Crossbows?

[AndrewTall]

A crossbow can be fired from a prone position - a shortbow can be fired if kneeling but (barring some recurve bows) a longbow needs the wielder to be standing - a 6-7' bow doesn't clear the ground otherwise. The crossbow is therefore very useful when hunting wary prey or as a weapon of assassination.

The low rate of fire of a crossbow compared to a longbow is crippling and probably outweighed most other considerations (much like muskets were often preferred over early rifles due to the relatively high rate of fire) - but against heavily armoured opponents the punch of a heavy crossbow can be devastating.

One potential option to represent the advantages of crossbows is to allow crossbows to ignore armour bonuses up to a certain level (whatever works in your campaign) making hits by low level opponents far more likely on tanked up fighter PC's... After the PC's get hit a few times they may come to like crossbows themselves.

Personally I like the idea of a 'dwarven wall' modeled on the British square (if you've seen the Michael Caine film 'Zulu' you'll know what I mean). Dwarves have the discipline necessary for the formation, and should be able to do something similar with crossbows.

One BR training rule would be to allow elite archers (longbowmen) only after a prolonged training time or a decree that all youths must learn the bow. A few months intensive training with the bow should give basic adequacy - more than is necessary for crossbows by far but not much in terms of the time that ancient generals considered necessary to make veterans of peasants (5-10 years from dim recollection).

[tpdarkdraco]

I have been using these house rules in my BR Campaign.

xbows: +2 hit a close range
Longbows: +2 hit at long range

This is my attempt to use the historical stuff. Crossbows were known to be deadly at close range and easy to use and the longbow was famous in its long range ability to kill.

[Retillin]

Xbow vs Bow.

Bow-
cheaper
great for volley attacks
high rate of fire
lighter (easier to transport)

Xbow-
easier to aim (train with)
very good at getting through armour
can be mass produced (in later times, this makes it easier to repair)

So it really comes down to Xbows (IMO) being better for pc who is going to fight a lot of knights or a bow for someone who is going to be fighting more monsters.

I am sure I'm leaving a lot out of this, however 46 hours being up had destroyed my mind tonight. Please forgive my errors.

[Beruin]

The low rate of fire of a crossbow compared to a longbow is crippling and probably outweighed most other considerations (much like muskets were often preferred over early rifles due to the relatively high rate of fire) - but against heavily armoured opponents the punch of a heavy crossbow can be devastating.

I currently consider fiddling with the combat system by adding a defence value to class levels and switching to damage reducing armour. In addition, every weapon would gain an armour piercing value, which reduces or eliminates the damage reduction. This system could neatly simulate the penetrating power of crossbows.


So far however, I'm still not quite sure which of several available options to use, and I'm also not sure if I can see all the repercussions this might have on gameplay (for instance, natural armour and touch spells would be certainly influenced). If anyone has experimented with such a system, I would like to hear how this turned out and especially which problems occurred.

As an afterthought however, the reload times for crossbows are really fast, - too fast compared to historical reality, which makes D&D crossbows better than their historical equivalents.

[stv2brown1988]

The French were so contemptueous of their own hired Genoese crossbows that after they would fire, they would ride through them from behind to charge the enemy. Some of this might be distain for mercenaries, foriegners, or even their style of combat, but you can be sure that if they were really effective, they would be respected.

Thanks for the input! You touched on another question I had with this quote. How do you get rid of mercenaries when you no longer need them? I do not think the King/Jarls of Halskapa will charge through their own mercenaries to attack the Siren's troops. This tatic could work in Anuire (Ghoere) and Khinasi (Binsada) and of course any Goblin/Vos army. But I would think Rjurik (Respect for life) and Brecht (Assets) would treat them better. I would think the Brecht could sell their own mercenaries to neighboring lands but others are left with disbanding them and risking the banditry (sp?) from the fallout.

Steve

[kgauck]

I currently consider fiddling with the combat system by adding a defence value to class levels and switching to damage reducing armour. [...] If anyone has experimented with such a system, I would like to hear how this turned out and especially which problems occurred.

My armor class system is here. I have been very satisfied with it.

[kgauck]

Riding through the crossbowmen didn't so much kill them as just disturb them greatly. I don't think the knights gave them a heads up about their plan to ride through them, they just just did it.

Disbanding mercenaries is always a problem because they tend to just work for themselves (against the local citizenry) when they are discharged. Discharging regulars who served for several years can produce the same effects for soldiers who either don't want to go home or are too much attached to using force to get their way to return to being a commoner.

Generally incidence of brigandry are connected to poor law enforcement, so you might consider every disbanded unit a contest action against the law holdings of the province (treating the unit as a single law holding). If the conest action is successful, brigands are formed by the disbanded unit. Resolve as the random event "Brigandry".

[RaspK_FOG]

There are lots of things that cannot be replicated, unless you accept resorting to either DM fiat or complicated tables. For example, a estoc can easily overcome chainmail, but it would be much less capable of punching through a full plate harness.

If you are going to go that way, first of all, do consider to grant armours a small AC bonus - in reality, that's half their job, really; there are two kinds of hits that armour protects you from: those that hit solidly but whose momentum is reduced by the armour, and those that would have otherwise connected but do not do so due to the armour, glancing off. The first are represented beautifully by damage reduction mechanics, but the second are not: a good set of armour can glance off even some very powerful blows, but can fail to do so with less powerful but more solid hits.

So, ideally, you should use a damage reduction bonus (yes, this should stack with other DR ratings the creature has), an AC bonus (starting from +0), and you should define how the following 6 kinds of damage interact with them: bashing/crushing, slashing/hacking, and puncturing/piercing (the former of each two is the kind of damage that can be blocked easily by protection, while the latter has greater penetrating power).

For example, a full plate harness is nigh impenetrable from puncturing damage (no pun intented), whereas a piercing weapon (i.e. a spear or lance) can actually punch through it. Likewise, a bashing weapon (i.e. a small club) is of little consequence to anyone wearing such armour, but a crushing weapon (i.e. a warhammer, maul, mace, or the like) are more likely to deliver their damage.

[Lee]

In a message dated 11/27/2007 2:38:32 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:

I was looking for something that either made it easier to hit with a
crossbow or a rule about mustering crossbowmen or training levies into crossbowmen
is easier/cheaper/faster than normal archers (bows). Does this make any
sense to anyone else?


In 3rd ed., crossbows are "simple" weapons, which means nearly all classes
know how to use them without penalty. Bows are "martial" weapons, so only
fighters and the like can use them without penalty (unless they spend the feat
on it, or they have some other special thing). Elves of all kinds can use
bows without penalty.

I would also point out that crossbows have a wider critical threat range
(10%), vs. a bow`s 5%, and have bigger damage dice (d8/d10 vs. d6/d8).

In short, unless you`ve been trained on bows, the crossbow is a much
better weapon.

Lee.



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[geeman]

At 11:38 AM 11/27/2007, stv2brown1988 wrote:

>Maybe I got my history wrong but I thought most RL armies swtched to
>the Crossbow from the bow due to the fact that it was easier to
>train troops to hit a target with a crossbow instead of a
>bow. Having fired both when I was a kid I remember hitting the bale
>of hay with the crossbow almost everytime but missing completly with
>the bow for many shots. (This was within the first two range bands)

That`s basically correct. Crossbows kind of straddle the deployment
and technological line between bows and firearms. It is harder to
hit targets under point blank range with a bow than with a crossbow,
but once one has to deal with an arc of fire the crossbow is harder
to use. Quite a lot of combat happens at relatively close range
right up until the 20th century, though, the crossbow is generally
better if not for the terrible ROF. IMO, crossbows get something of
a break when it comes to ROF in D&D, especially heavy ones, but the
speed with which many things happen is a bit questionable, so c`est la vie.

That said, crossbows are "democratic" in the sense that they allow
for the common man to have a weapon that can penetrate the heavy
armor of his social superiors. They aren`t quite as democratic as
firearms, of course, but that`s certainly part of the appeal. One
needn`t have a dedicated social class that practices such weapons on
a full-time basis and employs very expensive military equipment. A
lot of the social and legal aspects of how crossbows were treated
comes from exactly this distinction. Many folks (the knightly
classes, that is) viewed the crossbow as the weapon of cowards or
otherwise morally repugnant people. That the crossbow eliminated
their social advantage is certainly a factor in that assessment.

So if one wanted to make the argument (and I suppose I just have)
that the crossbow`s development and deployment is as much a social
issue as a military one then I suppose one could. The technology
itself is not particularly esoteric, so other factors should be taken
into consideration. Using a crossbow is as much a social statement
as it is a military one, and all that has to do with the social
conditions of feudalism after the social effects of the Black Death
and the beginning of the Renaissance.

>I was looking for something that either made it easier to hit with a
>crossbow or a rule about mustering crossbowmen or training levies
>into crossbowmen is easier/cheaper/faster than normal archers
>(bows). Does this make any sense to anyone else?

The more I look at this kind of stuff the more I like two things:

First, armor should have a DR function, not simply an AC
function. Second, weapons should have a Penetration (Pen) value in
addition to a damage die/dice and critical hit values. After all,
someone is not more difficult to hit because he`s wearing armor; the
blow is just absorbed or deflected because of that armor. The
deflection aspect of armor still works as an AC mod, but it should be
reduced and factored along with a DR function. There are D20 books
that do precisely that. Basically, the AC mod for armor is split
into AC and DR, generally right in half. Personally, I think all the
armor types should be taken into consideration on an individual
basis, with DR interacting with damage values the same way BAB and AC
interact... but I digress into homebrewing that might be a bit more
than what you were asking about.

Gary