The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Keenath]

Genovese crossbowman wore breastplates which was about as much armour as anyone wore at the time.

Crossbow is a totally different thing from what we're talking about. A crossbow doesn't require the arm and chest flexibility that a true bow does, and thus is not inhibited by armor.* It's not archery -- it's a gun.

Samurai were fearsome archers, and wore heavy armour.

I can't absolutely swear to this, but my understanding is "...but not at the same time." Yabusame, however distantly related to actual samurai horse-archery, is performed while wearing a single arm-covering pad, and against targets meant to simulate a fully armored samurai (whose weak point was the face, between helmet and gorget).

So far as I know, no kyudo today is performed in even simulated armor, and I don't think I've ever seen a period painting of a fully equipped samurai doing so. I think there are some of the terracotta warriors in China who are weilding bows, but they're all wearing a sort of jacket of small plates that resembles what we would probably call scale armor.

Most archers wore armour as heavy as was practical. What sometimes made heavy armour impractical were either a need for mobility as with the Parthians, poverty as with all yeoman archers, or climate.

Well, or the fact that not being able to fully bend your arm is kind of going to be a problem when you try to shoot a bow!

Of course they wore all the armor that was practical -- what I'm arguing is that full plate just isn't very practical for an archer, which we can see by the fact that people didn't do it.

* Of course, in real life the advent of crossbows pretty much eliminated the true bow from the battlefield; in D&D we have elements of many different real time periods squished together into a single game. Still, crossbows won out not becuase of armor, but because J. Random Farmer could learn to use a crossbow proficiently inside of a week, while a longbow took years of constant practice to reach the same level.

 

[Storm Raven]

But that aside, the problem with your argument is that real life archers don't wear heavy armor. Like ever. Normally bowmen would be wearing something like scale or chain, if that. So, where's this archetype of a heavily armored archer? Who's the example? What novel did you see that guy in -- even a D&D novel? What movie features Robin Hood and William Tell walking around in shining plate?

Not 'real life" (but when does that truly count in D&D discussions), but the Gondorian archers in the LotR movies wore heavy armor. The only Gondorian soldiers that didn't wear heavy armor were Faramir's guys, and they weren't the only archers in the army. Of course, it is Hollywood armor - which apparently doesn't protect its wearer against being punched or bitten, but even so.

Archers in full plate also show up in a couple other places - I think there are a few in Excalibur, and a couple other movies (for example, Prince Valiant, if I remember correctly). I have a couple model soldiers from when I was a kid of knights, in full plate armor, using bows.

 

[Voadam]

Of course, being at range makes AC a lot less important than for a melee fighter...

But not unimportant. And no significant drawback for wearing heavy armor.

Nnnno, it's still +1 worse, because if you have 26 dex, you can still only apply +6 of it to your AC due to the max dex ceiling that you hit back at Dex 22. You'd need padded armor to do that.

Full plate is +1 better than any of the other armors except Padded, which requires a ridiculously high dex. That is to say, if you have the armor's maximum dex bonus, you always have +8 armor bonus, except Full Plate, which is +9.

If you ignore full plate (and a single +1 is rarely worth it in 3e), there's no reason to wear heavy armor when you have Dex 16; a breastplate gives you as good an AC as anything else.

Oops! I was mistakenly thinking leather had no max dex cap. You are right, there is always an AC incentive for archers to wear full plate in 3e unless they have a 26 dex.

But that aside, the problem with your argument is that real life archers don't wear heavy armor. Like ever. Normally bowmen would be wearing something like scale or chain, if that. So, where's this archetype of a heavily armored archer? Who's the example? What novel did you see that guy in -- even a D&D novel? What movie features Robin Hood and William Tell walking around in shining plate?

My statement was that heavily armored archers have been common throughout D&D for the AC benefits.

Arguing that this is not historically accurate does not show a problem with my assertion. Where is the example in history or film of the heavily armored guy with a mace turning mummies?

I don't remember off the top of my head and I can't find a picture, were the archers in Army of Darkness heavily armored or just medium armored?

The elven archers in the Lord of the Rings movies look pretty heavily armored up.

http://www.theargonath.cc/stuff/fotrobservation6.jpg

http://www.theargonath.cc/pictures/hdelves/hdelves26.jpg

http://www.theargonath.cc/pictures/hdelves/hdelves44.jpg

http://www.theargonath.cc/pictures/hdelves/hdelves29.jpg

Sorry. I can't mourn the loss of an archetype that doesn't exist except as a mechanical artifact.

I won't ask you to. Seems a taste question for a fantasy game to me that can reasonably vary.

 

[Voadam]

Crossbow is a totally different thing from what we're talking about. A crossbow doesn't require the arm and chest flexibility that a true bow does, and thus is not inhibited by armor.* It's not archery -- it's a gun.

So to bring this back on topic, does 4e accomodate the archetype of a heavy armored crossbow specialist?

If I wanted to create a dwarven warrior who wears heavy armor, doesn't particularly care about mobility, but is great with his crossbow is that easy to effect mechanically in 4e?

 

[Brennin Magalus]

You've got some rose-coloerd glasses for 3e, eh? Gimme a pair.

3e did not answer the spell casting rationale well. Put another way: Vancian magic does NOT model the spell casters in Fantasy Literature very well. This has been discussed countless times.

Is your 3e PHB missing the pages with the sorcerer?