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<blockquote data-quote="Christian" data-source="post: 77594" data-attributes="member: 381">Dunno about the Parthians, but the general principle is exactly correct. Self bows get their power from the tension of the 'warping' of the bow from it's normal straight position. If you keep it strung, it tends to permanently warp towards the (strung but undrawn) curve. (Wood does that, you know, under pressure ...) This can drastically reduce both power and accuracy. Such bows were thus generally left unstrung-in a game, I would rule that under ordinary conditions, it would take a full-round action to ready a longbow or shortbow for combat.Composite bows get their power from the difference in compressibility between the two materials that make up the bow. This is unaffected by the time the bow spends strung-the materials don't get more compressible from being compressed. So there's no reason to store a composite bow (or a crossbow, which works by the same principle) unstrung.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Christian, post: 77594, member: 381"] Dunno about the Parthians, but the general principle is exactly correct. Self bows get their power from the tension of the 'warping' of the bow from it's normal straight position. If you keep it strung, it tends to [i]permanently[/i] warp towards the (strung but undrawn) curve. (Wood does that, you know, under pressure ...) This can drastically reduce both power and accuracy. Such bows were thus generally left unstrung-in a game, I would rule that under ordinary conditions, it would take a full-round action to ready a longbow or shortbow for combat. Composite bows get their power from the difference in compressibility between the two materials that make up the bow. This is unaffected by the time the bow spends strung-the materials don't get more compressible from being compressed. So there's no reason to store a composite bow (or a crossbow, which works by the same principle) unstrung. [/QUOTE]

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