"If you want to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather"
- King Edward III... allegedly.
D&D and D&D-like games treat bows as weak guns - probably more dangerous than daggers but not much better than a rapier.
Have you ever tried using a bow? I tried some modern (not professional) ones... probably easier to use than medieval bows. Let me tell you, shooting someone that is 80 feet away would be hard if you're not an expert (and I'm certainly no expert). That's the "minimum" range of a short bow in 5e - meaning that anyone proficient with simple weapons can use them without disadvantage. The "maximum" range of the short bow is 320 feet - with disadvantage (which would make you hit, say, 42% of the time instead of 65% of the time).
Consider seeing a bowman from 230 feet away (Olympic distance). How likely are you to simply move away from the incoming arrow?
Now, try swinging a bat at a punching bag. Or sticking a dagger-like object into a tree (please be careful... you'll might break your knife or hurt yourself). Even a child with a sharp knife is dangerous. A bow? Not so much. But the short bow deals 1d6 damage, the dagger 1d4.
Also... how many times can I stab while you shoot an arrow?
Bows also require strength... in real life, not in D&D.
Of course, there are people who can do amazing things with a bow. Just look at Olympic athletes, or even hunters... But they require extensive training. But in 5e, a shot bow is a simple weapon... while a short sword is a "martial" weapon, supposedly requiring more training.
D&D is not real life, of course. But even in a gaming perspective, bows seem to have an unfair advantage in 5e... they have better reach, nearly the same damage, and the best feats and fighting styles.
I know bows are useful in war... But that's an entirely different game. You are shooting at an army, not a specific foe. Arrows are good when you have LOTS of bowmen ("so many arrows that blot out the sun").
D&D fighting is mostly about small duels... not much more than half a dozen in each side. The way bows work might derive from the fact that D&D was originally a war game. Curiously enough, I think most games have kept the same reasoning since the. In GURPS, for example, the bow is an "average" skill like swords... although penalties due to distance are harsher IIRC).
There are good points to be made against this - bows have been used all over for hunting and wars, thousands of years. King Edward's archers beat heavily armored knights in Crécy... some bows can pierce heavy armor (although I think a baseball bat would do better on a one-on-one fight). Maybe big monsters - like dragons and giants - are easier to hit with arrows.
In addition, there are SOME limitations to archery in D&D - mainly, the fact that you have disadvantage if you're shooting with someone within 5 feet of you (another good point - maybe archery is so easy in D&D because you are not so worried about parrying, dodging, etc.).
And, when in doubt, I defer to the rule of cool... since everyone seems to like Legolas and Robin Hood, D&D 5e is good as it is.
Anyway...
In my current minimalist D&D game, missile and thrown weapons lose a single point of damage. So, if a short sword deal 1d6, a short bow would deal 1d4. Likewise, a thrown dagger deals less damage than getting stabbed (maybe 1d4-1).
In addition, damage is always determined by Strength. You use either Str or Dex to hit with a melee weapon (your choice), only Dex to hit with ranged weapons, and only Str gives a bonus to damage (more thoughts about this here and here) .
It is not a huge issue, but I like it this way, and it's been working well so far.
These are good points, and I agree that bows in one on one combat are probably less effective than presented in D&D, especially at range, but the boost they get is genre appropriate so probably ok.
ReplyDeleteThat being said: the analogy about stabbing trees reflects the unfortunate terminology of “to hit” rolls that wormed its way into post-Chainmail D&D combat. A melee round is a series of exchanges with another TRAINED, ARMED MELEE FIGHTER. Using a short sword effectively means being able to feint, parry, and so on — redirecting your opponent’s weapon to strike them without being wounded yourself in the course of several consecutive maneuvers. Not stabbing a tree. Ditto for the comment about stabbing multiple times in a row; the combat rules don’t reflect a stationary or helpless target, but someone who is fighting back.
Conversely, a bow shot during a skirmish would, more often than not, target an enemy who is not even aware he’s being targeted. Yes, dodging a bow shot at 200 feet would be easy if you see it coming. Yes, a large shield could be held up between your body and a row of enemy archers to provide pretty good cover against even shits you don’t see. But if your bracing yourself against a charge from another melee combatant or circling an opponent you’ve already engaged, you’re not keeping your eyes on the archer 100 feet away. You won’t be dodging or using your shield to block that shot unless your melee opponent is directly between you and the archer.
Just some thoughts. This is a lot of fiddly bits to model, but I feel like it’s not unreasonable to imagine that a peasant skilled at hunting with a short bow has a pretty decent chance of tagging someone who is distracted by their own melee priorities, or spell casting, or whatever.
Shooting at an enemy who can't see you (or can't focus on you) is a great point - one I forgot to mention. Completely agree with you there. Might edit this in later on.
DeleteNotice that, without "flanking" rules (absent in 5e RAW, but present as an option in the DMG), being attacked from the rear while you fight someone grants no advantage to the attacker, either. Giving a small flanking bonus (I suggest +2) would probably "fix" the small advantages ranged weapons get in 5e.
Shooting at two circling fighters in melee, 100 feet away, has it's own set of problems (you might hit your ally, for example). Again, the DMG has some optional rules for that.
Also, consider that I'm coming from a "new school" perspective here; 6-second rounds, etc. In modern D&D, it's pretty clear that a d20 roll is closer to a "swing" than a series of exchanges. But I see your point - these details were "lost in translation" between chainmail and modern D&D.
Ultimately, I agree that these things are genre appropriate (like, say, two-weapon fighting), so it doesn't bother me that much.
Agreed on all points. Yeah, there’s that funny evolution of the combat round from a minute of skirmishing to a few seconds corresponding to one or two exchanges in later editions. The abstractness of early edition combat always presented certain problems (eg if hit points are “luck” then how do I know if I’ve wounded someone for the purpose of applying poison?), so the change was probably inevitable as more mechanics were added. Archery is one of those things that could be endlessly tweaked with rules about target movement, flanking, distraction etc. Perhaps one of the l things that keeps D&D flexible in its appeal is the ability for an individual DM to decide how abstract or concrete to go with combat rules.
DeleteThinking of the idea of bonus Str damage for bows, and the fact that we are trying to use a simpler system, would it work to have all weapons have a prerequisite str score and the strength bonus being determined by the character's Str bonus above that threshold? This would make your idea of "strength ratings" on bows make more sense to player as just a general system for physical combat. In a more minimalist system where you do away with damage dice rolls, this can be used to still give some differentiation between different characters using the same weapon.
ReplyDeleteAs far as bows in particular, I think just adjusting for Str to Damage (and then having the characters choose what they use to hit) is a good enough system to keep things simple enough.
Additional changes I would consider:
- Should there actually be a risk in hitting an ally in the middle of melee? I know it's a risk, but we treat shooting at one target of a pair of dodging enemies differently than if we are shooting an ally and an enemy. If you miss in the first case, you don't check to see if you hit the other enemy.
- Should flanking be given to ranged attacks? I know that this rule is often done to keep a balance between range and melee, but I don't think it makes much sense. if the concern is that there should be a trade-off, perhaps ranged attacks should do less damage (d4-d6-d8)
On the sbject of HP as "luck" or "meat", I would say that "luck" still counts because it wears you down. I think the issue is that poison should inflict a condition, from Poisoned to Exhaustion Levels to make it notable. So a small amount of arrow damage but a failed poison save is a small nick that still poisons you. Something that reduces the damage to zero (Damage reduction like HAM) could negate this completely.
Good points as always Sean!
DeleteLet's see...
- Str prerequisites - this idea makes a lot of sense... Right now, I'm using fixed damage (from 1 to 7) and limiting the maximum damage you can deal to your Str bonus. So, if you have a longsword (5 damage) and +3 Str you would only deal 6 (3+3) damage. Not sure I'm 100% satisfied, but seems to work well.
- Should there actually be a risk in hitting an ally in the middle of melee? I think so. Maybe if you roll a nat 1, roll again to see if you hit other target (ally or not).
- Should flanking be given to ranged attacks? This is a difficult one. If you're fighting someone, dodging an arrow is harder.. but hitting you is also harder. Not sure.
- HP is... well, lot's of things. Currently I'm using it for combat, only; I used Constitution damage for poison/etc. for a while, now I'm not sure.
Lot's of stuff to consider.
Merry Christmas!
- To revise on the STR prerequisite to make it clear, it's more a variable thing that says one's higher strength can d more damage with a smaller weapon (can swing it harder) but if you make the weapon's prerequisite, you can swing it well enough to do the damage, but perhaps not hard enough to do the "extra" damage.
DeleteIt's a revision of the encumbrance thought process of trying to make weapon choice per character make a difference without being too fiddly. Of course this might fall off more at the low end with daggers. I would say the Str requisite for a dagger is 5 or so, which means that a straight scaling gives the damage of 1 + (Str score - 5/modifier) which may still end up being too fiddly. Perhaps standardising these categories of Str thresholds would make the modifiers static enough that they can be calculated once and applied accordingly. So a dagger would be smaller than a shortsword (for a given Light weapon) and thus have a different scaling for threshold and damage bonus.
-I would be happy with just a general shooting into the crowd re-roll, as it keeps it consistant between shooting an ally vs just anyone in the crowd. Never been a fan of this only applying to friendly fire, as I have ahd people who bought too much into the "natural 1 = bad things happen" to have 1 player character massive damage drop another character (that was retconned) because it was natural 1 against enemy to successful hit on a high damage shot. Having this as a rule for any crowd targeting, while still resulting in friendly fire also is a general rule that isn't player punishing.
- The flanking rule is a toss up. I always think it should apply because I think of it in terms of denying a shield bonus to every attack against you. You may still have the crowd shooting from before as well.
- HP as luck is more my reasoning behind why the numbers keep climbing up. I really just think poisons should not do damage like HP. Then agian, I started with Basic, and Poison just killed you dead then or sometimes Con damage (but that may be DM houseruling based on pity).