When Fantasy meets Medieval Europe

[Derren]

Archers are a little shorter, and weaker than the melee people are, they stand back and fire arrows at the enemy while the stronger and brawnier people fight in hand to hand combat, and hopefully they don't get shot with an arrow in the back.

By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception in RPGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.

 

[Eltab]

Let me take a recent example from Tomb of Annihilation: in the snake headquarters in Omu, the bad guy has a harem. In previous years this would surely be presented as filled with beautiful women, including long loving description of their unclothed bodies.

Where are you finding the extra pages from those old modules?

 

[Thomas Bowman]

By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception un ROGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.

Well when your dealing with the average array, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8, the low scores have to go somewhere. Being strong does no good if your arrows miss. So basically two scores get a +1, two scores get a +0, and two scores get a -1. Now these aren't composite longbows or short bows, so strength don't give you an advantage if you are firing arrows, you just have to be accurate so those arrows hit, that means a high dexterity, I chose to give the 12 to intelligence so the character can have more skills, I think the Con gets an 11 or 10, doesn't make a difference, Wisdom gets an 11 or 10, that leaves 9 and 8 for the two remaining attributes, strength and charisma, or perhaps the character doesn't have to be as wise, its a tough choice. Which would you pick?

 

[Derren]

Which would you pick?

For RPG characters that is fine. As I said for some reason many RPGs have decided that you have to be dexterous to use a bow, so archers for this system need to be dexterous at the sacrifice of strenght. I just wanted to point out that this is completely ahistorical as most dedicated archers were quite strong (had to be).
They werent short either. The archers on the Mary Rose were 1,80m or more I think.

 

[Lylandra]

IIRC the archer in D&D would get a penalty if they had a negative Str modifier. So Str 10 is really the minimum.

Also, a warrior doesn't need many skills. And I doubt that they were the most intelligent or educated folks. Unless you're looking at actual knights who'd be elite fighters anyway.

So you can easily cut ride (unless the warrior is trained to ride horses. But horses are too expensive for common troops), and maybe handle animal (unless the warrior is used to train dogs or horses). Maybe add 1 rank in profession (soldier) if the warrior is doing this stuff for a living. Or survival if the warrior is used to venture the wilderness.

 

[billd91]

By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception in RPGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.

I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.

 

[Derren]

I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.

Well the RPG writers decide what bonuses there are. For example they decide that bows add DEX to damage and not STR despite the latter to be more logical, or that there is no STR requirement for bows.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Well the RPG writers decide what bonuses there are. For example they decide that bows add DEX to damage and not STR despite the latter to be more logical, or that there is no STR requirement for bows.

Lets suppose a warrior had a strength of 18 and a dexterity of 3, would that make a great archer? What would that mean? The warrior with the bow would keep tripping over his own two feet and bumping into archers standing next to him as he fires his arrows, most of the landing in the dirt.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.

Dexterity should never boost damage, its all about accuracy. it does no good to be strong if you keep on missing, and it does not good to hit if you don't do any damage.

 

[Derren]

Lets suppose a warrior had a strength of 18 and a dexterity of 3, would that make a great archer? What would that mean? The warrior with the bow would keep tripping over his own two feet and bumping into archers standing next to him as he fires his arrows, most of the landing in the dirt.

If he constantly trips he would make an even worse melee fighter. And if the stats were reversed he could not even attempt to fire a bow.