D&D 5E Quick weapons, how do they look?

[Lanliss]

Fair enough, I will admit that I have little experience in this area. I was actually thinking in the opposite direction, that it would be plenty easy to pull it back if it was too powerful, and I didn't want it too weak since that might drive the player away from the option entirely in the future.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Fair enough, I will admit that I have little experience in this area. I was actually thinking in the opposite direction, that it would be plenty easy to pull it back if it was too powerful, and I didn't want it too weak since that might drive the player away from the option entirely in the future.

It's a matter of player perception as to whether the later fix is something being given to them, or something being taken away - and that even when taking something away for good reason, it can still leave a person asking "Well, then why'd you give it to me in the first place?" and thus being a negative emotional experience even if they agree with the logical reason for it.

 

[ccs]

His thematic weakness is a general lack of Dexterity. Since he is Ranger he cannot just load on some heavy armor and tank with the best of them, he has to hope he can stay out of the fight enough to actually make use of his bow. As I mentioned before, an AC of 9 will cause definite long term problems.

Well, actually he more or less can. Rangers are perfectly capable of donning 1/2 Plate (AC.15) & picking up a shield (AC.+2).
AC.15 (after adjusting for his poor dex) is a respectable enough AC early on.
I'd imagine that eventually after that AC.9 of his proves more of a handicap that this will occur to him.

 

[ccs]

The most I would do would be to allow his str to modify the damage. Either +str mod to short bow damage OR increase the size of the damage dice. Not both. Not range. And certainly no bonus to hit..... When he does hit though it'll hurt!
Look, he made (intentionally!) a guy whose a bad archer. To challenge himself RP wise. Other than the general increase from prof bonus over time, his chosen flaw should not be negated by simple equipment. If he truly wants to improve he'll have to invest in dex/feats/magic.
Plus there's a lot more potential to a ranger than just "the guy with a bow". I hope he finds it.

 

[Lanliss]

I want to thank you all for your swift and helpful input. If I seemed contentious to some of you, I apologize. I prefer to respond to posts as soon as possible, to keep everything clear and up to date as far as dabates/arguments go, so sorry if it seemed like I was jumping all over all of you.

I will change the bow for him, maybe try all of the various iterations one at a time to see which works out the best balanced against his partner. Only point I have left to make is to [MENTION=6803664]ccs[/MENTION], my world is lower tech, so plate and xbows are not around, so I think the highest he can get is Scalemail? Or is that just as advanced as plate? I don't know, but my point is, there is not too much in the way of "fancy" things just yet. That being said, he wants to do some tinkering with his smithy skills, so I might let him forge some stuff if he rolls high enough on his design stage rolls.

Once again, thanks to all, it has been enlightening.

 

[aco175]

My group has been over this before with strength bows and other things like war arrows to do more damage, or metal tipped staffs to do more damage.

I would like the playing challenge of having a prototype iron bow that did more damage based off of strength.

 

[Horwath]

Here is a better solution;
new fighting style

Thrown weapon style;
double the normal range of a thrown weapon; 20/60 goes to 40/60 and 30/120 goes to 60/120,
increase damage die of thrown weapons while being used as ranged attack by one step; 1d4->1d6,1d6->1d8...etc.
you can draw thrown weapons as free action,

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

But bows in D&D are all about being swift and accurate. Shooting them in the eye and between the ribs. Between the joints of their armor. That kind of thing. So dex increases damage, kind of like a rapier.

Its a common fictional trope that D&D has incorporated. Writers in many forms of media wanted to include a woman in their team of heroes but didn't want to depict her getting beaten up much. So they made her the archer. However they also generally preferred to go with the current conventional standards of beauty rather than a woman with the kind of muscular development required to use an effective warbow. Likewise with elves that are generally depicted as slim and frail.
Many players base characters off ideas sparked from television, films, comics etc. And so the cycle is perpetuated. It works fine for the game.

And of course, add your strength bonus, because in those die ranges, they would be slightly different. This is because with a bow, you can over-draw slightly, and the arrow goes faster and hits harder, BUT every bow normally has a range of pull, like you can't pull a 20 lb bow with 100 lbs, it will snap. Likewise, you can't pull a 50 lb bow with 20 lbs and get enough travel on the arrow for it to really work; the string will almost seem rigid.

There's all sorts of bows, recurve, english long, japanese bows, Sumerian bows, etc. But most fit the basic mechanics I laid out. The Bow listed in the OP might be considered a 17-20 strength bow.

I just flat-out houseruled that bows have finesse basically: you can choose to use either Str or Dex to hit/damage. I assume that when players pick out/buy a normal bow, they will select one suitable for their size/build/strength, and that magical bows will adapt to the correct pull for their user.

That way the history buffs get their burly longbowmen and the fantasy buffs get their graceful elven archers. Everyone wins.

 

[MrHotter]

I'm not a fan of STR bows. Thrown weapons are what STR characters use. Just like how dex based weapon users can not use certain weapons, STR based weapon users have some weapons they are better suited for.

Weapons are balanced by different criteria. It's part of the class balance of the game. If a player wanted to adjust the current weapons chart to add more powerful weapons then you would need to start buffing spellcasting and dex weapons as well. The long bow already has a 'heavy' property, so having ranged weapons based on strength/size is already in the chart. The only adjustment you should make for an iron bow is to use the longbow stats but make it shorter and heavier.

I really don't like having players try to re-engineer weapons in hopes of getting a better weapon than what they can get with the normal equipment tables.

Your best bet is to tell him that he should increase his dex if he wants ranged accuracy. Instead of having an 8 dex and 16 str, he should see about having a 14 str and 14 dex.

If he really wants to stick with a str based ranged character, help him adjust the class instead of giving him free damage/accuracy buffs. Perhaps give him the choice of a 'strong bow' fighting style that lets him use STR for bows. That would mean he would have to decide if not having the archery fighting style is worth his character choice.

I know it can be a pain for a player to feel he needs to split his stats between too many abilities, but the game is build this way for a reason.