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Ashtagon
2011-03-05, 03:59 PM
Sling: Free action to reload. Use either Strength of Wisdom (attacker's choice) as a modifier to damage rolls. Confirmed: the 50 ft range limit is correct and realistic based on real-world data.

Bow: Use Wisdom as a modifier to damage rolls. Any character who wants to walk around for longer than a minute or so with a bow (or mighty bow) drawn ready to fire, should suffer all the normal penalties of being fatigued. Holding a drawn bow is not easy.

Mighty Bow: This is the 'composite' bow renamed to avoid issues of confused archery terminology. Use either Strength of Wisdom (attacker's choice) as a modifier to damage rolls. Base damage for mighty bows is one die step up from regular bows (i.e. 1d10 for longbows, 1d8 for short bows).

Crossbows: Use Wisdom as a modifier to damage rolls. Hand crossbow and light crossbow take a move action to reload (swift action with Rapid Reload feat). Heavy crossbow takes a full-round action to reload (move action with Rapid Reload feat). Base damage is 1d6 for hand crossbow, 1d10 for light crossbow, and 2d8 for heavy crossbow. Note that crossbows never benefit from iterative attacks.

The crossbow damage revision is the most significant part. This now means crossbows are the superior ranged weapon right up until iterative attacks kick in, when it falls from grace in favour of bows. This better reflects the historical reality and narrative tropes where longbows were superior in the hands of someone trained since his grandfather, but crossbows could be put in the hands of a raw recruit and made effective soldiers quickly.

Adding an ability modifier to ranged weapon damage was necessary in order to keep them vaguely comparable in damage to melee. Without it, you're just plinking away. Wisdom is the primary damage boost stat, based on the idea that it represents perceptive skills, and lets you draw a precise bead on a target more easily (and having attack, damage, and AC all coming from one stat was just too good, so Dexterity would have been unfair). Those ranged weapons that get Strength for damage under core rules (slings and mighty bows) got it as an optional choice for the attacker to decide.

New Feat

Master Slinger

Prerequisite: Dexterity 15, base attack bonus +1.

Benefit: Add 50% to the range increment when using a sling of staff-sling. This stacks with Far Shot, for an overall doubling of the range increment. In addition, the base damage is increased by one die step (i.e. from 1d4 to 1d6 for Medium slings).

Thoughts?

Hawriel
2011-03-06, 02:04 AM
The jump from a d10 for a light and to 2d8 is a little much. The d10 is a little to open ended for a bolt. I just never liked 10 damage for that reason.

Would 2d4 light cross and 2d6 heavy cross work better? It keeps it closer to the melee equivilent (long sword, two handed) yet doesnt go over the top in base die damage. The better average goes along with having a wooden shaft and arrow head lodged in the body.

If your adding wisdom to a damage bonus for precision damage, should it then fallow the standerd rules? Not multiplied in the crit and requiring the target to be flat footed. Just like sneak attack or the swashbucklers Int damage bonus. Wisdom bonuses would not be applied to undead or other crit immune targets. Would it then defalt to strength damage?

I agree holding a drawn bow for a length of time should cause fatigue. However a minut might be to long a time for it to set it. After all what character is going to hold a drawn bow for 10 rounds? How about becoming fatigued after holding the draw over the character's strengh or con bonus in rounds. Most special attacks that give a bonus to hit when aiming only have a max of three rounds. Basing the hold on STR or CON would keep it with that limit for the average character. The endurence feat could give a bonus to the characters hold limit as well.

Ashtagon
2011-03-06, 03:02 AM
The jump from a d10 for a light and to 2d8 is a little much. The d10 is a little to open ended for a bolt. I just never liked 10 damage for that reason.

I agree that is a big jump. However, it is quite a necessary one, given the statistics. Including an assumed ability score bonus of +3 for a low-level (i.e. BAB +1 to +5) character, that gives an average damage per round of 8.5 for a light crossbow (and same for a bastard sword, coincidentally), and 6 for a heavy crossbow (or 12 dps for a heavy crossbow with Rapid Reload). And once you have iterative attacks, the crossbow rapidly becomes an inferior weapon, because with this rules fix, crossbows never get iteratives.


Would 2d4 light cross and 2d6 heavy cross work better? It keeps it closer to the melee equivalent (long sword, two handed) yet doesn't go over the top in base die damage. The better average goes along with having a wooden shaft and arrow head lodged in the body.

Thing about averages is, over a PC's lifetime he is going to make a few hundred attacks anyway. That goes far enough toward making the average damage without needing to adjust the dice to have a 2dx roll.

If 12 still seems really really high, remember this is the weapon that the pope banned as being "deathly and hateful to God" in 1139 AD (link (http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/chronology.html)). Even the bastard sword (whose name quite literally means "illegitimate"), longbow, and battleaxe didn't get a ban in mediaeval times.


If your adding wisdom to a damage bonus for precision damage, should it then fallow the standerd rules? Not multiplied in the crit and requiring the target to be flat footed. Just like sneak attack or the swashbucklers Int damage bonus. Wisdom bonuses would not be applied to undead or other crit immune targets. Would it then default to strength damage?

To keep things simple, the Wisdom bonus follows all the exact same benefits and restrictions as any Strength bonus to damage. Remember, a "hit" in D&D doesn't just represent making contact, but making contact in a meaningful location at a meaningful angle with enough pressure to cause damage. It's not just about being aware of your target, but also your body posture as well. Put too much body weight on one foot, and your aim with a bow will be off. Fail to spin up a sling with the right speed and release at the right moment, and damage and aim will be off. Self-awareness is at last as important as target-awareness. That too is Wisdom. Being aware of your stance when loosing an arrow makes a far bigger difference than most non-archers realise.


I agree holding a drawn bow for a length of time should cause fatigue. However a minute might be to long a time for it to set it. After all what character is going to hold a drawn bow for 10 rounds? How about becoming fatigued after holding the draw over the character's strength or con bonus in rounds. Most special attacks that give a bonus to hit when aiming only have a max of three rounds. Basing the hold on STR or CON would keep it with that limit for the average character. The Endurance feat could give a bonus to the characters hold limit as well.

Even three rounds would be too short. For a person using a bow designed for their strength, a minute is entirely reasonable.

A minute is about the time that Olympic archers get per shot in tournament rules. Seemed like a reasonable amount of time. And it also seemed reasonable from personal experience as an archer. Realistically, you won't get any additional aiming bonus after two full rounds of aiming, but the extra time does become meaningful in any kind of Mexican stand-off or parlay situation. It's basically intended to be enough time to prepare an ambush or prepare to kick down a door, but not enough for a player to legitimately say he was walking around the dungeon with longbow drawn and ready.

As for actual aiming rules, a new feat:

Marksman

Prerequisite: Wisdom 11.
Benefit: Each consecutive move action or standard action you spend aiming with an atlatl, blowpipe, bow, or crossbow, you gain a +1 bonus on your attack roll for the next shot, to a maximum bonus of +2.
Normal: Each consecutive full-round action you spend aiming with an atlatl, blowpipe, bow, or crossbow, you gain a +1 bonus on your attack roll for the next shot, to a maximum bonus of +2.
Note: You never gain an aiming bonus when using a sling or a staff-sling.

Spiryt
2011-03-06, 03:06 AM
I can't honestly see any problem with Composite bows from 'standard' 3.5, save from silly name, really.

Any bow had it's strength, and it worked just well.

Ashtagon
2011-03-06, 03:16 AM
I can't honestly see any problem with Composite bows from 'standard' 3.5, save from silly name, really.

Any bow had it's strength, and it worked just well.

That reminds me of something I knew I forgot to mention about my house rules for weapon proficiencies, which is very relevant to mighty bows.

Mighty bows (long and short) require the Weapon Proficiency (mighty bow) feat (Prerequisite: Strength 13) to unlock proficiency in them. This creates an additional barrier to justify the higher damage, and simultaneously removes the fact that price (irrelevant from 2nd level and up) is the only balancing factor in the core rules. There is also just one "mighty longbow" and one "mighty short bow" - I discarded the +"n" concept as a needless complication. Summarised, the differences between my bows and my mighty bows are:


Mighty bows require an additional feat for proficiency.
Mighty bows are more expensive.
Mighty bows have +10 feet range increment compared to bows.
Mighty bows have +1 die size damage compared to bows.
Mighty bows can add either the user's Strength or Wisdom modifier to damage (regular bows can only add the Wisdom modifier).


ETA:

Here are my numbers I ran to prepare these damage values. I made the following assumptions:

At BAB +1 through to +5, the average character has a +3 bonus on his primary damage bonus stat; +4 at BAB +6 through +10, +5 at BAB +11 through +15, and +6 at BAB +16 through +20.
A modestly optimised character has a 75% chance of a hit against a level appropriate opponent. This means the first iterative attack multiples the average dps by 1.666, the second iterative makes that multiplier x2, and the third iterative makes the damage multiplier x2.2.
I assumed the effect of critical hits was either trivial, or equivalent across weapons (i.e. too lazy to calculate the subtle differences).


And the numbers:


Weapon: (BAB+1), (BAB+6), (BAB+11), (BAB+16)
Mighty longbow: 8.5, 15.2, 21, 25.3 (also applies to most d10 weapons)
Longbow: 7.5, 13.6, 19, 23.1 (also applies to most d8 weapons)
Short bow: 6.5, 12, 17, 20.9 (also applies to most d6 weapons)
Sling: 5.5, 10.4, 15, 18.7 (also applies to most d4 weapons)
Hand crossbow: 6.5, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5
Light crossbow: 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5
Heavy crossbow: 12, 13, 14, 15 (halve these numbers without Rapid Reload feat)

Land Outcast
2011-03-06, 07:20 AM
Have a table :smallsmile::

{table=head]Weapon|(BAB+1)|(BAB+6)|(BAB+11)|(BAB+16)|Notes
Mighty longbow|
8.5|
15.2|
21|
25.3|(also applies to most d10 weapons)
Longbow|
7.5|
13.6|
19|
23.1|(also applies to most d8 weapons)
Short bow|
6.5|
12|
17|
20.9|(also applies to most d6 weapons)
Sling|
5.5|
10.4|
15|
18.7|(also applies to most d4 weapons)
Hand crossbow|
6.5|
7.5|
8.5|
9.5|
Light crossbow|
8.5|
9.5|
10.5|
11.5|
Heavy crossbow|
12|
13|
14|
15|(halve these numbers without Rapid Reload feat)[/table]

I like the modifications stated in the main post, they give more character to the weapons and give a reason to use heavy crossbows aside from not having martial weapon proficiency.

On requiring a feat to use Mighty bows, I'm afraid it might tax archers even further than they are... Perhaps it could have some added benefit?

Same goes for the Marksman feat... perhaps roll Point Blank Shot into it? or at least say that if you ahve PBS its range increases to 60 feet?

Ashtagon
2011-03-06, 07:48 AM
I like the modifications stated in the main post, they give more character to the weapons and give a reason to use heavy crossbows aside from not having martial weapon proficiency.

On requiring a feat to use Mighty bows, I'm afraid it might tax archers even further than they are... Perhaps it could have some added benefit?

Considering how much the basic bow was upgraded in my revision, I'm not sure there is a need. For comparison, the RAW longbow would have the following set of numbers in my table above: 4.5, 7.2, 9, 9.9 (yeah, archery really was plinking away under RAW). In effect, I gave the 'composite' longbow's damage to the regular longbow, and made a mighty longbow as what amounts to an EWP for those who want to eke out that tiny bit extra damage with archery. Basically, the mighty bow WP is no longer necessary to have a decent amount of dps.


Same goes for the Marksman feat... perhaps roll Point Blank Shot into it? or at least say that if you have PBS its range increases to 60 feet?

One of these days I am going to seriously go through every ranged weapon feat and fix the whole list. PBS is certainly going to be dropped as a general prerequisite.