Crossbows?

[DanMcSorley]

On Nov 26, 2007 6:56 PM, Sinister <brnetboard@birthright.net> wrote:
> If I remember right crossbows in AD&D in Birthright were better than common DnD crossbows. Is this in the BRCS?

It`s not necessary. 3e crossbows got a significant power boost. A
heavy crossbow does 1d10 19-20/x2 now, and a light does 1d8 19-20/x2.
That`s actually better than the 2nd edition BR crossbows. Baseline
2nd edition crossbows only did 1d4 or 1d4+1.

--
Daniel McSorley

[vota dc]

The crossbow was the prefered bow in the high middle ages for the reasons you mention, but the development of a compound longbow c.1300 turned English archers into a tremendous combat force. As in all things, the English were immitated, even without the compound bows.

Also, keep in mind that accuracy is nearly irrelevant in war. The "target" is a large body of men called an army, and it is very large. Plus you don't have to hit anything to cause people to get nervous, take cover, and activate their self-preservation instincts. Put a thousand arrows into the air in the right general direction, and you're bound to hit something. And even when you hit only a few people, they will take cover during the archery. Its sufficient to keep them huddled under their shields while your cavalry moved down-field towards them.

Of course having good archers is better than having bad archers, but for most medieval armies, bad archers were suffcient, and no effort was made to imporve thier archers' quality.

Crossbows do have good armor penetration, but their rate of fire is so poor, they basically get one good shot at the begining of a combat, and then they have little use. 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.

A trained archer/crossbowman doesn't have only better aim,but can recharge faster.
So bad archers and crossbowmen have nearly the same rate of fire,but a good archer has an excellent rate of fire,the only problem is that archer's training require a lot of time and for this reason France never used the longbow.

Now that I'm thinking about both longbow and the soldier of "Zulu" are Welsh.....Welsh are supermen!

[Beruin]

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.

I take an AC bonus for armour into account, but the AC bonus will probably be about halved for each type of armour. I'm using the several systems outlined in Unearthed Arcana and the combat system of Conan d20 as a base. I especially like UA's idea that armour converts damage to non lethal damage. That way, combat mostly plays out as normal, but there's a greater chance for unconsciousness and armour can be a real live-saver.

With regard to how certain armour types interact with different types of damage, I believe that such a system might be more realistic, but it would also be nigh unplayable. Back in 1st and 2nd edition, I tried once or thrice to use the rules how different weapons affect different armour AC boni. It was quite impossible without the game grinding to a halt while the players or I tried to make sense of the complicated tables.
However, assigning an armour piercing value (AP) to weapons takes some of your concerns into acount, I believe. An example:

Tordek wears a set of full plate, which offers him an AC bonus of +5 and also converts 10 points of damage into non-lethal damage. He his hit by a club (AP 0) for 6 points of damage. Since the club has AP 0, all of this damage is converted into non-lethal damage. He certainly feels the hit, but it's in no way life-threatening to him. Next he is attacked with a warhammer and takes 8 points of damage. Since the warhammer has an AP of 7, only 3 points of damage are non-lethal, 5 are lethal damage. Ouch, that really hurt.

A heavy crossbow, to stay at least somewhat on topic, might have an AP of 10 or even more, applying all of its damage as lethal against Tordek.

Well, I haven't crunched the numbers yet and several questions remain, as what to do with enhancement boni - do these just add to AC or also to the damage conversion rate of armour? Nevertheless, you get the general idea, I hope.

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

I've re-read your system and the accompanying discussion and your system looks viable enough. However, I'd like to know for what level of play you have used it so far. I believe your system works fine for low to mid-levels of play, but might break down somewhat later, as your defence progression is quite slow compared to BAB (and discounting a later proliferation of magical armour).

Another point is that I would prefer a bit more differentiation between different armours, but that's personal taste.

As a sidenote regarding Geeman's reply , Conan d20 uses two types of defence, one for dodging, one for parrying. Character classes are usually only good at one type of defence, and each type cannot be used under certain circumstances. For example, you need an unoccupied 5-foot-square next to you to dodge and you can't parry missile attacks. This is once again a bit more realistic, but I fear it might also confuse my players.

[Lee]

Now that I`m thinking about both longbow and the soldier of "Zulu" are Welsh.....Welsh are supermen!

And they can sing across more octaves than the Zulu! The "Men of Harlech" scene rawked. But, it was the rest of the same Welsh battalion that got chopped up at Isandlhwana, see the movie "Zulu Dawn." The 24th was something of a hard-luck regiment, they often got caught in sticky spots.

Lee.

[AndrewTall]

Honesty forces me to add to Lee's comment to note that the "English longbow" is about as English as Glenmorangie... we swiped the design off the Welsh of course.

[kgauck]

Honesty forces me to add to Lee's comment to note that the "English longbow" is about as English as Glenmorangie... we swiped the design off the Welsh of course.

Who adapted a viking bow that was quite old.