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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5862679" data-attributes="member: 59506">You're mostly right.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> An English Longbow (like those used at Agincourt, etc., which were contemporarily called Warbows) had tremendous draw weights compared to average modern bows (not compound bows, though they did surpass most of them also). So yeah, a high rate of fire would be extremely tiring, extremely quickly. Something an archer would definitely endeavor to avoid for a long battle (as most were). A realistic rate of fire for an English Longbow (Warbow) is about six per minute (or about one per D&D round). However, in a pinch they could be fired faster, but probably no more that about two per D&D round (a dozen a minute), but again, this is during a long military battle. A D&D combat encounter, however, typically doesn't have the long duration of military battles. Even at 20 rounds, a D&D combat encounter is only two to three minutes. For such a short duration combat, where the archer doesn't have to ration their endurance as much, an archer would be able to really crank up the rate. I don't see why three per round would be inconcievable, though just as BAB's show (at least in 3.xE), successive shots suffer in accuracy. However, Longbows were not only indirect fire. Yes, at long ranges (like at the beginning of a battle) they were indirect fire. But as the battle wore on and enemies drew closer (or were mixed in with friendlies), shorter ranged aimed-shots became the norm. But, all the above is concerning the English Longbows (Warbows) of draw weights in the 100 to 200 pound range. In D&D terms, that would be a bow made for strength, and probably should be an Exotic Weapon.*  Non-strength longbows (plain-old regular self-bows) could be fired at the faster rates as the norm, without suffering the same drawbacks as an English Longbow Archer (with draw weights more in line with modern recurve and self-bows). As far as the "Medieval Machinegun", relatively it was. It's contemporary was the Crossbow, which realistically had a rate of fire of about 1 or 2 per minute. So, the Longbow is called the Medieval Machinegun in comparison to the Crossbow.<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/glasses.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt="B-)" title="Glasses    B-)" data-shortname="B-)" />   *The English Longbow (Warbow) wasn't really known in that form until the end of the 13th Century, but was more prominent in the 14th and 15th Centuries.  Before this time, all that was common was regular self-bows with much more normal draw weigths.  The English Longbow was derived from the Welsh Longbow, and took a a lifetime of training...which should have made it an Exotic Weapon and a bow made for Strength. Ironically, hand and repeating crossbows are exotic weapons, but probably shouldn't be. They may be exotic as far as commonality and availability, but are just as easy to fire as any other crossbow...which incidently is quite easy to train a common soldier to use and be effective (relatively easy to aim compared to a regular bow). They were likely classed as exotic weapons so that one would have to burn a Feat in order to gain the increased rate of fire - which is kind of unfair as they should have had damage higher than even English Longbows (Longbow made for Strength) from the start, just as they do in real life. But instead have the same damage as their regular bow counterparts. Heavy Crossbow = Longbow, Light Crossbow = Shortbow.<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" /></blockquote>

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