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.

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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?
 

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Lewis Pulsipher

Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio
I have simple few house rules to not reduce power of archery in offense part of 5E, but to punish the user with defense penalty while using it.

1. Attacks with ranged weapons provoke attack of opportunity.
2. All melee attacks have advantage vs you when you use ranged weapon until the start of your next turn. Including triggering AoO.
3. All bows are martial weapons.
4. All crossbows and firearms are simple weapons.

5. optional feat:
Close quarter archery:
+1 dex
you do not provoke AoO while using ranged weapon, and melee attacks do not have advantage on attacks vs you after using ranged weapon.
 

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.




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.



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?
I agree that rogues should be able to use bows for backstab/sneak attack (it's still backstab in my mind). I allow crossbows too. Snipers are a thing.
 

I think shooting a gun is about nerve. If you are shooting at a target at 30 feet you won't miss often with only minimal training. At 9 feet you can it the target with your eyes closed. That is far different though when someone else is also trying to shoot you. If you have the nerve to aim and pull the trigger in those situations you will win most of the time against everyone but trained enemies.

I'm dubious of archery at super close quarters. Unless you are "sneak" attacking.
 

One thing that the OP touches on is the limitation of ammunition, which is a topic I actually see rarely discussed on medieval bows.

Its an important point, no matter how good your archers are...they are a fairly limited resource as once the arrows fun out, they are just so guys in light armor with maybe a dagger or something to fight with.
 

AD&D lightly implies that it's limited to melee "Back stabbing is the striking of a blow from behind, be it with club, dagger, or sword." (PH page 27)

The original OD&D description just says "By striking silently from behind the thief gains two advantages". (Greyhawk page 4)

B/X also uses a more open phrasing "When striking unnoticed from behind". (B10)

Archery in the game is an interesting thing.

It's certainly true that the actual capacity, encumbrance and unwieldiness of a quiver of arrows gets glossed over a lot. The small quiver I used with my target bow when I was a teenager only comfortably fit 4-5 arrows, and those were with round target heads, not with broadheads which could catch on one another if crowded in the quiver. In real life a quiver of 20 arrows with broadheads would be pretty substantial, close to a backpack on its own, or regularly needing a hand on it while walking if worn at the hip. The quiver shown below is advertised as fitting 20 target arrows, but there are about 10 or 11 in the picture, and you can see how they'd be tightly packed if you tried to get 20 in there. Make those broadheads and there's a strong chance that drawing one tangles up with others and spills them out on the ground.

In keeping with Lew's comments about limited ammo, remember too that they'll get broken a lot in battle. Even if the enemy isn't wearing hard metal armor for them to break on, shots hitting stones or walls getting embedded in trees, or shafts getting snapped when the victim falls dead or someone steps on them, are common occurrences. Outdoors, a bow powerful enough to penetrate armor is often going to send arrows long distances on missed shots and just have them get lost. Fitting a replacement arrowhead or new fletchings to arrows is a task we often assume archers know how to do for themselves (and a reason so many of us took Bowyer/Fletcher nonweapon proficiency in AD&D), but proper thread and glue for fletching, knives for the work, and especially tools like a lathe to cut and shape perfectly straight new arrow shafts aren't always things we can assume people would have in the wild.

This isn't even getting into the range issues with archery. Where in real life shooting at someone 50' away who can see you often means they can side-step or lift a shield to block a shot, because it's not a bullet. AD&D bow ranges are taken almost exactly, directly from Chainmail archery ranges, which are of course meant for massed units of archers shooting at massed units of ranked soldiers, where you're not just shooting at one guy in a field at 630' (max range for a longbow in OD&D, no to hit adjustment, see Greyhawk p17). And those ranges have changed very little over the various editions. (Longbow in 5E max range 600').

Delta did some observation of, experimenting with and applied math on amateur archery and his data found that accuracy rapidly drops off at even moderate ranges due to the target relative size shrinking massively from the perspective of the firer. There is still a modern sport of shooting at clouts which uses ranges not far off D&D long ranges, but a basic "hit" in those competitions involves getting the arrow to land within a 12' diameter circle, and hits within the 18" center circle (similar width to a person) are quite rare. And this is with stationary targets, of course. OTOH, SCA archers show us examples of how at short range with a distracted target, and guards to intercept the enemy from getting at them, archers can often snipe enemies very reliably who are engaging their friends in melee.

A second source of data is from more recent UK "clout" long-distance longbow competitions. Results from a competition in 2016 show that at a range of 180 yards, competitors hit a 12-foot radius target 42% of the time, and an 18-inch radius central target only 1% of the time. (Full data and spreadsheets on the blog here.)
 

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The part about "Easy to miss" when using a pistol in close quarters is true. Many years ago in a city where I lived, 3 Police Officers were dealing with a man armed with some kind of weed cutter while in his living room. For some reason, shooting started. 19 shots were fired at what in D&D terms would be Point Blank Range. No one was hit.

A couple of things often skipped by GMs in dealing with bows(or any ranged weapon):
Penalties for shooting into melees. Blue on Blue should be fairly common for archers shooting at a pair of folks in close quarters combat.
Expended ammunition. Often see an archer start an expedition with 1 quiver with 20 arrows. Many combats later, still has all 20 arrows.
Counter battery fire from opposition archers. If you can shoot at them, they can shoot at you. Even an archery slit in a wall isn't a perfect defense.
 

I have simple few house rules to not reduce power of archery in offense part of 5E, but to punish the user with defense penalty while using it.

1. Attacks with ranged weapons provoke attack of opportunity.
2. All melee attacks have advantage vs you when you use ranged weapon until the start of your next turn. Including triggering AoO.
3. All bows are martial weapons.
4. All crossbows and firearms are simple weapons.

5. optional feat:
Close quarter archery:
+1 dex
you do not provoke AoO while using ranged weapon, and melee attacks do not have advantage on attacks vs you after using ranged weapon.
I think the current rule (at least 2014) of having disadvantage while using a ranged attack in melee works just fine instead of making the archer vulnerable, but my own house rule is that shooting into melee from outside it also gives disadvantage (though a notable size difference in combatants can negate that - your humanoid friends fighting an adult dragon, for example)
 

In Klassico

Only Elves and Valley Dwarves use bows as a primary missile weapon because only Elves live long enough to train bow users, craft high quality bows, and are unwilling to swap to crossbows or firearms

Dragon Dynasty(Dragonborn, Elves, Humans, Hybrids) - Bows
Gryphon Empire (Humans Halflings, Goliaths) - Crossbows and Firearms
Mage States(Casters)- Cantrips
Rebel Commonwealth (Humans, Elves, Orcs, Hybrids) - Crossbows and Bows
Dragonborn- Slings and breath weapon
Deep Mountain Dwarves- Crossbows
Glacier Dwarves- Crossbows
Hill Dwarves- Crossbows
Mountain Dwarves- Crossbows
Undermountain Underdark Dwarves- Muskets
Valley Dwarves- Bows
Dark elves- Hand crossbows
High elves- Bows
Shadow elves- Bows
Wood elves- Bows
Rock Gnome- Rock Shooter
Forest Gnome- Needler
Tribes of the Teeth (Orcs, Humans, Goliaths, Hybrids),- MISSILE WEAPONS ARE FOR COWARDS, NOODLES, AND ZIGZAGS!!

Basically everybody converted over to crossbows or firearms once they became available. Only places with large elven or valley dwarf population could keep a constant supply of high quality bowman for military matters. Outside of where a lot of elves live, bows are only made and shot for sport or hunting.

And if you have a lot of elves and humans together, the half elves would provide you with a stable supply of warriors that you can train to be archers and very long lives ahead of them to use for war.
 

I generally give bows the finesse property.

Ranges, and the concept of sneak attacking with a bow in combat can be a little weird. People who hunt with a modern bow (which is often more accurate and definitely flies faster than a historical warbow) generally regard around 100 ft to be close to the limit on shooting an (unarmoured) man-size creature.
In the middle of a fight where someone is fighting in melee, the idea of being able to carefully target vulnerable spots at anything other than very short range is unlikely simply due to the travel time of the arrow.
But D&D isn't a game designed to reflect historical and practical combat, it is designed to enact fantasy fiction, so much of this gets a pass from me.
 

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