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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 6230509" data-attributes="member: 25619">Umbran, the reason I started the conversation was to get advice on how this should work.  If I had it all figured out beforehand, I wouldn't have asked.I've done a fair amount of reading on this topic in the last few days, and this passage, from an Osprey book about the Battle of Crecy, seems to cover the topic well.  This military historian, at least, agrees with my gut notion that a longbow is good at indirect fire, while a crossbow is not.  At the Battle of Crecy, English longbowmen defeated elite Genoese heavy crossbowmen (and French knights).  Traditionally, a lot of the story has focused on the rainstorm just before the battle.  Supposedly, the longbowmen unstrung their bows to keep the strings dry, whereas with a crossbow, special gear is needed for that, so the Genoese crossbow strings got soaked and were weakened.  But the Osprey historian thinks that's not the whole story:In ordinary circumstances the only advantages that a longbow had over its more sophisticated opponent was the rapidity with which it could be shot, and its ability to rain heavy arrows from high trajectory. In terms of accuracy, range and penetrating power, the advantage should have lain with the Genoese crossbows. When the Genoese did shoot they had to do so uphill with a low sun either in their eyes or slightly to their left. This was a particular disadvantage for men who aimed directly at their targets rather than dropping arrows on them in showers. So yes, crossbows are primarily direct fire weapons, like rifles.  Whereas longbows are often used for indirect arcing trajectories, like mortars.Reading up on Roman ballistae, I discovered they were typically used for direct fire -- shorter range but highly accurate for sniping -- but could also be used for indirect arcing fire -- to hit at longer distances.Umbran is correct about the use of universal joints in ballista, which would allow the switch from direct fire to indirect to be quick and easy. For rules, I’ll went with this: Longbows -- firing from behind a two-story building, at the top of a 50 ft. tower behind it:-- Must guess target square correctly.  If guessed correctly, 50% miss chance (Total Concealment)-- Enemy AC+4 for not being able to see the flight/landing area of their shots.-- Enemy AC+2 for range (120 ft. laterally plus 50 ft. vertically, on a 110 ft. range increment-- Since the enemy are AC14, this works out to AC20 with a 50% miss chance.  With the Warrior 1 Longbowmen having +2 TH, this means they need to roll a natural 18 or higher, plus a 50% miss chance, if they pick the correct square to target.Light Crossbows-- firing from behind a two-story building, at the top of a 50 ft. tower behind it:-- Must guess target square correctly.  If guessed correctly, 50% miss chance (Total Concealment)-- Enemy AC+4 for not being able to see the flight/landing area of their shots.-- Enemy AC+8 for range (120 ft. laterally plus 50 ft. vertically, on a 80 ft. range increment, but I'm halving the range increment to 40 ft. (and rounding down) because the crossbow is being used for indirect fire, which it's not designed for)-- Since the enemy are AC14, this works out to AC26 with a 50% miss chance.  With the Warrior 1 Crossbowmen having +2 TH, the shot is not possible for them.Ballista-- firing from the top of a 50 ft. tower, and people clinging to the backside of a two story building-- Same modifiers as for longbow, except for range increment penalty.  So 50% miss chance, and enemy is AC+4 for not being able to see the flight of/landing area of the shot.One thing I'm not sure on, is whether people at the very base of the two-story building should be immune from ballista fire and unable to hit the tower with arrows.  That makes sense to me, because there has to be a limit to how vertical a shot can climb the first/last part and still get in the right trajectory to get across the gap.</blockquote>

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