Cost of Arrows?

[CaptainGemini]

Traditionally the english sheaf of arrows was 24. Which makes it, using today's standards, approximately $10 an arrow. That was not for the military market; that was, I believe, the standard rate that the average Englishman in 1518 would have paid for his arrow. Assuming a longbow cost of 75 gp, it also translates into, in RPG terms, 5 gp per arrow, roughly.

I have one question for you... Why are you hung up on the price of a arrow in an age where firearms were taking over the market? In the 1520s, the arquebus was one of the most common military weapons in usage; in 1518, you would have seen an ongoing military switch from longbows and similar weapons to firearms. Add in the fact that by that point armor had switched from trying to protect against arrows to trying to protect against bullets and you start to see arrows really lose their battlefield effectiveness.

The price you're seeing is likely either from inflation due to a ramping down of industry as the military switched to the more advanced weaponry or military surplus being dumped on the market. Even more likely, both.

I am not sure what you are basing your theory that the average hunter paid less for his arrows than the average soldier in England, or that the military arrows would have been more expensively produced. I suspect it was actually the opposite. The hunting arrow needs to kill a deer preferably with a single shot. The military arrows would have been made to be fired in mass volleys. The hunting arrow would therefore, marketwise, want to be the better arrow.

Well, even today one of the hunting skills still taught related to bows and arrows is how to make your own arrows. Just in case you run out. Do you honestly think that hunters of the 1400s and 1500s, many of whom likely were poor by today's standards, would not have also known this skill and made use of it?

The archaeological evidence backs me up on this. Military arrows were more frequently made, but at the same time had few design styles; this is indicative of mass production to set of military standards. Hunting arrows, on the other hand, had numerous design styles and even varied much more in materials used. This is more indicative of cottage industries and personal-use production, given the technology of the era.

A hundred years before 1518, King Henry V was buying arrows by the hundreds of thousands and paying roughly $2+ an arrow, quite a markdown from the $10 an arrow price the average man was paying a hundred years later.

The longbow was also the military superweapon of Henry V's era, and unmatched in its destructive capacity. By 1518, it had mostly fallen by the wayside as the arquebus became more and more dominant on battlefields across Europe.

All that being said, I'm not sure what you are trying to persuade me of. If anything, you are merely agreeing with the premise that RPG arrows purchased by adventurers for the purpose of killing nasty things often wearing armor, are ridiculously cheap by any real world standards.

My point is that you're judging the price of arrows without taking into consideration historical context outside of your limited resource and trying to make an argument that the arrows in DnD are unrealistic in price based on that misreading of history. The result is you have come up with an idea of arrow value that is even more unrealistic than that presented in DnD.

My real question though, going back to the original post, is how would realistically priced arrows affect the game?

Realistically-priced arrows are impossible to include in DnD, as it does not include realistic prices of most of its equipment. And is lacking some technology that was necessary for the development of some of that equipment.

Hi,
Can you clarify this for me?
Does it come from some particular military theory?

I don't get how having a weapon that uses inexpensive ammunition is faulty or why any logistically sound army would want to use the most expensive ammunition they can.

It does come from a military theory. The military theory of "soldier complain when their weapons explode in their faces."

No, I'm not being snarky with that. That's actual spending policy for most militaries.

The problem with low-cost ammunition is that it's usually also low-quality and, thus, low-effectiveness. Either this results in it shattering hopelessly against armor (arrows), or having very poor performance in general in firearms if not increasing chances of the gun to jam or even misfire... or worse. Plus, the military sees need for certain expensive specialized ammunitions that are very expensive that the public will never have a use for; armor-piercing ammunition, for example.

So, in general, for your military you actually do want to splurge a bit on your ammunition because it generally does result in greater battlefield effectiveness.

 

[melichor]

I guess my military experience differs greatly from yours.
The programs that I worked on actually wanted to balance cost and performance.
Most expensive didn't cut it, most effective for the cost did.

I guess the replacement of the M9 will prove this out in real life.

 

[melichor]

Though, in truth, considering that medieval kings often had to borrow heavily to finance their wars, I suspect that they would have been very interested in maximum effectiveness for minimum expenditure.

I think this is a more realistic view, especially in regards to ammunition used before gunpowder became predominant.

 

[CaptainGemini]

I guess my military experience differs greatly from yours.
The programs that I worked on actually wanted to balance cost and performance.
Most expensive didn't cut it, most effective for the cost did.

I guess the replacement of the M9 will prove this out in real life.

I should have been clearer in my previous post. We are in agreement on this. I was so focused on giving Wicht more rope to hang himself with that I forgot clarity when replying to a second person.

When I said "splurge a bit" in my previous post, I wasn't talking about just buying the most expensive, especially in light of the prior discussion about effectiveness. I was talking about spending the money necessary to get that effectiveness.

And the M9 replacement? Good luck on that one. The newer proposals are costly, and Congress is making efforts to nip this entire project in the bud.

 

[Wicht]

I have one question for you... Why are you hung up on the price of a arrow in an age where firearms were taking over the market? In the 1520s, the arquebus was one of the most common military weapons in usage; in 1518, you would have seen an ongoing military switch from longbows and similar weapons to firearms. Add in the fact that by that point armor had switched from trying to protect against arrows to trying to protect against bullets and you start to see arrows really lose their battlefield effectiveness.

The price you're seeing is likely either from inflation due to a ramping down of industry as the military switched to the more advanced weaponry or military surplus being dumped on the market. Even more likely, both.

I chose that date because the math/comparison of a 1 bow to 1 sheaf is easy to do.

If you had read the actual book reference I sourced in the very first post, you would have seen that the cost ratio of bow to arrow was fairly consistent over the years.

But, very well - let's look at 1351 - a year in which we have documented that John Symson of London receives 20s. for ten bows and 34s. 8d. for twelve sheaves of arrows, the red leather arrow cases costing 9d. and the belts 2d. each. Thats 2 shillings a bow and roughly 2.9 shillings for a single sheaf of arrows. In modern currency (using this handy-dandy converter page) that would be £61.5 per bow or $95. And its about £88 per sheaf of arrow, or $135. That gives each single arrow a cost of about $5.50 (The quiver would have cost about $39)

For seven hundred years or so, the cost of a bow and an arrow has remained remarkably stable, and relative to one another we can see that one arrow, in real world prices ranges from between 1/10 and 1/20 the cost of a bow, so that it is very common for a sheaf of arrows to be more than the bow itself.

Well, even today one of the hunting skills still taught related to bows and arrows is how to make your own arrows. Just in case you run out. Do you honestly think that hunters of the 1400s and 1500s, many of whom likely were poor by today's standards, would not have also known this skill and made use of it?

You must associate with a different sort of archer than the ones I know. I don't know any archers or hunters who make their own arrows or possess the skill to do so. Its certainly never been a skill I have taught whenever I have taught young'uns about how to loose arrows at a target.

Can you make an arrow?

If you can't, I suspect that the actual production of a flight-worthy arrow is more complicated than you are imagining it to be. Especially when we are moving past stone/bronze age technology and are looking at the arrow quality such as was common in the middle ages as well as most fantasy role-playing game settings.

My point is that you're judging the price of arrows without taking into consideration historical context outside of your limited resource and trying to make an argument that the arrows in DnD are unrealistic in price based on that misreading of history. The result is you have come up with an idea of arrow value that is even more unrealistic than that presented in DnD.

I have presented documentation for my assertions. If you present counter documentation, I will look at it.

Based on all the evidence I have seen though, real world arrows for several hundred years have been priced at 1/10th to 1/20th the price of a standard bow. We have evidence from actual receipts as to what was paid, and when. We don't have to speculate.

In game, using 3rd/Pathfinder base prices, this would make each arrow cost something like 3-5 gp each. A sheaf of 20 arrows could easily cost 60-100 gp and it wouldn't be unrealistic.

Instead we have arrows priced at 5 cp, or 1/1500th the price of a bow. That's a huge leap in value. But somehow I am supposed to find that more realistic than anything I have asserted? Because why?

Even a 1/100th difference in pricing, so that arrows cost 7.5 sp (15 gp a bundle) each would be more realistic than the 5 cp price.

Don't get me wrong. I fully understand the gamist reasons for the pricing. And I am not actually arguing to change it. But it is a huge difference between reality and what the rules call for, and its very, to me, interesting to note. Especially as I just forked over actual cash to buy actual arrows for actual hunting and I could not help but recall how cheap those same arrows would be in my favorite RPG. I would not mind the real world imitating the fantasy in this regards.

But again, as I said before, I just wonder what effect realistic pricing of arrows would have on the game. Would it change the way archery was perceived. Would characters keep better track of their arrows? Would they weigh the worth of potentially losing the arrow a little greater? It would certainly make flying foes more expensive to beat.

 

[Wicht]

I should have been clearer in my previous post. We are in agreement on this. I was so focused on giving Wicht more rope to hang himself with that I forgot clarity when replying to a second person.

I am not sure how I am supposed to be damaging myself in this conversation, or why you would be interested in such a thing. If you are not interested in a civil discussion, and only want an argument or debate, then I am really not interested.

I would be actually interested in any actual historical documentation you have as to the relative costs of arrows and bows in the middle ages. But if all you have are debate points made up out of your own opinion about how you think things might have been in order to try and make me hang myself on some fact or other, that's rather boorish and I would guess I am done conversing with you at this point.

 

[S'mon]

AIR Classic D&D (Moldvay-Mentzer) has more realistic pricing, at 5gp for a quiver & arrows.
One solution is to increase the price to something plausible, but rule that arrows can normally be reused (which is realistic) and PCs can repair any damaged arrows between battles, so it's a one-off cost. That's what I do.