max strength bonus for composite bows

Why cap at all? Bows are not very powerful as it is. In movies, one arrow usually kills his opponent more often than a swing of the sword (which can be blocked).. I am more than happy to allow PCs with +9 strength to buy a mighty (+9) composite bow
 

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Trellian said:
Why cap at all? Bows are not very powerful as it is. In movies, one arrow usually kills his opponent more often than a swing of the sword (which can be blocked).. I am more than happy to allow PCs with +9 strength to buy a mighty (+9) composite bow

I like the PCs to use melee weapons. And meleers have a hard enough time in 3e as it is. In movies the high level PCs are shooting low-levellers (Hawk the Slayer) or the high level villain is using an Arrow of Slaying (Conan the Barbarian). :)
 


Here's the rules from my campaign, also found in Three Arrows for the King available at RPGNow:

Composite bows can be made into mighty variants as per the Core Rules. How 'mighty' a
composite bow can be made depends primarily upon the size of the weapon, as that determines the rigidity and strength of the limbs of the bow. More potent bows also need stronger bowstrings to handle the extra stresses placed upon them.

Fine +0 max
Tiny +1 max
Small +2 max
Medium +4 max
Large +8 max
Huge +14 max
Gargantuan +22 max
Colossal +32 max

The cost of a standard mighty composite bow is increased by 100% for each +1 it has.
For example, a Medium Composite LongBow (composite longbow in the core rules) has a list price of 100 gp, therefore a Mighty (+3) Huge Composite Bow has a list price of 400 gp (100 gp increased by 300%). (A shortbow is treated as a bow of one size category smaller on these tables).

Mightier Bows

Through the use of special materials (more metals, high-tensile alloys, the bones and intestines of magical beasts, etc), bows can be made more powerful than listed above. The mighty rating of a composite bow can be increased by 50% of the listed max (or at least by an additional +1 for bows with a maximum mighty rating of +1 or less). This requires a bow with a base price that is double that of a normal composite bow of that type to account for the expensive materials included in the construction of the weapon. Then the cost of making the bow mighty is calculated from the new base price
of the bow.
 

HellHound said:
The cost of a standard mighty composite bow is increased by 100% for each +1 it has.
For example, a Medium Composite LongBow (composite longbow in the core rules) has a list price of 100 gp, therefore a Mighty (+3) Huge Composite Bow has a list price of 400 gp (100 gp increased by 300%). (A shortbow is treated as a bow of one size category smaller on these tables).
Oh good, lets make shortbows even more of a bad choice than they are now... So a medium creature with a composite long bow could have +6 (+4 for medium, 50% extra for rare materials) and a shortbow could only have +3 (+2 for small, 50% extra). Ewwww.
 

Maybe creature size could be used more as a determining factor in that than, say, the weapon size. The weapon size gives too much disadvantage to smaller weapons, and too much to bigger(assuming you can find a big 'nough thing) Usually a bigger creature will have a bigger weapon anyway, so might as well make it apply for creature size category, rather than weapon size category.
 

IMC, Max Composite Bow Strength Modifier, or MCBSM scales with size modifier with +4 being the base for medium sized. So it goes Medium +4, Small +2, Tiny +1, Dimunitive 0, Fine -1 and Large +8, Huge +12, Gargantuan +16, Colossal +20. I also allow the characters to add the 'mighty' descriptor to their ranged weapons at a +1 modifier. There is no strength bonus limit for thrown weapons, however.
 

Diirk said:
Oh good, lets make shortbows even more of a bad choice than they are now... So a medium creature with a composite long bow could have +6 (+4 for medium, 50% extra for rare materials) and a shortbow could only have +3 (+2 for small, 50% extra). Ewwww.

The goal of the rule is to stick to the old max bonuses from 3.0, instead of the unlimited max of 3.5.

I have no problems with the unlimited bonus, but I know a lot of people who liked the 3.0 rule, and in 3.0 a shortbow had a max bonus of +2, and a longbow +4.
 

Trellian said:
Why cap at all? Bows are not very powerful as it is. In movies, one arrow usually kills his opponent more often than a swing of the sword (which can be blocked).. I am more than happy to allow PCs with +9 strength to buy a mighty (+9) composite bow


I had a cleric/divine champion who had a +7 STR adjusted Holy longbow. So it can depend on the DM as well, who'd given her that bow.
 

the Jester said:
IMC, anything over +4 requires a special material for construction (usually some kind of metal).

Frankly, the fact that a high strength bonus bow requires
1) Such a high craft DC (ie - 15 + 2 x strength rating)
2) So much money (ie - the wages of your average professional for 10 weeks for every point of strength)

Would seem to suggest that this is already taken into account.

In fact, for some particularly strong creatures, I'd say that the DCs and prices are far too high.
 

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