatable. The yeomanry of England produced a large pool of highly trained archers making the weapon more militarily valuable. Skipping Scandinavia and Britain and sitting on the continent you're left with short bows. Abandoning them for the crossbow would make a good deal of sense. Not so for the longbow. Whatever the origins of the bow type I can't see disparaging it's effectiveness or were you just poking the English? :)
Heh. Well... I was kind of just poking fun at the English, yeah. But I feel like humor should be grounded in truth.
I have come to think of late that the English longbow may be in the West something like what the katana is for Japan fanboys, as far as an inflated reputation goes. Tactically speaking, the Hundred Years' War showcased some strengths, but there's a good argument to be made that the war also exposed some severe weaknesses in the English reliance on infantry archers, which ended up costing them dearly in the later stages.
So while I think it was a powerful ranged weapon, I also think that it may have been one among many in Western Europe during that era, not standing above them all in splendid isolation in some medieval military reflection of the manner in which the British saw themselves (and, the way in which they saw themselves during the age when the longbow first started to get mythologized, no less).
I also think that if I wanted to make an argument putting the crossbow forth as a potentially stronger overall weapon to the longbow, my instinct would be to look to Eastern Europe. As far as I can tell, the recurve composite horse bow of those regions has long been recognized as the English longbow's superior in a very broad sense, so I feel like the widespread discarding of that weapon, in favor of the crossbow, among Eastern Europe's military elite has something to say about the question.
It's certainly really suggestive (and puzzling) that you see a widespread change from lance/sword+bow cavalry to lance/sword+crossbow cavalry, in regions well known for an ancient, well developed and prestigious tradition of fire-and-shock combined arms in the cavalry.
But I have yet to put in the research to follow up on my gut or resolve my questions in this area, and it's likely to be problematic. English language sources for Eastern Europe in this period, that I can access, are fewer in number and much less comprehensive. So I'm not sure whether the gut feeling would pan out.
I took a quick look through of your characters and found something disturbing. With the sole exception of Thom, you don't seem to have any bards! *le gasp* How can this be so??
I took a quick look through of your characters and found something disturbing. With the sole exception of Thom, you don't seem to have any bards! *le gasp* How can this be so??
Ah-HA!! THIS is where my missing post went! I knew I had posted this somewhere!
For anyone confused by this, it was supposed to be in RavingDork's crazy character thread. Not sure how it ended up here instead. :)