Why is archery the prefered combat style?

[Elethiomel]

No no no, I was right, this is wrong. Everybody who thinks they can throw a 100 lb. object farther than a 10 lb. object with an equal amount of thrust is wrong. The heavier object will hit the ground harder, but it will hit the ground sooner because its momentum will get used up sooner. Please, don't head down to the patent office and try to patent a depleted uranium football. And, just let me add, ARRRGH.

Heh. No. The momentum isn't *used up* sooner. The momentum has nothing to do with it. The only things that matter with regards to the range before something hits the ground are:
- angle of launch
- velocity at launch
- air resistance and its effects on velocity during flight
- gravity

The big culprit when it comes to range is velocity. A heavy object goes shorter than a light object with the same kinetic energy not because it has less "momentum left over", but because gravity accelerates everything at the same rate and a slower object will thus cover less ground before it hits the ground.

It doesn't "lose energy faster", it "hits the ground sooner", which is a very different thing. I refer you to the post where this originated:

I have a hard time imagining a heavy projectile with a flat trajectory delivering less energy to the target than a light, arcing projectile.

To which you replied:

The reason a bow delivers more energy is pretty simple and scientific: it's got a much broader armspan. As to the weight of projectiles, a heavy one loses energy in flight faster than a light one.

The flatness of the trajectory is directly proportional to the speed of the projectile.
The energy of the projectile is squarely proportional to the speed of the projectile.
The energy of the projectile is directly proportional to the mass of the projectile.

Therefore, a projectile weapon with a flat trajectory and a heavy projectile must, by the laws of physics, deliver more energy to the target than a projectile weapon with an arcing trajectory and a light projectile.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

No no no, I was right, this is wrong. Everybody who thinks they can throw a 100 lb. object farther than a 10 lb. object with an equal amount of thrust is wrong. The heavier object will hit the ground harder, but it will hit the ground sooner because its momentum will get used up sooner. Please, don't head down to the patent office and try to patent a depleted uranium football. And, just let me add, ARRRGH.

This is where you're going wrong, assuming equal impulse and then discounting the ballistic performance of munitions with different characteristics.

Crossbows and regular bows did not have the same initial impulse, during the late medieval-rennaisance period the lowest draw you'd see on a x-bow was in the 350lbf range using footstraps to span all the way up to 900-1000lbf spanned using winches on larger steel-prodded x-bows(commonly known as arbalests to denote the steel prod). These made up for their shorter prod compared to bows with massive draw weights. This allowed them to push bolts weighing several times what an arrow did.

Then moving to the ammunition itself. How far a projectile travels before becoming ineffective is as much the projectile itself as its initial impulse. An arrow is a low-density projectile with a large surface area and cross-section. It has high drag and lots of area to catch wind causing it to drift. Modern x-bow bolts are similar to arrows, back then they weren't. They were several times heavier to better take advantage of the massive draw-weights of period x-bows. But they were significantly shorter and thicker through the shaft with smaller fletching. Ballistically they were more like a modern sabot round than an arrow. The density was higher than an arrow with less drag and reduced the effect of wind-drift.

 

[Darklone]

Good points here, when will someone mention the differences in range depending on whether arrows have angular momentum or not ?

 

[Slaved]

Good points here, when will someone mention the differences in range depending on whether arrows have angular momentum or not ?

You know, with a long enough shot the curvature of the earth comes into play as well.......

Anyone want to mention the Coriolis effect?

 

[Gort]

How about, instead of arguing physics until the cows come home, we suggest a few ways to make crossbows more than "that weapon low level mages carry sometimes in case they run out of spells"?

Here're my suggestions for making crossbows more worthwhile.

1. Introduce mighty crossbows. Stronger user can operate a more
powerful crossbow, makes sense to me.

2. Make it take an attack to fire a crossbow, but also an attack to reload it. That way, a crossbowman with four attacks can fire twice in a round. This means that crossbows aren't useless at higher levels, since their rate of fire increases somewhat.

3. Make crossbow damage double the damage on bows (including strength bonus). The draw weights on crossbows are far in excess of those on bows (heaviest bow being around 150 pounds while the heaviest crossbows would be around 1200 pounds) and it makes the halved rate of fire worthwhile if you get doubled damage per shot.

I'm just going to try and pre-empt some hypothetical balance arguments that the above ideas might give rise to. Firstly, who uses bows and crossbows in D&D?

Bow users: Fighters, rangers, rogues, other classes like bards, paladins, and barbarians might carry a bow in case they need to use it, but generally don't use it as a primary weapon.

Crossbow users: Low level mages. People without bow proficiency.

Of the bow users, who would switch to crossbows if the above changes were made? Well, fighters might, though bows are still a good choice. The crossbow would be good for penetrating DR, since it does more damage per shot, but the bow is less likely to "overkill" opponents. (meaning that if you can kill the opponent in one shot with the bow, you can kill twice as many people in the same time as with a crossbow) Weapon specialisation and elemental damage might make fighters want to stick with bows, however.

Rangers would probably stick with bows, since the greater rate of fire allows them to add favoured enemy damage twice. Likewise rogues, except in their case sneak attack is added.

Non-specialised bowmen like your average paladin or barbarian might switch to crossbows - they would be good for firing one shot before melee is joined, then switching to a hand-to-hand weapon.

I might give these houserules a go in my next game, and see how they go, unless someone sees any huge flaws with them.

 

[Darklone]

Without going to houserules, the Crossbow Sniper feat with half dex bonus to damage and increased precision range damage is pretty much what makes all those halflings and elves without strength use crossbows

 

[Slaved]

Without going to houserules

That is no fun!

How about reducing their cost first of all?

After that, add in some extra options. Allow them to have a virtual strength bonus applied that you can reach by cranking it up longer or something similar. If you do not mind extra rolling then have it be a strength/dex/skill check and the damage is modified by some amount.

Allow coating the bolt with poison without the chance of poisoning yourself, or a lesser chance at least (it could even have a compartement that added the poison itself, for an extra cost of course).

You could even make the dice from a crossbow explode (roll max, roll again and add). That would certainly make people think about using them.

 

[Ranger REG]

OMG. This is worse than adding weapon speed to make dagger more useful. :\

 

[Hypersmurf]

OMG. This is worse than adding weapon speed to make dagger more useful. :\

At least in 3.5, the dagger is almost balanced. In 3E, it was the most broken weapon in the game!

-Hyp.

 

[Legildur]

At least in 3.5, the dagger is almost balanced. In 3E, it was the most broken weapon in the game!

Don't you dare raise that Sunder thread again!