Missile-Weapons Question

[Guru]

Not quite relatedly; the history channel mentioned a Saracen bow that was fired lying on ones back; bow held by FEET.

I've heard of those. Here you go:

Harry Drake (1983) held foot held flight record 1 mile 268 yards.

Those types of bolts were clearly for armor-piercing which requires fairly direct fire...

I have no idea of what kind of bolts or arrows were used with the "finnish style." In fact there was little need for armour piercing ammunition in Finland. Hunted animals never wore armour and I don't think armour has never been common here in Finland.

- Guru

[The Badger]

Nice pic!
Apparently the History Channel historian advanced those weapons as an explaination for some unexpectedly long-range fire taken by the first Crusade at the battle of... Dorylaeum i believe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dorylaeum

as to the crossbow bolts; I was NOT referring to the Finnish - and if they indeed did not face heavily armored opponents it would tend to argue AGAINST my point - sorry for the confusion - I meant more central european powers.
Merely out of curiousity i wonder if the Finnish crossbows are lower-tension draws too...

But it wasn't me speaking of the Fins - can't; cause i know NOTHING about them in that period.. My understanding is they FOUGHT LIKE DEVILS in WW2 tho'

ANYWAY this is all 'side the point -
I THINK we can agree that the crossbow's resurgence in "main" Europe -with the frightening draw weights (most needed levels or a crank pulley) and short; armor-defeating bolts; was intended to defeat armored targets and therefore probably USUALLY direct-fire weapons.

I had to add usually because of the bolts in top of heads thing.

AND i hope we can all agree that being shot by a longbow (or anything else) directly - at short range - is entirely different than being shot by arcing fire (i BELIEVE that even terminal velocity for a falling xbow bolt is less than its "muzzle" velocity- and doubt it could get high enough to generate terminal velocity on fall after apex)...

Maybe someone will alter attack value to represent changes in m/s projectile speed - or maybe its more trouble tahn its worth...

But really I was just curious if the engine differentiated short range from trajectory range in either Accuracy OR force(penetration).

Sorry it was such a long road;
and thanks for the great links and feedback.

[John_Longarrow]

The Badger

From a programatic stand point, I think they are looking for results instead of how those results are achieved. As such, I think they use a rather simple bell curve aproach for calculating "Hits" that matches up rather effectively to the much more complex math of "Did it hit, what was its angle of attack, what was its velocity at impact".

Think roll two d6. It takes a 4 or better to hit at 10 meters. Add one to the target number for every 10 meters farther out the target is.

Side note on repeating crossbows in D&D. Their ammo is low but the damage is high compared to what real repeating crossbows could do. The range is far to great also.

In my game I treat them pretty much like hand crossbows that can "Burst". each attack can use either 1, 2, or 3 bolts and does 1d4/1d8/1d12 damage (Medium weapon). Size is the same as a light crossbow. Mag holds 15 bolts.