Why do Crossbows Suck?

[Nagol]

In B/X both staves and slings are d4 weapons.

That's odd. The Rules Cyclopedia lists staff as a d6 weapon. Perhaps there was errata to the earlier books?

 

[pemerton]

That's odd. The Rules Cyclopedia lists staff as a d6 weapon. Perhaps there was errata to the earlier books?

I'll double-check in my books when I get home.

 

[Cleon]

Longbows are also more expensive than crossbows. I won't delve into actual market prices in history, but d20srd agrees with me in 3.5 terms. My guess is that a longbow required hours (days?) of artisan craftsmanship, while a crossbow requires a fraction of that attention.

That's probably an ahistorical game rule trying to balance the effectiveness of a longbow versus a crossbow.

According to Robert Hardy's The Longbow, in late 13th century England, a longbow cost around 13-16 pence - that's silver pennies, so maybe 15 silver pieces in D&D terms.

That book also says a crossbow at that time costs something like 3 to 7 shillings, or 36-84 pence, which is roughly three to five times more expensive than a longbow. The ammunition was also more expensive: two dozen longbow arrows cost three pence, while a score of crossbow bolts cost seven pence.

Partly that might be due to supply - the economy of England at the time was geared to produce a lot of longbows, after all - but bear in mind a crossbow in an inherently more complicated device.

For both a crossbow and longbow the artisans have to make a bow and bowstring, but for the crossbow they also have to make a stock and trigger mechanism. The trigger in particular would be a costly part of the weapon. For a powerful military crossbow, the trigger mechanism needed to be made out of metal, and the precision manufacturing required would not have been cheap with the technology of the time.

 

[Kraydak]

Why do crossbows suck is the wrong question. The right question is "Why don't bows suck". Other than bows (and in post UA 1e/2e, darts), all ranged weapons other than bows have sucked. Crossbows? Sucked. Javelins? Sucked. Firearms? Sucked.

Two important aspects of DnD are that it plays very fast and loose with what a melee attack even is, and it takes a lot of hits to drop a guy. Unlike melee attacks though, ranged attacks are well quantized: each attack consumes one piece of ammo. This causes problems with crossbows and early firearms: you can't just up the attack rate while maintaining SOD, so unless individual hits are EXTREMELY high damage, the sustained damage is unacceptably low. It also causes problems with thrown weapons: unless the weapons return, you can't carry that many.

Bows hit the sweet spot where people are willing to accept high ROFs while having ammo that can be carried in bulk.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why do crossbows suck is the wrong question. The right question is "Why don't bows suck". Other than bows (and in post UA 1e/2e, darts), all ranged weapons other than bows have sucked. Crossbows? Sucked. Javelins? Sucked.

I've gotten decent mileage out of thrown weapons in both 3.X and Pathfinder. The lack of apparent range can be an issue, but the ability to use Dexterity to hit (and free Strength to damage), while using a shield, makes a javelin (or chakram) pretty decent for the lightly-armored warrior. And if you can only carry six or so? Well, at least they don't break upon throwing, so you can retrieve them easily enough after combat.

The only potential drawback is that you can't make multiple attacks, due to the move action required to draw the weapon, but even then that only kicks in at high levels (6+) when multiple attacks start to really matter.

 

[howandwhy99]

Historically, crossbows played a significant role in the warfare of East Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean. The invention of the crossbow caused a major shift in the role of ranged weaponry among armies, as the traditional bow and arrow had long been a specialized weapons system which required a considerable degree of lifetime training, physical strength and expertise to operate with any degree of efficiency; in many cultures, despite being usually drawn from the common class, bowmen were considered a separate and superior caste, as their archery skill-set (similar to many horseman cultures) was essentially developed from birth and impossible to reproduce outside a pre-established cultural tradition, which many nations lacked. In contrast, the crossbow was the first projectile weapon to be simple, cheap and physically-undemanding enough to be operated by large numbers of conscript soldiers, thus enabling virtually any nation with sufficient coin to field a potent force of ranged crossbowmen with little expense beyond the cost of the weapons themselves. This led to the ascendancy of large mercenary armies of crossbowmen (best exemplified by the Genoese crossbowmen), and the eventual death of the heavily armored aristocratic knight as armies became progressively dominated by conscripts equipped with increasingly-powerful ranged projectile weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow

In D&D terms I would say Light Xbows (1-handed firing, 2-handed loading) are as damaging as a shortbow because of their bow length. Heavy Xbows (2-handed always, set to fire) are as damaging as a longbow, also because of bowlength. However, Xbows can be even bigger in the different sizes of ballistae requiring multiple people to load and fire.

The drawback to crossbows is they take longer to fire each round, 1/round or 1/two rounds. The benefit is they don't require the strength and training normal bows do and can be used by bands of irregular combatants without too much hassle. I would say Thieves, Clerics, and Fighters are trained in Xbow, though Fighters would rarely find much use for them given their proficiency with better ranged weapons.

Also, crossbow bolts are more easily retrievable and tend not to break like wooden arrows.

 

[GMMichael]

Partly that might be due to supply - the economy of England at the time was geared to produce a lot of longbows, after all - but bear in mind a crossbow in an inherently more complicated device.

For both a crossbow and longbow the artisans have to make a bow and bowstring, but for the crossbow they also have to make a stock and trigger mechanism. The trigger in particular would be a costly part of the weapon. For a powerful military crossbow, the trigger mechanism needed to be made out of metal, and the precision manufacturing required would not have been cheap with the technology of the time.

Good points. Regarding the machinery of the crossbow, I have to wonder whether the craftsmanship of the, say, middle ages made it a simple process or not.

Did you take a look at the video posted by Ryujin earlier? The trigger mechanism was not much more than a cog and a wedge. Seems pretty easy to pull off. And the bow portion looked to be a piece of steel.

This has me thinking that a crossbow can be made by any blacksmith, while a longbow (of good quality) might require a wood-specialist (bowyer, maybe?).

Given the time period in question, would we be better off discussing in terms of labor-hours, instead of prices?

 

[Blackbrrd]

Good points. Regarding the machinery of the crossbow, I have to wonder whether the craftsmanship of the, say, middle ages made it a simple process or not.

Did you take a look at the video posted by Ryujin earlier? The trigger mechanism was not much more than a cog and a wedge. Seems pretty easy to pull off. And the bow portion looked to be a piece of steel.

This has me thinking that a crossbow can be made by any blacksmith, while a longbow (of good quality) might require a wood-specialist (bowyer, maybe?).

Given the time period in question, would we be better off discussing in terms of labor-hours, instead of prices?

Metal was really costly, while wood grows on trees.

 

[Ryujin]

Good points. Regarding the machinery of the crossbow, I have to wonder whether the craftsmanship of the, say, middle ages made it a simple process or not.

Did you take a look at the video posted by Ryujin earlier? The trigger mechanism was not much more than a cog and a wedge. Seems pretty easy to pull off. And the bow portion looked to be a piece of steel.

This has me thinking that a crossbow can be made by any blacksmith, while a longbow (of good quality) might require a wood-specialist (bowyer, maybe?).

Given the time period in question, would we be better off discussing in terms of labor-hours, instead of prices?

The thing with "any blacksmith" is that he doesn't just nip down to Home Depot and pick up a few steel ingots. There's a reason why early smiths would often have their legs broken, so that they couldn't leave town

I'm also the guy who posted in the video comments about having made a speargun out of Lego when I was a kid, using the same trigger principle. I researched it by hitting my local library. It really wasn't much more than a cylinder with a pin running through it, as an axle, and a couple of notches cut into it. One notch held the string while the other butted up against the front tang of the trigger bar. For ease of use this would be repeated on opposing sides of the barrel, so that you didn't have to fiddle around finding the right side notch on the battlefield.

Remember that if the bow of a crossbow was steel, it would have to be spring tempered. That would typically be weapon smithing, not necessarily the sort done by the guy who shoes your horse.

 

[Derren]

Metal was really costly, while wood grows on trees.

Problem is for a good bow you need rather specific wood (both the right sort and correctly grown) while any iron (there are crossbows fully made out of metal) will do for a crossbow.

Why do crossbows suck? Because all advantages of crossbows are neglected in D&D (training is hardly an issue, armor penetration and fatigue is not modeled) while the advantages of bows (theoretical rate of fire) are even more important than in reality.

Edit:
But when you assume that all PCs are trained archers, an assumption the rules seem to back, it makes sense that the bow is better than the crossbow because in trained hands it is.
A different way to represent that would be to make the bow weaker than the crossbow, but have more feats for it which would ultimately make it stronger.