More damaging bows and crossbows unbalanced?

[starwed]

Increasing the damage of bows in the way proposed is statistically the same as giving them all +1 to damage. Except the heavy crossbow, which gets a whopping 1.5 damage.

I doubt it is overpowered, but I don't particularly think its necessary, either.

 

[Phlebas]

Biggest problem with archery in 3/3,5 is the good 'ole battlemap. its very easy to run up to a group of archers and get into them if they're a max of 120' away whereas the range of the english longbow (for example) is much, much longer..... meaning in reality you'd have taken attacks from dozens of arrows (some of which would be criticals) by the time you got through to them.

admittedly you could just change the scale of the map, or set up encounters with lots of rubble / udergrowth to slow people down, but that involves planning and so i don't normally bother unless its part of the plot.

one interesting fact, when they found 'the mary rose' in the solent (Henry VIII's flagship) they found a lot of quarterstaves in the hold, (or so they thought) - turned out to be english longbows - they were a lot more solid than modern bows and would probably function as melee weapons and be difficult to sunder (but relatively easy to cut the strings to stop archers getting too cocky)

 

[frankthedm]

Well, I just read some articles on the medieval war longbow (the "English Longbow"), and on the crossbow.

Remember, a commoner has a 1d4 HP, a trained warrior 1d8. Assume the English longbow is the the 1d10 greatbow?

One problem is, a lot of 'fatal wounds' in our world took a while to actually kill. We don't heal 1 HP per day from lethal wounds. Nor do we have heroic HP. An arrow to the guts will kill us a few days later after a buttload of pain and agony.

For medium and larger heavy crossbows, I've altered the damage and allow them to ignore some of the target's armor. The larger ones do a lot of damage, because when man meets heavy machine, machine makes man meat. Also a balista hit should be fatal to the average horse or other 3HD creature.

Medium: Ignores 2 points of armor [1 point of natural armor if armor is not worn] 1d8+2 damage

Large: Ignores 4 points of armor [2 points of natural armor if armor is not worn] 2d6+4 damage.

Huge: Ignores 8 points of armor [4 points of naturalarmor if armor is not worn] 3d6+8 damage. This will drop a riding horse in one blow and puncture nonmagical fullplate like tinfoil, as a balista should.

 

[Gort]

I don't think your 'realism' argument is particularly well-placed. Bowfire in D&D has a far higher rate of fire and is far more useful at point-blank ranges than in the real world.

Imagine a medieval battlefield where some infantry charge into a rank of archers, and instead of switching to swords the archers take a step backwards and shoot each infantryman five times. 'Realism'!

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Rather than increasing the damage, how about the critical multiplier? Change it from X2 to X4 and leave the base damage and critical threat range alone. This allows you to simulate the hero hit by several arrows and still able to fight on until the one arrow or bolt through the heart.

Also consider adding the steel crossbow. Historically there were crosswbow with a wooden, composite, and steel staves. The steel crossbows did a lot more damage. The same tech period that produced full plate also produced sophisticated crank mechanisms. There are accounts of nobles using a hand crank on a steel crossbow while mounted! The downside is that they were expensive and the stave was brittle in the wintertime. I would use the same stats for the heavy crossbow except increase the damage die to a d12 and make it masterwork.

 

[Fifth Element]

If you're looking to increase realism with bows in D&D, you're going to have to increase range penalties. According to the PHB, a melee attack does not represent a single swing of a sword, but rather a series of strikes and parries, with the chance of landing one solid blow.

A heavy crossbow, on the other hand, can fire a single shot up to 120 feet away without a range penalty.

All else being equal, the attack rolls on the two above attacks are the same (both based on BAB, plus ability modifier, which we'll assume is equal). A single crossbow shot fired at someone 120 feet away, versus a series of melee attack against someone 5 feet away, and both have the same probability to hit? That's a problem if you're looking for realism.

For more realism, up the damage on your missiles significantly, and up the range penalties as well (including a penalty for the first range increment).

I'm not saying you should do this, for it alters game balance, but you could do it if you wanted more realism.

In the real world, archers are far more deadly when en masse; they can fire volleys into throngs of opponents, without having to aim at a particular target. How easy is it to hit a single humanoid target 120 feet away? Not very bloody easy, I would say.

 

[Umbran]

Well, I just read some articles on the medieval war longbow (the "English Longbow"), and on the crossbow. It appeared that they were extremely deadly...

Deadly... to whom?

Remember - your commoner's got a d4 for hit points, right? And even if you give max HP to start, a 1st level Warrior without a Con bonus can be killed by a single arrow. If these are the folks making up the bulk of an army, a longbow is pretty darned lethal.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Sure bows are deadly; swords and spears are deadly as well.

Bows already have large advantages in the game; well mighty composite bows do and they're all that get used. They don't need to be any better.

Archers can do a full attack every round, as they don't need to close with the enemy.
Rapid shot is much better than the melee equivalent (Two Weapon Fighting).
Archers have range, so don't get attacked as much by melee opponents.

Increasing the damage for a heavy crossbow would be OK, as their slow reload time makes them rather weak, but bows are already really good.

Geoff.

 

[Stalker0]

Archers also have the advantage of coordinated attacks in dnd. If the party goes against a group of archers, and the archers focus on a single member of the party, he will go down pretty quickly. To do the same with melee guys is much harder.

 

[Dei]

I don't think your 'realism' argument is particularly well-placed. Bowfire in D&D has a far higher rate of fire and is far more useful at point-blank ranges than in the real world.

Imagine a medieval battlefield where some infantry charge into a rank of archers, and instead of switching to swords the archers take a step backwards and shoot each infantryman five times. 'Realism'!

Don't be so quick to judge. At long range your average medieval longbowman could have three arrows in the air and the fourth on his string before the first one struck it's target. Infantry charging longbowmen would get shredded in much the way you describe because they did not have a "round" in which to charge into close combat. Instead they would cover a hundred feet while being shot. Assuming they're in chainmail carrying heavy weapons it's going to take them a minimum of 15 seconds to cover that distance, trust me, that stuff slows you down.

An archer is going to be able to let off four, perhaps five arrows in that time all of which will be aimed to within an accuracy of one or two inches. The DnD equivalent is to take the aforementioned five foot step and give him the punishment he should have taken while charging. Admittedly though it took years of hours of practice to achieve this standard which is why I wholeheartedly agree with moving the bow to exotic.