Range of a Diminutive Shortbow

[codemephit]

The Core Rulebook and the PRD list the range of a Shortbow as 60 ft. One of the encounters in an adventure I am running has a diminutive sized archer (a sprite to be specific).

I find it hard to imagine a diminutive sized shortbow (~6 inches tall) would be able to shoot the same distance as a medium sized shortbow (~36 inches tall). If the force of the bowstring was ignored and we just assumed that both weapons fired with the same strength and intensity, then you must still consider the mass of the projectile. An arrow that is medium size (~18 inches long) will not be hampered by air resistance (and other factors) in the same manner as a diminutive sized arrow (~3 inches long).

Ultimately I would like to figure out how to adjust the range increment on weapons that are smaller or larger than the standard small & medium sizes.

Thanks
-CodeMephit

[Mauril]

Well, as a rules question, there is no adjustment to range increment because the rules list no adjustment for range increment. The only difference is damage dice.

If a small shortbow has the same range increment as a medium shortbow, why should you inject realism onto things outside that range? By this logic, a medium and large bow should have the same range because they are the same size difference relatively as medium and small are. So therefore tiny and small are the same, and large and huge are the same, by the same logic. Et cetera, et cetera.

If you want a houserule, this should be in a difference section.

[Nefreet]

Diminutive ranged weapons have the same increments that tiny/small/medium/large/huge ones do.

And, in case this question evolves out of this thread, the same is true for ranged weapons made of different materials and weights.

[RedDogMT]

There are several factors that determine the effective distance that a bow would have: Draw weight of the bow, draw distance of the bow, arrow weight, air resistance of the string, gravity, and air resistance of the arrow.

Now, I am not a bow guy, but I am a math guy. Out of curiosity, I had looked at this before by looking at a number of archery sites and forums.

There are a number of factors that can determine the effective range of a bow. There is no direct relationship between the 'size' of a bow and arrow and it's effective range. When I finished crunching my numbers, I felt that a educated guess of +/-25% to +/- 35% of the previous size range was reasonable for at lest two size increments on either side of medium. In other words, using 35%...

Huge Longbow: 135% of 135 ft = 182 ft
Large Longbow: 135% of 100 ft = 135 ft
Medium Longbow: 100 ft
Small longbow: 65% of 100 ft = 65 ft
Tiny Longbow: 65% of 65 ft = 42 ft
Diminutive: 65% of 42 ft = 25 ft

I feel that this starts to really fall apart is when you stray too far from medium size. Who wants to remember that a tiny longbow increment is 42 feet anyway? Very small creatures generally have very small strength scores while bigger creatures have larger strength scores and the whole thing begins to feel very wrong. There is also a point where the effectiveness of a large creature's bow would be limited by sight rather than the bow's range.

In the end, I felt that it just was not worth it as an overall game mechanic. The diminished damage die is generally enough of a representation. Instead, what I sometimes do for monsters is wing it using +/-25% as a guide. You see module writers do something like this every so often as well.

And since I am not a bow guy, I could also be waaaaaaaaaaay off. :)

Anyway, there's my $.12.