Worlds of Design: Take a Bow

Modern archery is more complex than archery in the days of melee battles, with many kinds of bows and shooting aids, but still, in the end, it’s pretty straightforward.

brave-woman-7427751_1280.jpg

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

In archery we have something like the way of the superior man. When the archer misses the center of the target, he turns round and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself.” - Confucius

My wife, a senior citizen as you might expect, recently took up archery as a hobby! This got me thinking about practical uses of archery and warfare and how it's often portrayed in media and tabletop role-playing games.

Archery Basics​

Most modern day archers use self bows (what most people think of when you say “bow”) rather than crossbows. There are compounds, recurves, “barebows”, and others, even a smattering of crossbows. There are aids that were never seen in pre-modern times. Highly-accurate (Olympics style) archery requires extended concentration for consistency, the kind of thing a cricket batsman needs to hit a century.

Archery in close-quarters or time-stressed combat requires long training, so that you can shoot quickly without thinking about it.

Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.'' (from the book "Zen in the Art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel).

The objective of modern archery training is to make it all automatic, but that takes years to achieve.

Historical Ancient and Medieval Times​

Movies strongly exaggerate the effect of archery on battles (especially where many wear armor) before the advent of Welsh/English longbowmen. That’s partly because movies by and large are about individuals, not about masses.

In battle, both the power and accuracy of the bow and the firing rate (per minute and overall) are important. Bows used in warfare for thousands of years had poor power and accuracy, and poor overall firing rate (because you quickly ran out of ammunition) even though the initial firing rate could be quite good.

Missile weapons are notoriously inaccurate in close melee (as in RPG adventures). I’m not a pistol user, but as far as I can gather it’s remarkably easy to miss when using a pistol in melee, even at close range. This likely applies to archery as well, especially considering that there may not be enough space for a bow to be used without interference. Further, arrows can ricochet unpredictably off armor.

Keep in mind, most archers in battles over the centuries were not using Welsh/English style longbows. Their bows were much less powerful and less accurate, except for the composite bows used by steppe dwellers (and Byzantines), and some heavy crossbows.

Why were bows displaced by much-less-accurate firearms? It was easier to train people in firearms, compared with training in longbows. Bows require strength built up from youth, while any ordinary soldier can use a firearm. Crossbowmen are easily trained, and fairly accurate though slow firing, yet were also displaced with firearms. In a pitched battle you can expect a missed shot at one person in a mass may hit someone else, helping compensate for less-than-accurate shooting. Perhaps most important, firearm ammunition was much easier to manufacture and to carry. The English made an industry out of producing (and transporting) arrows, rarely did anyone else, so arrows were always in short supply. Fire volume over time beat accuracy in pitched battles.

Sneaky Archers​

Insofar as FRPG class abilities naturally fall into spell-casting, hand to hand fighting, and stealth, RPGs are sooner or later going to end up with something like thieves/rogues as a separate class or as a set of abilities for fighters.

For me, stealth includes striking from a distance. You can certainly be stealthy and use a thrown weapon rather than a bow. Thrown axes or knives don’t make much noise until they hit. So how can thieves not be used ranged weapons, including bows? They don’t want to get into hand-to-hand fighting if they can help it, so they need no armor, which allows them to move quickly and flexibly. The bow is an ideal weapon. And what about the tradition of Robin Hood and William Tell (who used a crossbow)?

Different editions of Dungeons & Dragons have characterized "backstabbing" differently. AD&D never explicitly stated thieves couldn't use a bow to backstab, but the name alone led some to assume it involved a piercing attack from behind, thus the change in later editions to "sneak attack." I always allowed ranged weapons to sneak attack in my AD&D games, and in 3.5 and later editions, formalized this rule so that sneak attacks could be made within a certain range (30 feet).

On the other hand, combatants in pitched battles rarely wore full plate armor, often next to no armor. Whereas in a dungeon skirmish, heavy armor might be common after the initial experience levels. Historians to this day debate the efficacy of even the best self bows, the Welsh-English longbow and steppe composites, whether they could pierce top-class armor or not, whether it sometimes pierced poorly-made armor, effective range, etc. Modern tests are not definitive.

For a summary of this debate, see sandrhomanhistory “Why Everybody Disagrees on the Efficacy of the English Longbow – A Video Essay“ on YouTube:


YOUR TURN: How effective is archery in your game?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
take someone that never used either.

give them a target 25m away, 20 arrows or bullets, and see how many arrows hit the mark and how many bullets hit the mark.
What kind of bow, what kind of firearm? A composite longbow vs a flintlock pistol (or even most firearms before rifling became common)? Not so sure. How much recoil (kick) does the firearm have when fired?

I think you overestimate how many hits there would be with either. It also doesn't really matter. No one is saying that it's as easy to become proficient in a bow as a firearm. That doesn't mean anyone can pick up a firearm and be effective with it.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

take someone that never used either.

give them a target 25m away, 20 arrows or bullets, and see how many arrows hit the mark and how many bullets hit the mark.
Let's make it fair.

Both weapons are safe. The gun is not loaded. The bullets are in a box next to the gun. The arrows are in a quiver next to the bow.

At 25 meters? With a pistol? You might as well be using harsh langauge. Most people would have no idea how to eject the magazine, load the magazine, put the magazine back in, cock the firearm and then fire. Revolver would be quite a bit easier since it's much easier to load. But, again, it really depends on the firearm. Muzzle loading firearm? Good luck with that. Even a decent shot would have a heck of a time hitting a target at 25 meters.

Even with a modern, semi-automatic pistol at 25 meters? You might be able to hit a man sized target, somewhere on the target. Maybe? With zero training and no familiarity with firing? I'm feeling pretty safe at 25 meters.

Because, I'll guarantee in you had a HELL of a lot more than one minute of training before you picked up that 9 mm pistol. I know that I certainly did.
 

I used to shoot my (recurve) bow every day after school at targets that my brother and I pretended were orcs - up until I was about 20 years old. It's pretty amazing how the human eye can judge distance without a lot of fancy gear with some practice - I used to aim using the fletching and arrow tip and got to the point all my shots were in the bullseye (using pistol targets rings, not arrow target rings).

However, I generally find it a bad practice to let real-world skill dip into D&D; it takes a lot of the fun out of the game when you have an "experts" knowledge in something and try to apply it to D&D, as D&D is more about action movie/epic story heroics than gritty real-world physics. For one thing, dungeon ceiling height would limit bow attacks quite a bit, not even touching on other factors.

I let rogues sneak attack with bows, but I do still keep the "firing into a melee is at disadvantage" * to keep ranged attacks from dominating the game. I want bows and crossbows to be fun in the game, but for melee combat to still have a reason to be used - namely if someone gets up in your grill with a sword.

* And if the attack is a miss, but the higher die would have been a possible hit, could mean an ally being struck.
 

give them a target 25m away, 20 arrows or bullets, and see how many arrows hit the mark and how many bullets hit the mark.
25 meters is an awful long way to throw bullets or arrows.
At 25 meters? With a pistol? You might as well be using harsh langauge. Most people would have no idea how to eject the magazine, load the magazine, put the magazine back in, cock the firearm and then fire. Revolver would be quite a bit easier since it's much easier to load. But, again, it really depends on the firearm. Muzzle loading firearm? Good luck with that. Even a decent shot would have a heck of a time hitting a target at 25 meters.
Years ago I went shooting with some of my wife's hillbilly friends from her childhood. We set up the targets for the rifles somewhere between 75-100 yards. When we switched to pistols, they laughed at me when I stepped up to about 15-20 feet away from the target. "If I need to shoot anything farther than this I'm getting my rifle." I'd be hard pressed to hit a target with a pistol at 25 meters.
 

25 meters is an awful long way to throw bullets or arrows.

Years ago I went shooting with some of my wife's hillbilly friends from her childhood. We set up the targets for the rifles somewhere between 75-100 yards. When we switched to pistols, they laughed at me when I stepped up to about 15-20 feet away from the target. "If I need to shoot anything farther than this I'm getting my rifle." I'd be hard pressed to hit a target with a pistol at 25 meters.
Modern rifle? Ok, bets are off. You can hit things with a modern rifle a LONG way away. But a 9 mm pistol? Yeah, 25 meters is long shot.
 

Modern rifle? Ok, bets are off. You can hit things with a modern rifle a LONG way away. But a 9 mm pistol? Yeah, 25 meters is long shot.
that is why you train at 25 meters. if you get decent at 25, you are great at 10m.

when I first time used Ero(croatian knockoff if Uzi), we practiced at 50m and at 100m was for a goof.

AKs were used at 100,200 and 300.
 

that is why you train at 25 meters. if you get decent at 25, you are great at 10m.

when I first time used Ero(croatian knockoff if Uzi), we practiced at 50m and at 100m was for a goof.

AKs were used at 100,200 and 300.
Yeah, a 7.62 round will go a LONG way. We used to practice with 303 rounds for the rifle team. You can pretty much hit anything you can see with one of those. Then again, 300 meters standing is a very long shot. Prone isn't too bad, but, lots of people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at 300 meters standing.
 

that is why you train at 25 meters. if you get decent at 25, you are great at 10m.

when I first time used Ero(croatian knockoff if Uzi), we practiced at 50m and at 100m was for a goof.

AKs were used at 100,200 and 300.
Bijeli opasači,a? :D No one else used Ero if i recall correctly.
Yeah, a 7.62 round will go a LONG way. We used to practice with 303 rounds for the rifle team. You can pretty much hit anything you can see with one of those. Then again, 300 meters standing is a very long shot. Prone isn't too bad, but, lots of people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at 300 meters standing.
300 m with iron sights, prone. Don't know if Horwath was professional or he is referencing mandatory service, but AKs were without any optics, and let's be honest, those aren't very good for that distance with front sights blocking decent chunk of target. For 300m, 5.56 in modern guns offers better performance.
 

Bijeli opasači,a? :D No one else used Ero if i recall correctly.

300 m with iron sights, prone. Don't know if Horwath was professional or he is referencing mandatory service, but AKs were without any optics, and let's be honest, those aren't very good for that distance with front sights blocking decent chunk of target. For 300m, 5.56 in modern guns offers better performance.
THere are a lot of things to recommend an AK. Accuracy was never really one of them. 5.56 is better but, again, after about 300 meters, you might as well be throwing them. Very small rounds, easily affected by weather. Heck, the reason NATO went to 5.56 from .308 is because combat ranges were almost always MUCH shorter than 300 meters.

In any case, someone with zero training, using a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol is very, very unlikely to hit anything at 25 meters even if it's standing still. Of course, when we start talking black powder, muzzle loading firearms, no rifling, hand made rounds? Yeah, effective range is not very far.

IMO, the mythology around the English Longbow is somewhere in the same neighborhood as katanas. They are not quite as effective as people make them out to be. Not that they were ineffective. I'm not saying that at all. But, given the choice of being shot at by an English longbow or someone with a similar power crossbow, I'm a lot less afraid of the longbowman.
 

Yeah, a 7.62 round will go a LONG way. We used to practice with 303 rounds for the rifle team. You can pretty much hit anything you can see with one of those. Then again, 300 meters standing is a very long shot. Prone isn't too bad, but, lots of people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at 300 meters standing.
100m standing is a longshot, maybe someone can be completely still and aim standing at that range, but I certainly cant. I need to brace the rifle on something.
 

Related Articles

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top