D&D General D&D weapons vs reality

[AlViking]

A lot of these arguments make a few common mistakes (often both sides of the argument). For example:

Just because powerful bows aimed well could penetrate heavy armor doesn't mean that you could rely on them to consistently do so.

Similarly, just because you could March around in plate impervious to many standard attacks doesn't mean you weren't vulnerable to being ganged up on, slow, and in trouble if you got knocked over.

Nearly always people like to compare best case scenarios of one side to worst of the other, or someone who is very competent or lucky to someone who is not.

It's like when people compare martial styles: They often wind up with a scenario where they show one side (the one that they prefer, or know more about) doing their shtick well, and the other side doing theirs poorly.

The truth is, it often comes down to exceptional people who have had good teachers, are well-equiped, understand what they are doing, make the right decisions at the right moments, and get lucky do very well against those that fail at one or more of the above.

And you can't maintain all of the above for your whole career, either. Age and ego play a factor, too.

I would also note that for the most part D&D combat doesn't resemble armies at war, it models small skirmishes. Most characters are not going to be the target of dozens of arrows flying their way in a volley. Throw in that the quality of armor varied widely from crudely made and was better than padded to the highest quality steel custom made for a wealthy individual along with technological advances that varied from region to region.

But my point from earlier still stands - if that incredibly expensive armor wasn't effective most of the time it wouldn't have been used.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Counterpoint, good armor good block crossbow bolts, longbow arrows, and firearms (of the era). A lot of factors played into it, but quality of the armor and angle of the impact were big ones.

Absolutely. My point is that bows were better at penetration than crossbows. Armor was effective for many reasons, but no armor in history reliably stopped a direct good hit from a contemporary ranged weapon. If they did, armor would have been even more widespread and/or those weapons would have fallen out of use, obviously.

 

[LordBP]

An old NOVA episode covered armor and firearms pretty well. You can find it in certain places.

NOVA | Secrets of the Shining Knight | Season 44 | Episode 13

 

[LordBP]

Absolutely. My point is that bows were better at penetration than crossbows. Armor was effective for many reasons, but no armor in history reliably stopped a direct good hit from a contemporary ranged weapon. If they did, armor would have been even more widespread and/or those weapons would have fallen out of use, obviously.

See the above documentary. They used a period firearm against a period forged breastplate at close range and it didn't penetrate.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Okay. Ever done SCA? More importantly, this isn’t theoretical, people did it. Throughout history. It’s reality.

And yet, archers were effective against armor.

Armor made it harder, not impossible. Not hard enough to make archers lose importance. Bows were extremely effective all the way into the era when they were replaced by firearms, and it wasn’t until after that time that firearms actually surpassed them in efficacy, rather than just in terms of ease of training and mass production. Armor fell out of use when firearms because so quick and relatively easy to make that you could arm your entire army with them, but plate was never perfect protection. It just protected well enough in combination with tactics that it was worth it.

Given that the English fielded Longbowmen at 10 to 1 billman in the Wars of the Roses, I am not say archery was ineffective, especially if one had a lot of them. But is was not rock paper scissors either, where archery made armour redundant, which was the impression I was getting. It may be my mistake. Armour use disappeared with the increasing mobility and effectiveness of cannons.

 

[Cadence]

The part I'm curious about is how the various missile weapons work when one is on the defense - either taking return fire, with a baddy closing in, or with a baddy right there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That depended on the quality of the armor and the bow.

Obviously. That should go without saying. On nearly any topic.

I've seen demos where an arrow from a longbow could penetrate but not by enough to do significant damage. On the the hand, the average soldier was not provided with high quality armor.

Sure, but even with good armor, a hole is a hole. It doesnt have to kill you to be extremely effective at stopping you being a threat.

But I do agree that crossbows were easier to use and firearms even easier.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Given that the English fielded Longbowmen at 10 to 1 billman in the Wars of the Roses, I am not say archery was ineffective, especially if one had a lot of them. But is was not rock paper scissors either, where archery made armour redundant, which was the impression I was getting. It may be my mistake. Armour use disappeared with the increasing mobility and effectiveness of cannons.

I very clearly never suggested any such thing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

See the above documentary. They used a period firearm against a period forged breastplate at close range and it didn't penetrate.

I’ve seen it. I’ve also seen the same (and similar) test produce different results, because metallurgy wasn’t perfect.

And, guns weren’t all that great until well after they became ubiquitous. They didn’t proliferate because they were better than bows, but because you could field a whole army with a musket equipped with a bayonet, and the musket was good enough to be deadly to most targets so the extra time of more difficult weapons wasn’t worth it anymore.

The fact is, archers pierced armor. It literally happened. It isn’t arguable. It isn’t hypothetical. The rest is just quibbling.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just wanna point out that war bows (not just the famous longbow, either) could pierce plate armor. The only reason crossbows even had a strong place in war was that they were much easier to train someone to use. An equivalent bow was pretty much always better in terms of range and impact and speed.

Another reason was resources. High quality bow requires specific wood and you're going to denude your local forests assuming you even have the required wood.

Or you lacked the knowledge and resources steppe nomads had for composite bows.