Long Range Archery

[woerth]

I was just wondering if there was any special rules in one of the books about Long Range Archery or has anyone come up with rules? I have a player that feels there should be some special rules. Since if you shoot a long distance with the bow, the arrow does stay in the air for a decent amount of time.

 

So if I shoot an arrow at a bad guy that is about 100" away. He can see me shoot see the arrow go up and have time to sprint x amount of inches to the right or left. Basically totally get out of the hex that I would be aiming at. Instead of abort to dodge, can they abort to dive for cover?

 

Thanks,

 

Brian

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

I was just wondering if there was any special rules in one of the books about Long Range Archery or has anyone come up with rules? I have a player that feels there should be some special rules. Since if you shoot a long distance with the bow, the arrow does stay in the air for a decent amount of time.

 

So if I shoot an arrow at a bad guy that is about 100" away. He can see me shoot see the arrow go up and have time to sprint x amount of inches to the right or left. Basically totally get out of the hex that I would be aiming at. Instead of abort to dodge, can they abort to dive for cover?

 

Thanks,

 

Brian

 

You might want to take a look at the ranged martial art packages in The Ultimate Martial Artist.

[woerth]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Just to clarify... PersonMan fires a bow at a mannequin with no movement and a dcv of 3 at a range of 100", SomeGuy fires a bow at someone with a dcv of 3 at a range of 100", but that person can move. Since the arrow takes time to get to the person, can that person move out of the arrow's path?

 

Another example... someone stands in front of a target. The target is dcv 3 and the person is dcv 3. The arrow fires, the person sees it fire. Can the person move out of the way as the arrow travels?

 

Another example... someone is riding a horse at a castle. He sees an archer on the rampart that fires a single arrow. The person reigns in the horse just in case the archer lead the rider perfectly.

 

I hope these examples clarify my question. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Comic]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

As a GM, I'd have to allow the target to dive for cover, despite the mechanic of the bow not being AoE.

 

However... The target would need to make a PER roll to know there was an object the size and speed of an arrow on its way, unless the archer jumped up and down and shouted "Oi! You on the horse! Look here! I'm shooting you!"

 

As a side note, for Western archers, 100" is fairly long range.

 

For Middle Eastern archers, using thumb rings and hornbows, long range starts about five times that. Good luck with that PER roll.

[LordGhee]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

100" = 200m x 5 = 1000m

 

yea right:)

 

Lord Ghee

 

since a bow is a real weapon and it has real disadvantages such as in braveheart when the Scots crawled under their little Shields and use them as a wall to hide under.

 

reining up is a doge

 

We have used bows in our reenactments and have a not fine memory as me and a teammate where pressing an enemy i step to his shield side and he stepped back which allow the arrow fired by my teammate on his sword side to hit me! I stood there looking incredulous (arrow at my feat chest stinging ) and the archer just shrugged.

[Susano]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

As a GM, I'd have to allow the target to dive for cover, despite the mechanic of the bow not being AoE.

 

However... The target would need to make a PER roll to know there was an object the size and speed of an arrow on its way, unless the archer jumped up and down and shouted "Oi! You on the horse! Look here! I'm shooting you!"

 

As a side note, for Western archers, 100" is fairly long range.

 

For Middle Eastern archers, using thumb rings and hornbows, long range starts about five times that. Good luck with that PER roll.

 

Hmmm... I doubt that archers from the Middle East could fire arrows 500" (1,000 meters, which is around 1,100 yards or more). I'm fairly sure that the advantage of the recurve was you could fire it from horseback and that it hit very hard for having a low draw weight. Longbows, such as the Welsh longbow, could launch an arrow 250 yards (or more), but had little penetrating power at such ranges (as does any bow).

 

My suggestion is to use the "Real Weapon" limitation to state that arrows beyond a certain range take "X" seconds to get there, meaning they have a "Delayed Effect" limitation of sorts. Thus, if the target moves or is moved, the arrow will miss, regardless of die roll.

[Outsider]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

In most Fantasy Hero games I'd think the combination of the -10 for range 100" & the target having full DCV (since he's aware that he is being attacked) would suffice to prevent the long range archer from hitting too often. Add a dodge on top of that, and it should -really- prevent it. Unless you're allowing your heroes 5+ levels on their opposition, I suppose.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

As a GM, I'd have to allow the target to dive for cover, despite the mechanic of the bow not being AoE.

 

You can Dive For Cover vs any attack, AoE or not. I believe that was added to the rules in 5E.

 

Hmmm... I doubt that archers from the Middle East could fire arrows 500" (1,000 meters, which is around 1,100 yards or more).

 

Not quite, but close. Using flight arrows mind you, not broadheads.

 

The Turks used flight arrows to set records of about 950 yards. Those record have been surpassed by using modern technology, but that was only done in the last 20 years or so. The current record was set by Don Brown in 1987 using a 132-pound hand-held recurve bow.

 

The distance was 1336 yards, 1 foot, 3 inches. (or about 611 hexes). His record with a long bow was about a third as much...

 

Bare in mind, this is flight archery. He wasn't exactly aiming for anything at the time...

[Comic]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Hmmm... I doubt that archers from the Middle East could fire arrows 500" (1' date='000 meters, which is around 1,100 yards or more).[/quote']

 

A quick search of the web shows that Mongol recurve bows with thumb ring (Mongol draw technique) top out at about 600 yards (550 m, or 275").

 

Saracen archers considerably improved on this range, (doubling it) with bow construction methods that have been lost to history. Ottomen archers could still reach 900 yards in the seventeenth century, but in modern archery the record is somewhere around 850 yards.

 

Just trivia, of course, since a) lost to history, not like there'd be much energy left in an arrow after spending that much time in the air, c) odds of hitting a particular man-sized target at that distance can't be great. Of course, a nick to the neck from a crossbow bolt from almost 200 yards killed one of England's great war kings (Henry, by sepsis), so shots like this can matter.

[Susano]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

I stand corrected.

 

I thought the 1,000 yard arrow flights had only been recently reached in the 20th C by footbows and the like.

 

Hmm... and aren't Yumi (Japanese bows) actually rather short-ranged for all their size?

[L. Marcus]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Yumi aren't laminated, as I understand them. They're just long pieces of bamboo forced into a certain shape.

 

I could, of course, be dead wrong.

 

But the Emperor's bodyguard still has an archery range on the palace grounds . . .

[Susano]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

BTW -- one site I found states a longbow (which had/has a 110-150 lb draw) could penetrate 4" of oak plank at close range (25"?), 1" at 100", and had a maximum range of around 200". Another site mentions arrow flights maxing out at around 360 yards (~180"). Oh, and states the draw weight of the longbows found on the Mary Rose are upto 180 lbs.

[Susano]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Yumi aren't laminated, as I understand them. They're just long pieces of bamboo forced into a certain shape.

 

I could, of course, be dead wrong.

 

Wikipedia says bamboo and wood laminate.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Well, there you go.

[Kestrel]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Between things like OCV levels, Levels to offset range penalties and stuff like that, hitting at greater ranges isn't as unlikely as you'd think. And yes, you could allow someone a dodge or dive for cover IF they could see that they're being attacked.

 

As for less-skilled archers hitting a target; remember that archers loft the darn things by the hundreds and thousands. You could call what they do, something like a cooperative AoE attack.

[Comic]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

The point of massed archery isn't to cause enemy death or injury by arrow fire -- though that's a nice bonus when it happens -- it's to cause enemy formations to break rank.

 

You do your enemy far more harm by disrupting their plan of attack and discipline than by the pinpricks of a little arrow trauma.

 

If the first casualty of battle is the plan, your archers have done their job.

 

Well, the part of the job that isn't the killing of a lot of soldiers.

[Outsider]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Between things like OCV levels, Levels to offset range penalties and stuff like that, hitting at greater ranges isn't as unlikely as you'd think. And yes, you could allow someone a dodge or dive for cover IF they could see that they're being attacked.

 

As for less-skilled archers hitting a target; remember that archers loft the darn things by the hundreds and thousands. You could call what they do, something like a cooperative AoE attack.

 

Like I said, unless you're letting your archers have 5+ levels more than their targets...

 

OCV levels and/or levels to offset range are still levels.

[Rapier]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

One of the problems you will run into is Long-Term-Flight Missiles. Any attack, by the book, will strike within 1 Phase (1 second), regardless of distance. An archer who fires at the exact same tiniest-portion-of-a-second as a gun bunny will strike the target at the exact same

tiniest-portion-of-a-second.

 

It's a rules convention.

 

This is why I've changed to Summon Missile instead of using a xd6 RKA OAF Missile type build.

 

Although that's a cumbersome build. Especially for something like FH. If I had to make a snap decision, in-the-midst. I would say that an arrow will travel 1/4 it's max distance every phase. So if a (2d6k) arrow (30 AP) has a Max Range of 150" (30 AP x 5" / AP) the arrow would travel 33" per Phase. I would require a raw PER check at probably a -3 to calculate a trajectory. The character could then either Dive for Cover of simply move to negate the attack. In a mass battle (picture 150 archers all firing at the same time) I would allow the character to still make the PER check but would add some NASTY penalties. It's a LOT easier to track one arrow than the odd 40 headed towards you.

[Markdoc]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

Bare in mind' date=' this is flight archery. He wasn't exactly aiming for anything at the time...[/quote']

 

Not only that, but a flight arrow is slow and hits with all the punch of a thrown baseball. It's got nothing to do with real war arrows.

 

We know from historical evidence that outside of about 60 metres (30") turkish horsebows were ineffective against chainmail (or even horse's skulls) and that when it came to effective range, they were outranged by 13th century crossbows (so we are not talking arbalests, but the horn and sinew version). This enabled the Lionheart's army to march through Palestine despite being shadowed by large numbers of Turkomans - they couldn't get close enough to really hurt the armoured troops without taking heavy casualties from return fire. Basically, the advantage of the turkish style recurve bow was that it packed a lot of punch into a small package (enabling it to be used on horseback), not that it was more powerful or longer-ranged than larger bows.

 

In reality, effective range for archers didn't change that much once effective bows were developed - it tended to be under 100 metres regardless, with massed groups shooting at ranges up to twice that. As for a bow range of 1000 metres:nonp: - I'll simply point out that engagement range for modern assault rifle-armed troops is generally about 200 metres!

 

Further, as far as well can tell, the French army at Agincourt set up closer to the English lines than that (about 900 metres) - and they were well out of range.

 

cheers, Mark

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Long Range Archery

 

One of the problems you will run into is Long-Term-Flight Missiles. Any attack, by the book, will strike within 1 Phase (1 second), regardless of distance. An archer who fires at the exact same tiniest-portion-of-a-second as a gun bunny will strike the target at the exact same

tiniest-portion-of-a-second.

 

It's a rules convention.

 

This is true, but for me at least falls into the categorey "weaknesses in the system that exist but which have proven so unlikely to ever affect play I no longer worry about them."

 

However, FWIW, a house rule I use might appeal to the OP. I always thought it was dumb to seperate dodge and dive for cover, when both essentially involve the same maneuver - trying to get out of the way. I have simply combined the two into a single maneuver ("dodge"). Basically, with this house rule, a dodge can include a half move, if you make the DEX roll modified by -1 for every hex you move. You get the Dodge bonus regardless, but if you fail the DEX roll you end up prone in your starting hex (which may mean an even worse DCV than you started with, even taking the Dodge bonus into account)

 

You cannot completely avoid an aimed attack (such as a punch) by dodging out of the hex - although as noted you do get the dodge bonus, thus avoiding that ugly exploit.

 

The dodge bonus to DCV doesn't help against area affect attacks, but if you end up behind cover, you get the protection of cover. That will - depending on the type of cover - also potentially give you a bonus to DCV, though since you were exposed for at least part of the phase, it can only ever be partial cover.

 

This way you avoid the "is it an area effect attack? Then I'll dive for cover. If it's an aimed attack, I'll dodge." Now if cover is handy, it makes sense to dodge behind it regardless. And if it isn't, well, it hardly matters, does it?

 

Combined with the range penalties, this would make it easier to dodge long range missile fire

 

cheers, Mark