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Simple weapons are always going to be mechanically worse than martial weapons. Other than that, not clear, really. Because they're low-tech weapons, I suppose? It's possibly an unusual nod to realism; there's a reason you don't see a lot of people hunting with slings after bows became a thing.
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They're not.
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Low damage die, short range compared to other projectile weapons, a move action to load it so you can't use rapid shot or iteratives without a feat tax - which feat you could spend getting proficiency in a better weapon instead. Is it hard to see?
Edit: or, if you're asking why d&d/successors made them bad, it's because they're a weapon associated more with peasants than heroes in shining armor.
They're simple weapons, they're free and if you are only using it as a secondary weapon for when you run out of spells, none of what avr said matters. Personally I use Light Crossbow, but sling isn't bad.
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Edit: or, if you're asking why d&d/successors made them bad, it's because they're a weapon associated more with peasants than heroes in shining armor.
Actually, the most famous sling user was King David, who slew the giant Goliath with one. A Hero if ever there was one.
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Simple weapons are always going to be mechanically worse than martial weapons. Other than that, not clear, really. Because they're low-tech weapons, I suppose? It's possibly an unusual nod to realism; there's a reason you don't see a lot of people hunting with slings after bows became a thing.
Totally untrue. People still hunt with slings today. They were also used as an effective weapon of war all the way up to the middle ages, and beyond that outside of Europe.
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Remember also that slings allow you to add your STR to damage, making it a good ranged fall-back option for high STR characters.
They aren't great, unless your a halfling with martial weapon proficiency and high strength. Then, you get a sling staff, which is the darn-tootinest weapon this side of the Okay Coral. Like if you were a halfling cavalier, per-say...
Sling staff is actually a trap option. The sling-specific feat/traits do not apply to it, meaning you can never bring the reload time down below a move action. I guess the slightly improved damage might be worthwhile until you get rapid shot?
*edit*
With warslinger you could be picking up rapid shot at level 1 as a halfling, and even without it you're losing your move action for an extra 1.5 points of damage. There's basically no reason to use the sling staff at all.
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They aren't great, unless your a halfling with martial weapon proficiency and high strength. Then, you get a sling staff, which is the darn-tootinest weapon this side of the Okay Coral. Like if you were a halfling cavalier, per-say...Sling staff is actually a trap option. The sling-specific feat/traits do not apply to it, meaning you can never bring the reload time down below a move action. I guess the slightly improved damage might be worthwhile until you get rapid shot?
*edit*
With warslinger you could be picking up rapid shot at level 1 as a halfling, and even without it you're losing your move action for an extra 1.5 points of damage. There's basically no reason to use the sling staff at all.
Yeah, I was mostly joking, it's not THAT great. However, you do apply your strength instead of DEX, which is good for martial characters, such as my cavalier. I think the best part about it, though, is that I always picture it being a big lacrosse stick, with which you huck little lead balls at people on wolf back. When you think of it like that, it's pretty darn hilarious.
If my 6th level ninja acts in the surprise round, he does 1d4 + 6d6 + 14 points of damage with his sling. It's not the tool... it's how you use it.
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Poor action economy. The difficulty/time of loading the other choice for a strength granting missile weapon is more or less handwaived.
Yeah, I was mostly joking, it's not THAT great. However, you do apply your strength instead of DEX, which is good for martial characters, such as my cavalier. I think the best part about it, though, is that I always picture it being a big lacrosse stick, with which you huck little lead balls at people on wolf back. When you think of it like that, it's pretty darn hilarious.They aren't great, unless your a halfling with martial weapon proficiency and high strength. Then, you get a sling staff, which is the darn-tootinest weapon this side of the Okay Coral. Like if you were a halfling cavalier, per-say...Sling staff is actually a trap option. The sling-specific feat/traits do not apply to it, meaning you can never bring the reload time down below a move action. I guess the slightly improved damage might be worthwhile until you get rapid shot?
*edit*
With warslinger you could be picking up rapid shot at level 1 as a halfling, and even without it you're losing your move action for an extra 1.5 points of damage. There's basically no reason to use the sling staff at all.
Sling also applies STR to damage, so the staff has no advantage there.
The idea of a lacrosse stick is amusing though :-).
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Yeah, I was mostly joking, it's not THAT great. However, you do apply your strength instead of DEX, which is good for martial characters, such as my cavalier. I think the best part about it, though, is that I always picture it being a big lacrosse stick, with which you huck little lead balls at people on wolf back. When you think of it like that, it's pretty darn hilarious.They aren't great, unless your a halfling with martial weapon proficiency and high strength. Then, you get a sling staff, which is the darn-tootinest weapon this side of the Okay Coral. Like if you were a halfling cavalier, per-say...Sling staff is actually a trap option. The sling-specific feat/traits do not apply to it, meaning you can never bring the reload time down below a move action. I guess the slightly improved damage might be worthwhile until you get rapid shot?
*edit*
With warslinger you could be picking up rapid shot at level 1 as a halfling, and even without it you're losing your move action for an extra 1.5 points of damage. There's basically no reason to use the sling staff at all.
Sling also applies STR to damage, so the staff has no advantage there.
The idea of a lacrosse stick is amusing though :-).
Oh. i did not know that. Well, I guess it does sort of stink. It's a sling and a club, but it's very expensive, whereas both of those items are normally free...
Oh well, I'm still using mine. Halfling pride!
Low damage die - Irrelevant, most of a character's damage comes from static mods and the sling uses the strength mod making it a solid choice for a character lacking bow proficiency who has a decent strength score.
That's a fairly fine niche though. You need simple weapon proficiency only, a decent strength and dex, and you need to be more use attacking than buffing others. OK, some clerics may fit, but few others will.
short range - A valid complaint but the effective range is long enough to be useful most of the time as most DMs won't let you pepper an enemy with 4 round of longbow fire at max range at least not in my experience ymmv.
It's still enough to often add another -2 or -4 attack compared to a better projectile wespon, if you're in a situation where you have to use a ranged weapon.
Move action reload - Same as a crossbow which has the same proficiency level and costs money on top of that, on top of which this is only an issue if you have multiple attacks and are therefore a ranged attacker primarily or higher than level 6 in which case you should have just got a bow or used spells if you lacked bow proficiency.
The money cost shouldn't be an issue past the earliest parts of first level. The latter part is a restatement of my point.
Simple weapons are always going to be mechanically worse than martial weapons. Other than that, not clear, really. Because they're low-tech weapons, I suppose? It's possibly an unusual nod to realism; there's a reason you don't see a lot of people hunting with slings after bows became a thing.
they stayed in use well into the middle ages, actually.
The problem with slings is that they have the same problem as bows (compared to crossbows and guns)- they require a lot of training. Because getting more than a couple of guys together means there is a risk of someone letting loose at the wrong time and hitting the buy directly behind him in the eye. So it is an even more extreme version of the high skill/low cost balance seen in bows.
Now, obviously, you must be wondering- why were they used, and why did they persist when there were more 'advanced' options? Simply put, the sling uses lead bullets (its primary ammunition when things aren't at 'just grab a rock' level of bad) for the same reasons that gun bullets use lead- the material strikes and deforms in a way that transmits its force extremely well. Thus, it was fairly effective against armored units (particularly since the bullets would be small and hard to see, which means the other side is less likely to use shields or cover in time).
The death of the sling as a weapon of war did not come from the bow, it came from firearms filling the same niche. Once the weapons and tactics had advanced, the sling was displaced.
So, bringing all that back to game terms- slings often survived as niche traditions in certain communities. I see the sling as terrible because pretty much no one really has enough training to use them right... except for halflings (who are pretty much THE 'small communities with humble traditions' race).
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I highly recommend this article (its a link to a PDF) titled, "The Sling: Forgotten Firepower of Antiquity". Its must-reading for anyone interested in the sling; its a fascinating article. Some interesting things: slingers would use different kinds of bullets for their slings, even biconical ones that were better at piercing armor; also, when used in massed formation, cavalry wouldn't cross into the beaten zone of sling bullets. Great stuff for the game, if you want to parlay the article into game mechanics.
A bit of a tangent, admittedly, but how viable is a mounted slinger?
About as viable as a slinger on foot. None of the sling's issues are fixed by being mounted instead of on foot, nor are any of the bow's advantages decreased.
A bit of a tangent, admittedly, but how viable is a mounted slinger?
Well, assuming a halfing (since they are the only ones with an option I know of that lets them reduce the reload time to free, which is needed for iteratives), you might do well enough. Particularly since halflings can have medium mounts, which means they never really have to get off of them.
Overall, it is similar to a regular archery build, minus maybe a magic item or two (bracers of falcon's aspect, for example) and smaller damage dice. But damage dice is not a real issue, since archery often focus more on getting large static modifiers on a ton of hits. And being slightly less powerful than archery (which is regarded as a highly effective style within the system) is nothing to be ashamed of really.
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Because water balloons aren't good weapons.
Unless they're filled with acid... or nitroglycerin. :P
On a more serious note, because the developers of 3rd edition decided to make them bad. The D&D weapon rules are bad at realism, and instead strive for difference via game mechanics/progression. This requires that there are bad options to stand apart from the good ones. They decided for whatever reason (probably it's primitive origins) that sling would be a simple, mid range weapon. Simple weapons by nature have bad damage and other stats, so that was that.
Then again I don't recall sling being good in AD&D either, so the decision to make it bad was probably made long ago.
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If my 6th level ninja acts in the surprise round, he does 1d4 + 6d6 + 14 points of damage with his sling. It's not the tool... it's how you use it.
Usually in the surprise round your ninja would take a move action to load the sling and be done... unless he's a halfling.
Simple weapons are always going to be mechanically worse than martial weapons. Other than that, not clear, really. Because they're low-tech weapons, I suppose? It's possibly an unusual nod to realism; there's a reason you don't see a lot of people hunting with slings after bows became a thing.Totally untrue. People still hunt with slings today. They were also used as an effective weapon of war all the way up to the middle ages, and beyond that outside of Europe.
With actual slings? I know people hunt with slingshots but slings are a completely different weapon.
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My issue with the sling (and the crossbow) is that they are Simple weapons, which is exactly one feat away from the longbow, a Martial weapon.
As such, mechanically, it should take no more than *one feat* to bring them up to longbow standards. They don't need to be *identical,* and, ideally, shouldn't be, but there shouldn't be a 'no-brainer' choice of one being clearly better in every case than the other.
Halflings of Golarion introduces a *three feat chain* that makes a sling about as good as a longbow, a weapon that is only one feat 'better' than the sling, which, IMO, is friggin' ridiculous.
Maybe the sling is so bad so that characters who bought martial thrown weapons such as light hammers and throwing axes might have something to feel good about instead of wishing they'd chosen javelins or just picked up some sticks to use as clubs.
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A sling is the perfect weapon and every character should write it down on their sheet. Every character. It's free, weightless, and can use rocks you find on the ground as ammo. No reason not to write one down and just completely forget about it.
This! My first GM showed me this trick, it's also a great thing for when something is piercing resistant. Sure you can pick up blunt arrows, but if you have higher strength and no magic bow, this would be your ranged weapon.
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Considering how long it takes to reload a crossbow, and what Rapid Reload does, I'm surprised there isn't a way to reduce how long it takes to load a sling.
Considering how long it takes to reload a crossbow, and what Rapid Reload does, I'm surprised there isn't a way to reduce how long it takes to load a sling.
There is, but it's limited to halflings (Warslinger alternate racial trait; replaces Surefooted).
Anyway, slings aren't bad in Pathfinder. They're just niche (i.e., halfling cleric/oracle/warpriest with Warslinger using magic stone can be just about as effective as most archers until Manyshot).
Unless you're walking around with the sling in your hand you need to spend a move action to get the sling out and then another move action to load it. Being able to get out a thrown weapon while moving can also be nice in some situations. Finally, there are ways to use multiple thrown weapons. The Quick Draw feat is probably the most obvious, but you could also just walk around with a throwable weapon in each hand at low levels (even while using a buckler or light shield)
The sling does still have an undeniable range advantage, but my point was actually that the martial thrown weapons seem kind of bad too. At least there's some path no matter how suboptimal to advance your use of thrown weapons at higher levels though. Slings are pretty much a dead end unless you're a halfling or maybe have Mythic Vital Strike.
The lack of Rapid Reload for the sling seems kind of like the game's way of saying, "Slings are for losers." On the other hand, maybe it is a form of mercy so that the sling is an obvious dead end instead of drawing players to waste feats trying to make it as good as a bow.
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Considering how long it takes to reload a crossbow, and what Rapid Reload does, I'm surprised there isn't a way to reduce how long it takes to load a sling.
There is, but it costs 2 feats. Ammo Drop and Juggle Load.
Unless you're a halfling and then it's an alternate trait.