Pathfinder 1E What about compound bows?

[Greenfield]

There's a technique for shooting called "Sting Walking" that gives many of the benefits of sights, without actually having sights.

Consider normal "Gap Shooting" style: Gap shooting attempts to compensate for the "gap" between where the arrow is when drawn, and where the eye is.

The nock of the arrow (the point where it grips the string) when drawn is typically about three inches down and to the right of a right handed shooter's eye. You typically anchor to the ear, chin or cheekbone. That means that if you're trying to sight along the arrow it's actually aiming up and to the left of where it appears to be pointing.

At close range, using string walking, you grip the bowstring several inches lower than the nock-point. This puts a slightly unbalanced strain on the limbs, but it puts the arrow right at the shooter's eye. You can actually look down the full length of the shaft and see exactly where it's pointed.

As range increases you move your grip up, which effectively tilts the bow upward at point of release. Normally you would lower your sights (presuming you have them) to get the same result. String walking uses the arrow/shelf intersection as the sight, or perhaps the arrowhead.

I have a small wrap of red thread on my bowstring, and use it as my guide: Which finger is on the thread determines the range I'm accurate for.

Now, onto the original topic: Compound bows.

Modern archery technique resembles ancient technique the way a bowling ball resembles a pogo stick. Which is to say, not at all.

The compound bow's advantage is that you can get the flat trajectory and power of the heavy bow, coupled with the low strain and steady aim of a much lighter draw. You can have, as noted previously, bow with 80 pounds of pull at take off point, yet only have to hold 14 pounds of strain at full draw. Your hand doesn't shake from strain, and you can hold the draw for an extended period while you bring everything into line to shoot.

Ancient hunters and warriors often relied on a snap-shot. With a heavy bow (up to 200 lbs of pull on an early Renaissance war bow) you would often start with the draw-hand already back at "anchor", and the bow aimed straight up. Instead of drawing the string, you would simply hold it in place while the other arm brings the bow down, essentially pushing it away from body by about the width of the archer's shoulders.

As the arrow came to bear, it was released immediately. No draw-and-hold at all.

In battle you could seldom pick out individual targets. Instead archers fired as a group, simply pouring out arrows into the mass of enemy forces. Speed and power counted.

Consider that they were firing at a group, which in D&D terms had a serious size penalty to AC, rather than trying to target an individual. In real world, arrows don't magically vanish once they miss and pass the individual target. They keep going until they hit *something*.

The point of all of this is that the main advantage of the compound bow is rendered meaningless when the archer isn't trying to hold the shot until they line up with the target. The target is always moving, so you shoot quickly.

Medieval war tended to operate much like modern war when it came to missile weapons: Over 90% of bullets fired in modern battles aren't aimed at anyone. They're used to force the enemy to stay down, denying them the opportunity to get a clean shot at you.

In both settings, you shoot a lot and count on the odds to say that something will hit someone. The only real difference is that in the ancient setting ammo got reused: You had scavengers out retrieving spent arrows so you could shoot them back.

 

[houser2112]

As for compound bows, they weren't invented until 1966 (according to the wiki I just checked), so they seem even less appropriate for D&D than firearms. If you really want to incorporate them into your game, how to do so is just a "well, how do you <I>want</I> them to work?" kind of issue.

I would guess that applications of gunpowder were able to be scaled down to be feasible as personal weaponry before people considered that pulleys could be applied to bows was an accident of history, rather than a case of compound bows requiring 20th century technology to manufacture, so I wouldn't disallow them on that basis. I would still consider them lower on the "tech tree" than firearms.

The compound bow's advantage is that you can get the flat trajectory and power of the heavy bow, coupled with the low strain and steady aim of a much lighter draw. You can have, as noted previously, bow with 80 pounds of pull at take off point, yet only have to hold 14 pounds of strain at full draw. Your hand doesn't shake from strain, and you can hold the draw for an extended period while you bring everything into line to shoot.

Does the compound bow magnify your strength? That is, do you need to be able to pull 80 lbs to even get to the point where you only need 14 lbs to hold it, or does the full draw only require 14 lbs? If the latter, I'd say you'd model the bow in-game as a composite bow with a certain strength rating, but the character equipping it need not be that strong to get the additional damage. If the former, then I'd say it's just a composite bow, since the advantage of the compound bow is something that D&D's ranged combat system doesn't really address.

 

[Greenfield]

The pull of a bow is normally measured not at the at-rest point, but at 28 inches of draw. That's the average draw length for an adult.

Which doesn't answer your question, I know.

No, it doesn't amp your strength. You still need to be able to pull it back to the break point (the point where the cam-pulleys start reducing the strain.) But here's the thing, there's a sweet spot in the mechanics of your arm drawing that string. A point where your strength is maximized by leverage and the skeletal-muscular connection, and it's not at the end of the draw.

At the same time, the pull of the bow normally increases as you draw back, so the greatest strain isn't at the at-rest point. This increase, called stacking, varies from bow to bow. I've had the opportunity to pull a bow that actually had no discernible stacking: The strain was the same all the way through the draw. It felt really weird.

The pulley and cam system of the compound bow is set so the bow's break point happens just in back of that sweet spot in your draw, so that as you approach the end of your draw ( and the decrease in your ability to draw ), the strain drops as well.

Without some outside power source it's not possible to have a bow that draws with 14 pounds all the way and releases with 80. Any and all the energy in that bow, the power that drives the arrow, has to come from you at some point. You can't get out any more than you put in. The difference is that the compound bow reduces the strain at the full draw point, so it's easier to take your time and aim without the strain causing your hand to shake. It increases accuracy, not actual power.

As a note, when the bowstring passed that break point after release there's a sudden, sharp acceleration applied to the arrow. I've seen some wooden arrows that couldn't take that strain and shatter, almost exploding in mid release.

Now think about where that arrow is at that point. And think about where your arm is, the one holding the bow. They're parallel to each other, and about two inches apart. And all that release energy has to go somewhere.

Happy thought, eh?

 

[houser2112]

Without some outside power source it's not possible to have a bow that draws with 14 pounds all the way and releases with 80. Any and all the energy in that bow, the power that drives the arrow, has to come from you at some point. You can't get out any more than you put in. The difference is that the compound bow reduces the strain at the full draw point, so it's easier to take your time and aim without the strain causing your hand to shake. It increases accuracy, not actual power.

As a note, when the bowstring passed that break point after release there's a sudden, sharp acceleration applied to the arrow. I've seen some wooden arrows that couldn't take that strain and shatter, almost exploding in mid release.

So I guess a compound bow would best be modeled as the composite bow is now. It has a Strength rating, and you need to be that strong to pull it back and get the extra damage out of it. Give a +2 (circumstance?) bonus to hit if you only make one attack per round. Maybe require special arrows due to the splintering effect.

 

[Greenfield]

I've seen a lot of people going on about "super" weapons in games; The speed and armor piercing power of a the Katana, the punch of compound bows and the actual armor shredding capacity of things like Lucern hammers etc.

I'm kind of burned out by it all, to be honest, so I'd be tempted to rate a compound bow as simply Master Worked: A plus to hit but not to damage.

The fact that it's mechanically complex and cleverly designed not withstanding, in the end it's a fancy, well made bow.

You want greater accuracy boosts than the compound bow can give? Come up with rules for counterweights, vibration dampers and sights.

And then convince a DM that target sights are applicable in a running battle where the range isn't a known thing in advance (something needed for sights to be effective).

The difference between these add-ons and simply "master worked"? They're add ons. That is, they can be added after the bow is made, unlike actual master work quality.

<Tangent>I was at a game convention running a pick-up game in the open gaming area. Scene was a spring festival, where the heroes had been invited and were to be honored. At the various games they were asked to be judges, rather than having locals compete in the various games against the PCs, who were pretty much top professionals.

One player decided that her character was going to teach the Dwarven smiths how to make a Katana, the whole folded steel technique and the mixed metlaurgy involved. (It takes two grades of steel, one high carbon and one low, layered together in a particular way, to make that blade work.) Turned out her "master smith" character had a total of two ranks in weapon smithing.

I'd always figured that if the smith couldn't reach "Master Work" on a take-10, they weren't a master at that trade. So anything less than 10 ranks need not apply.

Also turned out that, for all she claimed to know about the exotic Japanese combat blade, she thought she could make one in a week, while teaching the smiths. Apparently her skills at "Knowledge - Rules for Crafting" were as extensive as her weapon smith skills.

In real life, from start to finish, it takes 14 months to make that blade, at least according to the Nova episode I saw on PBS.

So remember that there's a vast difference between knowing *about* a craft, and knowing the craft. I mean, I know more than she does, but I couldn't make that blade if my life depended on it.</tangent>