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JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 06:37 AM
Has anyone ever wondered why Slings, a weapon that's really quite hard to even get the basics of using, are considerd Simple weapons and Great Clubs, a weapon that's essentially a really big stick that you swing at someones face, are Martial?

It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Does anyone else have puzzlement over similar things?

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 06:45 AM
I won't say that fighting with Greatclub would be very easy. Maybe it's just big stick, but...
But take some big branch and try to swing it around...

And sling... I'm afraid that rules are just not meant to be realistic...

Sling is not very good weapon - full strenght damage with quite good range, but realoding after every shot.
So it's simple, for characters who are not very skilled in using weapons.:smallsigh:

That's why I think that weapon profinency system from 2nd edition was actually better.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-10, 06:46 AM
It's more about how often you encounter those things in your line of work. Eg, a simple shepherd might have a Sling, and a Quarterstaff(walking stick), while only a trained warrior would have experience swinging tree branches as big as their thigh.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 06:50 AM
Game balance. All simple weapons do below-average damage, have mediocre criticals, and little or no specials. Martial weapons do better damage, better crit range or multiplier, and possibly specials (like trip/disarm). Exotic are a step better again. At least that's the idea. Balance.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 06:53 AM
I really hate the phrase "game balance"....:smallannoyed:

oh well, I thought I'd get the answers I did, but I thought I'd ask anyways...

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 06:56 AM
Great Club does below-average damage for a two-handed martial weapon, has a mediocre crit and no specials. Its only redeeming features are being cheap and looking cool in the Tome of Battle.

B!shop
2007-07-10, 07:02 AM
It's more about how often you encounter those things in your line of work. Eg, a simple shepherd might have a Sling, and a Quarterstaff(walking stick), while only a trained warrior would have experience swinging tree branches as big as their thigh.

I agree with AtomicKitKat.

Slings are far more common than great clubs, and this should mean that it's use is more common than other weapons.

Also, try to get a sling and shoot: you probably won't hit your target, but hey, you shooted with it. Very simple use.

Then try to even lift something like a great club and swing it.
At best you'll spin on yourself swinging for the weight of the weapon.
At worst you'll fall following the great club.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 07:12 AM
Also, try to get a sling and shoot: you probably won't hit your target, but hey, you shooted with it. Very simple use.

Then try to even lift something like a great club and swing it.
At best you'll spin on yourself swinging for the weight of the weapon.
At worst you'll fall following the great club.

But being proficient with a weapon means that you should be able to hit a target. Just pick up a sling and try to fire a bullet out of it - I would be willing to bet that the bullet doesn't even leave the sling (I know it didn't the first time I tried), let alone hit a stationary target (let alone a moving one). Now pick up a big stick and try to hit a stationary target in front of you...did you hit? I bet you did. Which one is easier to use?

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 07:15 AM
Now pick up a big stick and try to hit a stationary target in front of you...did you hit? I bet you did. Which one is easier to use?

That's actually a very good point. Certain weapons are way more difficult to learn than others, and slings happen to be one of them. As I recall, in military history, professional slingers were pretty lethal (using lead bullets rather than rocks), far more than the 1d4 damage would suggest.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 07:18 AM
Still i support AtomicKitKat theory: every guywho can afford some sling and train a little can hit target fairly easily from not big distance ( 50 ft - only 15 meters).

Hitting something effectively with big stick won't be easy.


a stationary target in front of you.

There won't be any stationary target in fight.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 07:19 AM
That's actually a very good point. Certain weapons are way more difficult to learn than others, and slings happen to be one of them. As I recall, in military history, professional slingers were pretty lethal (using lead bullets rather than rocks), far more than the 1d4 damage would suggest.

This is absolutely true...there are stories (and evidence to support them) about skulls behing found with a thin veneer of lead coated on the inside, just opposite a small hole...it puzzled scholars for years until they realised that lead sling bullets actually melt in flight. Yes, that's right, a sling should do Fire damage as standard and it certainly isn't an easy waepon to use.

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 07:20 AM
The sling's status as a simple weapon might come from it's ease of construction and the prevalence of ammunition. Because of those two factors, many people would conceivably get one and then train until they could be considered proficient. And thus it can be considered one of those weapons many people know how to use, i.e. a simple weapon. I know it's a bit shaky rationalization, but it'd be a bit silly to give Commoners access to a martial weapon.

The great club being a martial weapon completely confounds me, however. And just why can't a short sword be used to cut?


There won't be any stationary target in fight.
Of course there will be. Tents, wagons, unconscious foes, glassware, ropes holding heavy objects, campfires, etc.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 07:24 AM
Still i support AtomicKitKat theory: every guywho can afford some sling and train a little can hit target fairly easily from not big distance ( 50 ft - only 15 meters).

Hitting something effectively with big stick won't be easy.

There won't be any stationary target in fight.

By the same reasoning, every guy who can afford to pick up a tree branch and train a little can use a Great Club.

Hitting something effectively with a sling is definitely harder than doing so with a club

If hitting a stationary target with a sling is harder than hitting a stationary target with a club, then surely hitting a moving target with a sling will be harder than hitting a moving target with a Greatclub?

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 07:25 AM
far more than the 1d4 damage would suggest.

They deal 1d4 + strenght. I also heard that they were pretty lethal - but obviously they were more common in places where you couldn't find material for good bow. And certainly lead bullet were almost 100% innefective against any metal, firm armor, scale mail e.c.

So i think 1d4 plus strenght is pretty good for D&D.
Still it's better than crossbows :smalltongue:, (With 16 strenght deal statisticaly more damage than Lcrossbow (4-7 against 1-8 and reload is faster than Hcrossbow). As silly at it can appear.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 07:28 AM
They deal 1d4 + strenght. I also heard that they were pretty lethal - but obviously they were more common in places where you couldn't find material for good bow. And certainly lead bullet were almost 100% innefective against any metal, firm armor, scale mail e.c.

So i think 1d4 plus strenght is pretty good for D&D.
Still it's better than crossbows :smalltongue:, (With 16 strenght deal statisticaly more damage than Lcrossbow (4-7 against 1-8 and reload is faster than Hcrossbow). As silly at it can appear.

Bizarrely, it's rather the point of a sling that you don't need a lot of strength to use it to great effect, whereas you do need a certain amount of strength to effectively use a Bow (or load a crossbow for that matter).

Oh, and I'd dispute that slings are ineffective vs. metal armour...go to some museums and take a look at the battle damage slings can cause....you thought modern bullets gave nasty wounds?

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-10, 07:49 AM
Lead is squishy. If, like you said, they do indeed start melting mid-flight, they're utterly ineffective vs metal armour, and only marginally useful vs leather(since the mass would be distributed over the impact zone)

Looking at the greatclub, it's about as difficult to swing one as a 5kg(11 lb) dumbbell(accounting for difference in distribution of mass, etc.). You also have to recover from the swing fast enough to deliver 10 attacks in 6 seconds(if we assume the usual "Not every swing is an 'attack roll'.")

Roderick_BR
2007-07-10, 07:56 AM
But being proficient with a weapon means that you should be able to hit a target. Just pick up a sling and try to fire a bullet out of it - I would be willing to bet that the bullet doesn't even leave the sling (I know it didn't the first time I tried), let alone hit a stationary target (let alone a moving one). Now pick up a big stick and try to hit a stationary target in front of you...did you hit? I bet you did. Which one is easier to use?
According to that logic, a bastard sword or a dwarven waraxe is easier to use than a sling.

Kinda off topic: Halfling rogues doesn't have proficiency with slings :smalltongue:

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 08:02 AM
Kinda off topic: Halfling rogues doesn't have proficiency with slings :smalltongue:
Oh? Are they somehow different from normal Rogues?

Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, shortbow, and short sword.

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 08:03 AM
simple vs martial is also how available training is.

slings are used very commonly; most people in a non-tech world probably learn at least the basics to hunt. And as hard as they seem to use when you first pick one up, they're not as complicated as you may think, not much more so than throwing a baseball.

Clubs are also common, but they're not useful for hunting, so there's much less people around to train you to fight with it. There's a world of difference between knowing how to swing a stick around and knowing how to actually do damage with one.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 08:11 AM
slings are used very commonly; most people in a non-tech world probably learn at least the basics to hunt.

And you base that assumption on what, exactly? Farmers don't hunt much. City folk don't hunt period.

Dervag
2007-07-10, 08:23 AM
Sling is not very good weapon - full strenght damage with quite good range, but realoding after every shot.
So it's simple, for characters who are not very skilled in using weapons.:smallsigh:

That's why I think that weapon profinency system from 2nd edition was actually better.Reloading after every shot is the norm for missile weapons, though. Compared to modern magazine firearms it's a serious disadvantage, but it's true of all the missile weapons in D&D except for the repeating crossbow, which is supposed to be a freaky exotic high tech weapon.


That's actually a very good point. Certain weapons are way more difficult to learn than others, and slings happen to be one of them. As I recall, in military history, professional slingers were pretty lethal (using lead bullets rather than rocks), far more than the 1d4 damage would suggest.Slings rarely killed, though. They were more effective at disrupting, distracting, and concussing enemy soldiers than at killing them, because it's hard to focus on the enemy when somebody just clonked you upside the head with several ounces of swift-moving lead.

A sling can kill somebody, but it's not very likely to do so, especially if they're wearing some kind of armor.


This is absolutely true...there are stories (and evidence to support them) about skulls behing found with a thin veneer of lead coated on the inside, just opposite a small hole...it puzzled scholars for years until they realised that lead sling bullets actually melt in flight. Yes, that's right, a sling should do Fire damage as standard and it certainly isn't an easy waepon to use.I have a really hard time believing that without a specific reference and some modern tests. Heating metal, even lead, to the melting point takes quite a bit of energy. A bit of freshman physics and chemistry shows that to give a lead bullet enough kinetic energy that air resistance could conceivably heat it to the melting point, you'd have to get it moving at the speed of sound. And even then, that would require total conversion of the bullet's kinetic energy into heat in the bullet. Which would leave the bullet standing still, even if every bit of heat went into melting it rather than heating the air. To actually melt lead bullets would definitely take much higher speeds, and you'd need really bad aerodynamics on the bullet.

And, to emphasize the point, you'd have to get the sling bullet moving faster than the speed of sound to have any hope at all of melting it. Guns can do that. I very much doubt that slings can.


The sling's status as a simple weapon might come from it's ease of construction and the prevalence of ammunition. Because of those two factors, many people would conceivably get one and then train until they could be considered proficient. And thus it can be considered one of those weapons many people know how to use, i.e. a simple weapon. I know it's a bit shaky rationalization, but it'd be a bit silly to give Commoners access to a martial weapon.Well, the real meaning of a 'simple weapon' is that any given person can be assumed to be proficient in its use, not that every person in the world is.

For instance, it strains credulity to claim that every barbarian warrior is a proficient fencer who knows how to use a rapier effectively. But barbarians are proficient with all martial weapons, so a barbarian who picks up a rapier is presumed to know how to use it. The logical way of dealing with this is to rule that the barbarians who do pick up rapiers are the ones who have some idea of how to use them, while the ones who don't, by and large, do not because it's totally different from the spears and axes and chopping swords that barbarians traditionally use.

Assuming that everyone in the world is a proficient slinger is as weird as assuming that every barbarian warrior is a proficient fencer. It's more reasonable to assume that because slings are common, anyone can learn how to use them, so that there's no reason to penalize people mechanically when they try to use one. Unless, of course, you want to resurrect 2nd edition weapon proficiencies, which I for one do not.


According to that logic, a bastard sword or a dwarven waraxe is easier to use than a sling.Well, if you're trying to chop down a tree with it, a bastard sword or a dwarven waraxe probably is easy to use (yes, I know, you should never chop down a tree with a weapon because it's designed for chopping down people, not trees).

Winning a fight with it, on the other hand, is going to be quite difficult.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 08:37 AM
I have a really hard time believing that without a specific reference and some modern tests. Heating metal, even lead, to the melting point takes quite a bit of energy. A bit of freshman physics and chemistry shows that to give a lead bullet enough kinetic energy that air resistance could conceivably heat it
to the melting point, you'd have to get it moving at the speed of sound. And even then, that would require total conversion of the bullet's kinetic energy into heat in the bullet. Which would leave the bullet standing still, even if every bit of heat went into melting it rather than heating the air. To actually melt lead bullets would definitely take much higher speeds, and you'd need really bad aerodynamics on the bullet.




I fully agree with Dervag. It can be possible that lead bullet could melt a little during flight, and certainly were quite lethal but:

It's not possible for lead bullet to penetrate steel or iron armor. Especially when it is melted, even a little. Not to mention that bullet is circle, with no point of force concetration. I hardly doubt it can penetrate skull.

Break temporal bone into tiny craps?
- From reasonable distance - probably. I just read that sling bullets weight around 120 -150 g so they were pretty heavy

Penetrate the skull
- No.

Bend steel armor and break rib behind it?
- From close distance why not

Penetrate steel armor?
- No

I bet that those tales about super-duper slings are similar to all:

" Whith katana i can cut trough everything without delivering any power from myself" and some exaggerated tales about longbows e.c.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 08:41 AM
A sling can kill somebody, but it's not very likely to do so, especially if they're wearing some kind of armor.

I have a really hard time believing that without a specific reference and some modern tests. Heating metal, even lead, to the melting point takes quite a bit of energy. A bit of freshman physics and chemistry shows that to give a lead bullet enough kinetic energy that air resistance could conceivably heat it to the melting point, you'd have to get it moving at the speed of sound. And even then, that would require total conversion of the bullet's kinetic energy into heat in the bullet. Which would leave the bullet standing still, even if every bit of heat went into melting it rather than heating the air. To actually melt lead bullets would definitely take much higher speeds, and you'd need really bad aerodynamics on the bullet.

And, to emphasize the point, you'd have to get the sling bullet moving faster than the speed of sound to have any hope at all of melting it. Guns can do that. I very much doubt that slings can.

You doubt wrong. A sling used by a trained slinger does, in fact, propel the bullet faster than the speed of sound. That is why armour is less effective than you might think and that is why a lead sling bullet does, in fact, melt in flight (not the entire thing, it doesn't become a flying blob of liquid...just the exterior reaches melting point). I would give you some references, but I really can't be bothered to go find them. If you're that interested, the facts are out there.

The reason that slings went 'out of fashion' as far as warfare was concerned was because it took less training to train an Archer than a Slinger. Similarly, Crossbowmen replaced Archers and Rifle/Musketmen replaced Crossbowmen. it wasn't until the Rifle (not the Musket, they were a bit poo) was developed that as effective a projectile as the sling bullet was used again. Slings are a nasty piece of kit and in wargames/RPGs they are more often than not modelled incorrectly as being less effective and easier to use than bows or crossbows, because when people think 'sling' they think of 'catapult' (as in the toy used by Dennis the Menace to fire ink pellets and flour bombs at people, or as used by anglers to 'bait' water for fishing), rather than a 4-5' leather thong with a small piece of leather half-way up to hold the bullet.

edit: Oh, and a lead sling bullet is not a sphere. It is shaped like a bullet: pointed on both ends.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 08:58 AM
A sling used by a trained slinger does, in fact, propel the bullet faster than the speed of sound

Man, any proof of this revelations?

I just visited some sling sites, and i didn't found nothing about speed of sound. And on sling sites it's probable to find exaggerations about slings. Just like on longbows sites you will often find exaggerations about longbows.

I read that ussually bullet weight about 110 g.

So if will move faster than sound (344 m/s) - it will move around let's say 350m/s

Kinetic energy = 1/2 x mass x square of velocity

1/2 x 0,11 x 122500 (350 x 350)
= 6735 jules !!!

3 times bigger kinetic energy than AK-47!

With such results no-one will ever care about bows or crossbows, everyone will train slingers, no matter how long it will take to train them.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 09:00 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_%28weapon%29

"an effective range of around 200 meters — significantly farther than most bows of the period"

"projectiles can vary dramatically in size from pebbles weighing no more than 50g to fist-sized stones weighing 500g"

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 09:11 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_%28weapon%29

"an effective range of around 200 meters — significantly farther than most bows of the period"

"projectiles can vary dramatically in size from pebbles weighing no more than 50g to fist-sized stones weighing 500g"

So what? Still bullet weighting around 110 g couldn't do more damage than slighty lighter arrow (although many "less range - bigger ouch" arrows were 350g as well), which was sharp.

And I, with my "incredible" skills and 13 kg (slighty less than 30 pounds) bow with inappropriate bowstring, can quite easily release arrow at 200 meters. So i don't know where they took those range from.

Still, I realise that slings were dangerous weapon. But those tales about penetrating armors and speed of sound are myths.

Wolfbite
2007-07-10, 09:23 AM
You doubt wrong. A sling used by a trained slinger

I like Dervag's explanation. But I keep seeing this A sling used by a trained slinger.

First: Two words of the day are...Fantasy, Setting.

Second: From what I understand, slings were fairly common, in past times, to the point of kids playing around with them in whatever societies that may be...hell, growing up I messed around with slings and slingshots to pass the time, my grandpa took me up to the hills and showed me the way to smite gophers the way men did to save their horses...or some such thing.

Third: If you want to melt lead to your enemies heads, and showcase what a proficient master of timing and bullet-esque speeds the "Slingster" you are possess...I imagine you'd take the appropriate feats. That way no one can contest your ultimate powers, as you run through your campaign wielding your "+5 Sling of Giant Slaying!"

And ultimately if the Great Club/Sling debate is so troubling, just homebrew modify it in your D20 endeavours in a way it makes sense to you...problem solved. Although I suppose you could write a letter?

Matthew
2007-07-10, 09:23 AM
I would also be interested to be directed to academic papers supporting the idea that Sling Bullets travel faster than the speed of sound and partially melt before impact. I have heard good things about slings over the years, but never anything like this. It sounds interesting.

Anyway, yeah, there's no reason Great Clubs should be Martial Weapons. It's often noted that they should be Simple Weapons.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 09:27 AM
Hm, I recall that in 2nd edition, sling bullets did a lot more damage than sling stones...

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 09:33 AM
Hm, I recall that in 2nd edition, sling bullets did a lot more damage than sling stones...
Nowadays they (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#sling)'re slightly better.

JellyPooga
2007-07-10, 09:42 AM
Hmm...I've just been looking for some articles and that on the web to back up my claim (yeah, I know I said I couldn't be bothered, but I changed my mind), but I've forgotten which particular sources I first read it in (they weren't internet sources though, I remember that much) and I can't find anything better than hearsay or rumour.

Oh well. I'll concede defeat until I can find my proof...

Still doesn't explain why Greatclubs are Martial weapons though...1-H Clubs and Quarterstaves are Simple weapons, why not Greatclubs?

Matthew
2007-07-10, 09:48 AM
There's no good reason for the Great Club to be a Martial Two Handed Weapon, but as I recall, the Long Spear was the same in 3.0. There would be no problem with making it a Simple Two Handed Weapon.

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 10:36 AM
And I, with my "incredible" skills and 13 kg (slighty less than 30 pounds) bow with inappropriate bowstring, can quite easily release arrow at 200 meters. So i don't know where they took those range from.Effective range means "effective kill range" as in the range where you can be reasonably sure of hitting your target with enough force to actually hurt/kill it.

I'm a little skeptical of a 200m effective range claim with a 30lb bow, unless you're talking about some sort of compound bow or fairly high tech composite. That's pretty close to the world records (http://www.usarchery.org/files/06_Flight_World_Regular_Records.pdf) for the non-high-tech bows; just as an example: world record for a 35lb "English" longbow is 219.32m; world record for a 35lb primitive self: 210.37m.


The current world record with a sling is IIRC 457 metres. However, that was a techno-sling, and we slingers chew our thumbs at it. The real world record – cord, pouch, rock – is still over 300 metres.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 10:58 AM
I'm a little skeptical of a 200m effective range claim with a 30lb bow, unless you're talking about some sort of compound bow or fairly high tech composite. That's pretty close to the

Okay, I probably instead of "easily" should use "fairly often, probably with little wind ". Easily it's 160 meters.


Effective range means "effective kill range" as in the range where you can be reasonably sure of hitting your target with enough force to actually hurt/kill it
Force will be really not bad, as I said certainly not less than sling bullet.
About "reasonably sure of hitting your target" - you won't tell me that those sling shots over 200 meters would have any accuraccy.
Aiming at something at bigger distances from sling will be probably even more difficult than aiming with bow.

mudbunny
2007-07-10, 11:02 AM
You doubt wrong. A sling used by a trained slinger does, in fact, propel the bullet faster than the speed of sound.

This, I highly doubt.

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 11:09 AM
Force will be really not bad, as I said certainly not less than sling bullet. Actually, since the range is higher, it would almost certainly be more force; more ranger means higher maximum height, which means higher velocity when it hits.


About "reasonably sure of hitting your target" - you won't tell me that those sling shots over 200 meters would have any accuraccy. accuracy is similar to bow shots at the same distance.

Dervag
2007-07-10, 11:10 AM
This, I highly doubt.Right. To get that out of a sling that's no more than 1.5 meters long, you'd have to accelerate the bullet at many thousands of times the acceleration due to gravity.

Draz74
2007-07-10, 11:17 AM
This, I highly doubt.

Considering that anyone who properly cracks a whip is making the end of the whip break the sound barrier (which is what produces a whip's noise) ... I don't think this is impossible.

I have an easier time believing that a sling shot could break the sound barrier, than believing that it melts in flight or that it can be aimed so that one of its two pointy ends will lead its flight so as to penetrate armor.

Fhaolan
2007-07-10, 11:18 AM
Just as a note for slings being 'simple', I remember discussing this with guy who claimed to have been in one of the playtesting groups for 3.0. He was somewhat surprised when I mentioned slings being hard to use, as he had one as a kid and it was so simple.

It then clicked for me, he had confused the military sling with the kid's slingshot toy, a functionally quite different thing. I never did get the chance to follow up on this, but I wonder if that confusion is the root of the issue.

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 11:21 AM
It then clicked for me, he had confused the military sling with the kid's slingshot toy, a functionally quite different thing. I never did get the chance to follow up on this, but I wonder if that confusion is the root of the issue.a "military sling" isn't really all that difficult either. common people have used them for thousands of years.

And unless he actually described it as a kids slingshot, assuming that's what he's talking about is a bad idea.

Townopolis
2007-07-10, 11:31 AM
...or that it can be aimed so that one of its two pointy ends will lead its flight so as to penetrate armor.

I would imagine that, if it did fly pointy end first, this would be done completely by the laws of physics. I don't know enough physics to posit how it would happen, but that's probably how it would happen, and the slinger "aiming" it would have nothing to do with pointy end first.

Something like, while spinning the sling, the football-shaped bullet would naturally "rest" in the pouch in a specific position, then, when it was released, it would be released at an angle where it came out of the pouch pointy end first, or it would spin upon release to become all aerodynamic or something like that.

I'm sure some physics major figured it out somewhere, good luck finding it though (provided it is actually true).

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 11:39 AM
Re: pointy end first: while I can't give a simple explanation of the physics involved offhand.... the world record for slinging using a dart is 40m longer than the world record while using a stone, which would only be the case if it was flying point first (otherwise it wouldn't have an aerodynamic advantage)

Fhaolan
2007-07-10, 11:49 AM
a "military sling" isn't really all that difficult either. common people have used them for thousands of years.

And unless he actually described it as a kids slingshot, assuming that's what he's talking about is a bad idea.

Yeah, he did. "You just pull back and let go", being the line that triggered the revelation.

Common people have been using bows to hunt for thousands of years as well, and they're martial.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-10, 11:50 AM
If ancient sling bullets were indeed "pointy", I would surmise they were tear-drop shaped, with the mass concentrated in the "bowl" end, which would rest in the "cup" of the thong, so that when you spin it to build momentum, it would stay in more or less the same position relative to the sling. The launch itself is of course caused by the sudden stop at the end, with the inertia from the spinning being conserved and thus converted into forward momentum.

This from a Secondary School mixed science Physics background.:smalltongue:

Similar principles apply to the atlatl.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 11:50 AM
accuracy is similar to bow shots at the same distance.

OK, i'm not good at those things, but if I understand slinging well

http://www.pipeline.com/~jburdine/img6.gif

it's not possible to aim well at any higher distance.

Bow is not crossbow or rifle, but still you can quickly lift it near eye and aim quite "point blank" beacuse you can quite well imagine straight line between you and target. Even though arrow trajectory deffinetly isn't straight.

When slinging all your body is moving and it appers not to have even bow's precission.

MrNexx
2007-07-10, 12:19 PM
Apropos (http://www.slinging.org/)


The length of the sling offers greater mechanical advantage than ones arms - projectiles can be slung over 1500 feet (450m) at speeds exceeding 250 miles per hour (400 kph).
................

Wolfbite
2007-07-10, 12:23 PM
Since it kind of went out of sight, back to the point of martial greatclubs. I think it was already touched on, but that just comes down to game design. How D&D has been set up now with the weapon groups relates directly to classes.
Classes that only have simple weapons do so because, those weapons are not in the list of strong points for that particular class. Take the Wizard for example. It makes sense that a Wizard would have the ability and some basic training in how to defend himself with weapons such as quarterstaves, darts, crossbows, slings...the basic concept of using those weapons is not difficult. A Wizard does not generally depend on those weapons to get him through the day. They are secondary to his primary function. Keeping in mind those weapons are also practical for the idea that a Wizard is not going to have a good strength score, and not being able to carry an arsenal of wood and metal (Please bury any ideas about bags of holding and the like now). Although the idea behind martial weapons could be argued as "basic" to go toe to toe with multiple opponents constantly swinging, blocking, dodging...fighting with martial weapons against others trained in martial weapons is a lot different. Plus it would subtract from the concept of casting spells safely and efficiently. Also it does not make sense for Instructor Bob to teach the young Wizard the ways of bending the universe to his whim as well as the finer points of being able to use every weapon a trained fighter may come into contact with.
The reason the great club is bunched in with martial weapons, is it is not practical for the classes that only use simple weapons. They have no need to carry or be trained in "Tree limb" or "large awkward shaped hunk of wood". Where as those whose jobs it is to fight with most all weapons may find themselves having to weild a tree-limb, or a polished large hand crafted club.
Even though it is sub-par to other two-handed martial weapons, keep in mind that some tribes of Barbarians (for example) may be low-tech and the Great club is the only large weapon their protectors may have available to specialize in. Of course this just adds a tech level/campaign setting side to the discussion and that varies game to game.
So it may not be perfect, but that's the basic system, and it can be modified for those willing to do so. Again, I used only the Wizard as my example, and this is why it makes sense to me anyhow.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go admire my Great Club of the Magi. :smallsmile:

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 12:29 PM
Yeah, he did. "You just pull back and let go", being the line that triggered the revelation.

Okay, that is extremely totally stupid. You should need at least Int 12 to enter the "playtester" prestige class.

Jayabalard
2007-07-10, 12:31 PM
Re: Spiryt: Bow shots over that distance would be have to have been high trajectories as well, not anywhere close to flat shots. Since arrows are more susceptible to wind (feathers and the shaft) compared to sling stones (dense oval stone), that makes for a similar level of accuracy for that type of shot.

The rest is just the common modern misconception that the sling is not an accurate weapon; there are several historically documented accounts where the sling was the superior weapon.
Xenophon got 200 men from his own ranks who could hold their own against the Persians. According to Xenophon they could sling a missile further than the Persians could reach with their bow and arrows, even though the Persians at that time were reckoned the best archers in the world.

The Roman military historian Vegetius (ca 400 BC) recommends a practising range of 180 m for archers. This says something for the armourers of the day, considering that even a modern bow and arrow are not acceptably accurate beyond a range of about 200 m. Yet even in King David’s time slingshots were accurate at ranges of 250 m. Xenophon reports a range of 400 m, but one must keep in mind that at that range a slinger probably aimed at a group of soldiers and the slingstone did little damage at impact.So archers were accurate at under 200m, slingers were accurate to ~250m, and were effective at much longer ranges in general than bows.


Common people have been using bows to hunt for thousands of years as well, and they're martial.certainly... but slings were likely earlier (though it's hard to document, as all of a sling is completely biodegradable), and they are far cheaper and easier to make. They were used as backup weapons by foot soldiers in many ancient armies, while military archers during the same time periods needed expensive bows and extensive training to be effective.

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 12:39 PM
Classes that only have simple weapons do so because, those weapons are not in the list of strong points for that particular class. Take the Wizard for example.
Wizards are not proficient with all simple weapons; sorcerers are, apparently because they've got more time for it. Other classes that don't get weapons much better than the simple ones include the Cleric, and I can easily see a particlarly champion-ish cleric swinging about a nicely-crafted length of sturdy wood. When I think how simple weapons include such weapons as the longspear, heavy mace and morningstar, leaving the great club out seems pretty silly.

Off-topic: I've long wanted to play a big, hulking carpenter with a greatclub and a bunch of martial maneuvers. "Elder Mountain Hammer!" *smash* :smallbiggrin:

FireSpark
2007-07-10, 12:47 PM
Okay, this whole talk about melting bullets got in head, and the only way to get it out was to dig up stuff I haven't done since my high school physics classes, over a DECADE AGO.

So forgive me if I make some boo-boos.

Now, the only way to make the follow calculations easy is to just assume (for the matter of simplification) that the energy it takes to heat one mole of lead scales up at a constant rate.

Spiryt had it right with the formula of: KE = 1/2 x mass x v2
KE in joules
m in kilograms
v in meters per second

I took the assumption of an average sling bullet = 110g

And since the measurement for joules of energy is calculated with kilograms (1J=1kg x m2/s2), so we'll convert our bullet into kilograms = 0.11 kg

So now we have the mass of out lead bullet (0.11kg), now let's figure out the energy we need to even start to liquify our missile.

Lead's melting point is 327.46 degrees Centigrade (or 600.61 degrees Kelvin.)
However, we don't actually need to melt the whole thing, we just need the heat of fusion, at which point the lead begins to melt. Lead's heat of fusion is 4.77 kilojoules per mole, so let's just assume that we need to apply 4.77 kj (4,770 joules) to our lead ball.

Now we have mass (0.11 kg) and energy needed (4,770 j). So NOW we can plug things together.

4,770 joules = 1/2 x 0.11 kg x v2

Now for math:
Multiply by 2 =
9,540 = 0.11 kg x v2
Divide by 0.11 =
86,727.27 = v2
Take the square root =
294.495 = v

So what we have is in order to achieve our needed energy levels of 4.77 kj, we would need to accelerate a 110g bullet to a velocity of 294.495 m/s, which if you break down into more familiar speeds, equals 17.669 kph!

Now obviously there will be discrepancies regarding changing velocities, air resistance, and a plethora of other things, but as far as I can see, as long as the bullet is moving at a speed of say 18 kph when it hits a target, the surface (at least) of the bullet should begin to liquify. Obviously, higher speeds would suggest a higher degree of melting.

But like I said, it's been a loooooooong time since I've had to work something like this out, so any corrections to my math would be more than expected.

Droodle
2007-07-10, 12:50 PM
I would also be interested to be directed to academic papers supporting the idea that Sling Bullets travel faster than the speed of sound and partially melt before impact. You won't find any modern papers because they didn't. From the exact same Wiki Article:


Ancient authors seemed to believe, incorrectly, that sling-bullets could penetrate armour, and that lead projectiles, heated by their passage through the air, would melt in flight.[1][2] In the first instance, it seems likely that the authors were indicating that slings could cause injury through armour by a percussive effect rather than by penetration. In the latter case we may imagine that they were impressed by the degree of deformation suffered by lead sling-bullet after hitting a hard target.[3]As already mentioned, you would have to propel your sling bullets 3 times faster than an AK47 if you expect the bullet to melt.

Wolfbite
2007-07-10, 12:55 PM
Ya that's true, but I still stand by the weapon is not the primary function of those classes. And the great club is just too impractical to be simple, but not crazy enough to be exotic! Those other weapons Attilargh listed all seem more practical and easier to use in my mind, which is why they'd be simple and not quite martial. Think easily fashionable weapons. Again a reason I think the greatclub is martial is because of how impractical it is.
And sure there maybe cool weapons for crusading championesque clerical types, but also they usually have a special allowed weapon that is the chosen weapon of their diety. Heck even certain races have specific weapons common to them which is why they can use them regardless.
:smallbiggrin:

mudbunny
2007-07-10, 12:59 PM
<snip>

Lead's melting point is 327.46 degrees Centigrade (or 600.61 degrees Kelvin.)
However, we don't actually need to melt the whole thing, we just need the heat of fusion, at which point the lead begins to melt. Lead's heat of fusion is 4.77 kilojoules per mole, so let's just assume that we need to apply 4.77 kj (4,770 joules) to our lead ball.

Now we have mass (0.11 kg) and energy needed (4,770 j). So NOW we can plug things together.

<snip>

So what we have is in order to achieve our needed energy levels of 4.77 kj, we would need to accelerate a 110g bullet to a velocity of 294.495 m/s, which if you break down into more familiar speeds, equals 17.669 kph!

Now obviously there will be discrepancies regarding changing velocities, air resistance, and a plethora of other things, but as far as I can see, as long as the bullet is moving at a speed of say 18 kph when it hits a target, the surface (at least) of the bullet should begin to liquify. Obviously, higher speeds would suggest a higher degree of melting.

But like I said, it's been a loooooooong time since I've had to work something like this out, so any corrections to my math would be more than expected.

One thing you forgot to include, is the amount of energy acquired simply by passing through the air, which is not very much at all. If it were as simple as what you say, simply by holding a piece of lead in the air in a car moving at 60 kph, it should start to melt, which it doesn't.

You would need to account for the friction in the air.
Another thing that you forgot is that, in the impact of the lead bullet with the target, there is a lot of the kinetic energy of the bullet that will be lost in the deformation of the bullet, the target and in the rebound of the bullet from the target.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-10, 01:02 PM
Supersonic Sling

This magical sling causes the bullets to fly out at supersonic speed, doing double damage. Additionally, anyone hit by the sling, as well as anyone within a 10 feet radius of that, must make a fort save/15 or be deafened for 1d6 rounds.

Moderate enchantment; CL 7th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Shout spell; 5000 gp

Attilargh
2007-07-10, 01:19 PM
Those other weapons Attilargh listed all seem more practical and easier to use in my mind, which is why they'd be simple and not quite martial.
The longspear is about ten feet long, weighs nine pounds and does less damage. The heavy mace weighs as much as the greatclub, but is a one-handed weapon. Please define "practical".

Fhaolan
2007-07-10, 01:22 PM
certainly... but slings were likely earlier (though it's hard to document, as all of a sling is completely biodegradable), and they are far cheaper and easier to make. They were used as backup weapons by foot soldiers in many ancient armies, while military archers during the same time periods needed expensive bows and extensive training to be effective.

I have vague memories of a reference about the cost and training of slingers in Roman times... blast it, I can't find any of my Roman reference books. Okay, this is pure hearsay, so I'm not sure it's worth the time to mention, but I remember the cost and training of slingers making them worth a fair bit more than the common footsoldier, but then I have another memory of a statement that slingers were all youths, because that's where you got stuck if you weren't old enough to be a front-line solider. So that evens out.

Matthew
2007-07-10, 01:30 PM
You won't find any modern papers because they didn't. From the exact same Wiki Article:

As already mentioned, you would have to propel your sling bullets 3 times faster than an AK47 if you expect the bullet to melt.

That was my understanding of the facts at hand as well; JellyPooga has since conceded the point until he can obtain any evidence to the contrary. Until then, I consider the matter settled.

Jayabalard: Xenephon, Vegetius and the Bible aren't exactly the most reliable resources in the world, but those are interesting references. I wonder who converted the values to metres, though...?

Fhaolan: Yeah, I seem to recall a similar discussion. I don't think we came up with any evidence. Certainly, though, the Romans employed both Slingers and Archers, presumably they had different roles.

Tyger
2007-07-10, 01:48 PM
,SNIP Some math I don't understand

So what we have is in order to achieve our needed energy levels of 4.77 kj, we would need to accelerate a 110g bullet to a velocity of 294.495 m/s, which if you break down into more familiar speeds, equals 17.669 kph!

Now obviously there will be discrepancies regarding changing velocities, air resistance, and a plethora of other things, but as far as I can see, as long as the bullet is moving at a speed of say 18 kph when it hits a target, the surface (at least) of the bullet should begin to liquify. Obviously, higher speeds would suggest a higher degree of melting.

But like I said, it's been a loooooooong time since I've had to work something like this out, so any corrections to my math would be more than expected.

Except for the last part, that math looks OK... except something travelling at 294.495 m/s is going a hell of a lot faster than 18 kph. 18 kph is the speed of a medium fast runner. Hell, Michael Johnson cracked 37 kph on the 200meter dash. :smallsmile:

294.495 meters / second
x 3660 seconds in an hour
= 1077851.7 meters per hour.
/ 1000 meters in a kilometer
= 1077.8517 kph.

The speed of sound is ~ 1245 kph. So this lead bullet would begin to melt at less than the speed of sound.

One thing I would like to see though, would be a quick calculation of how much force needed to bring to bear in order to propel said bullet that fast.

/catgirl slaughter

Mr Pants
2007-07-10, 02:04 PM
Greatclubs are simple weapons. They're not even balanced to be martial weapons.

Rasilak
2007-07-10, 02:32 PM
Lead's melting point is 327.46 degrees Centigrade (or 600.61 degrees Kelvin.)
However, we don't actually need to melt the whole thing, we just need the heat of fusion, at which point the lead begins to melt. Lead's heat of fusion is 4.77 kilojoules per mole, so let's just assume that we need to apply 4.77 kj (4,770 joules) to our lead ball.
Well, actually you made the wrong assumptions here. If you want to heat the lead enough to have it beginning to melt, you first have to heat it to melting point. Then you would need the heat of fusion to melt the whole thing. So you'd have to calculate (mass)*(specific heat capacity)*(melting point - outside temparature). The heat of fusion is totally irrelevant, since you just want to get it molten on the outside.

Oh, and the points mudbunny made are also perfectly valid.

Spiryt
2007-07-10, 02:41 PM
Greatclubs are simple weapons. They're not even balanced to be martial weapons.

I always though that they aren't balanced intentionaly - anyway they'r just a big sticks - and never treat their price seriously.

I assumed that they have one major merit : can be easily aranged when you need any weapon. Like Roy getting this thing from somewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0163.html).

Probably easy to get in forest, any place with leafy trees or even some buildings, (probably some knife will be needed to prepare such weapon- it's all GM thing), are crude, have weak and rare crit. but still do high damage and meele guy can Power Attack and everything (bonuses for disarm due to large weapon e.c) with it. But there are martial and it seems OK to me.
If you can fight only with simple weapons you must fight with smaller club in such situation.

FireSpark
2007-07-10, 02:43 PM
Except for the last part, that math looks OK... except something travelling at 294.495 m/s is going a hell of a lot faster than 18 kph. 18 kph is the speed of a medium fast runner. Hell, Michael Johnson cracked 37 kph on the 200meter dash. :smallsmile:

294.495 meters / second
x 3660 seconds in an hour
= 1077851.7 meters per hour.
/ 1000 meters in a kilometer
= 1077.8517 kph.

The speed of sound is ~ 1245 kph. So this lead bullet would begin to melt at less than the speed of sound.

One thing I would like to see though, would be a quick calculation of how much force needed to bring to bear in order to propel said bullet that fast.

/catgirl slaughter


And naturally I have to screw up on the easy part of the math. Ugh!:smallannoyed:

Anywhos, you are most correct, I got so caught up in the big math, that I forgot to double check the small stuff. Such a rookie error too.

You math on relative velocity is correct, and as to your other curious statement, it is answered by a somewhat simpler equation derived from Newton's second law of motion: F = ma (or Force equals mass times acceleration). The standard measurement for this is defined as 1 Newton of force is required to accelerate a 1 kg mass to 1 meter per second per second.

Doing the math in my head says that 1 Newton of force would accelerate a 110g mass to 9.09091 m/s/s. Therefore, to accelerate to our 294.495 m/s instantly (which you would have to do, since the moment it leaves, the bullet starts slowing down) would require 32.39445 Newtons. That's equivalent to 7.2826 foot-pounds, something a human can indeed manage with a sling. But this would require the bullet to impact it's target instantaneously, and doesn't take into account friction or gravity. But obviuosly the point to a sling isn't to hit something with the sling itself.

This could go on further, discovering the relative velocity at a certain time and distance, to determine how much force would be needed at launch, etc., etc. However, my brain has now short-circuited from all this work.

arnoldrew
2007-07-10, 02:52 PM
And certainly lead bullet were almost 100% innefective against any metal, firm armor, scale mail e.c.

Actually, I've read of accounts by conquistadors of Native American slingers hitting guys wearing breastplates and breaking ribs.

Gefangnis
2007-07-10, 03:16 PM
Except for the last part, that math looks OK... except something travelling at 294.495 m/s is going a hell of a lot faster than 18 kph. 18 kph is the speed of a medium fast runner. Hell, Michael Johnson cracked 37 kph on the 200meter dash. :smallsmile:

294.495 meters / second
x 3660 seconds in an hour
= 1077851.7 meters per hour.
/ 1000 meters in a kilometer
= 1077.8517 kph.

The speed of sound is ~ 1245 kph. So this lead bullet would begin to melt at less than the speed of sound.

One thing I would like to see though, would be a quick calculation of how much force needed to bring to bear in order to propel said bullet that fast.

/catgirl slaughter

Alternatively, you could do this with conservation of energy.

Work done by sling = Kinetic Energy
Before leaving sling = immediately after leaving sling.

Kinetic energy is 1/2 m * v squared: 1/2 * 110g * (295 m/s)^2 = 4,786,375 Joules.

Work = Force * distance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but slings are spun above the head, right? So, let's give this sling a radius of 1m for simplicity. That means the circumference is 2 Pi meters. If you spun it around 10 times, the force would need to be 4,786,375 Joules divided by 20 pi meters (62.83m): 76179.77 Newtons.That's not the force inward, just the force of the sling on the rock. That's 70.66 G's, by the way.

Of course, this is all in a vacuum.

Wolfbite
2007-07-10, 04:36 PM
The longspear is about ten feet long, weighs nine pounds and does less damage. The heavy mace weighs as much as the greatclub, but is a one-handed weapon. Please define "practical".

Hmm in one of my posts I thought I had something that included weapon utility like the long spear being able to set for charges, the reach, and that it is a piercing weapon. The heavy mace is a heavy mace for a reason, in that you can use it one handed with it's weight (Properly balanced), and if you are able can couple it with a shield, or two weapons! A little slash a little smash? Again I don't have information handy to look at. Obviously if you can use simple weapons that include the heavy mace, you are using it because you can, want to, and it doesn't incur any penalties to you (with weight, size of the character, and the like) or drawbacks for your character. That is what would make those choices more practical than a Great Club (even if the longspear example can be a tad situational). It's not just about damage.

Sure Great Clubs are common, but most classes not wanting to use it would push it into martial. A lot of classes are not built for two handed weapon fighting, reasons such as: lack of hitpoints, armor, BAB...
It takes a special kind of person to use them, effectively. Who the heck even WANTS to use it? Chances are If you are using a Great Club you are a melee oriented class, or humanoid, or it's your god's weapon of choice? So you probably have Martial Weapon access anyway...It's hard to picture classes like Sorcs, Bards, most Clerics, Rogues, wanting or even relying on that weapon in even the most dire situation. If your Sorc. is trying to stop the last wave of enemies with a great club, it's probably game over.

I'm sure a huge amount of debating went into what weapons went where when they changed editions of D&D. Or maybe just great clubs and slings. I'm sure someone at Wizards has the answer! :smalltongue:

Dausuul
2007-07-10, 04:40 PM
Re: Spiryt: Bow shots over that distance would be have to have been high trajectories as well, not anywhere close to flat shots. Since arrows are more susceptible to wind (feathers and the shaft) compared to sling stones (dense oval stone), that makes for a similar level of accuracy for that type of shot.

The rest is just the common modern misconception that the sling is not an accurate weapon; there are several historically documented accounts where the sling was the superior weapon.So archers were accurate at under 200m, slingers were accurate to ~250m, and were effective at much longer ranges in general than bows.

"Accurate" in the context of ancient armies is a whole different ball of wax from "accurate" in the context of a dungeon crawl. Most ancient armies fought in close-packed formations. As long as you hit the formation, you didn't much care which individual soldier you took down. Power and penetration were what counted, not accuracy.

Matthew
2007-07-10, 04:47 PM
Hmmn. That may be true of the majority of 'set piece battles', but pin point accuracy counts for a bit more during sieges or skirmishes, or so I am led to believe. Still, it hardly matters. Slings don't appear to have been any worse a weapon than a Bow, nor significantly better. It sounds like the difference between an Axe and a Sword.

dungeon_munky
2007-07-10, 08:47 PM
Alternatively, you could do this with conservation of energy.

Work done by sling = Kinetic Energy
Before leaving sling = immediately after leaving sling.

Kinetic energy is 1/2 m * v squared: 1/2 * 110g * (295 m/s)^2 = 4,786,375 Joules.

Work = Force * distance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but slings are spun above the head, right? So, let's give this sling a radius of 1m for simplicity. That means the circumference is 2 Pi meters. If you spun it around 10 times, the force would need to be 4,786,375 Joules divided by 20 pi meters (62.83m): 76179.77 Newtons.That's not the force inward, just the force of the sling on the rock. That's 70.66 G's, by the way.

Of course, this is all in a vacuum.

Quite the force there. Lets calculate what the force inward to see what kind of rope we need here. This force is equal to mv^2/r.
(.11)(295)^2/(1)= 9572 N.
F=mg, so
m=F/g=(9572)/9.8=977 kg. You'd need rope capable of holding up a tonne in order to fling something this fast in a sling this long (which I think is a fairly plausible length.) I don't think we need to call Adam and Jamie to say that this myth is busted.

Roog
2007-07-10, 09:35 PM
Okay, this whole talk about melting bullets got in head, and the only way to get it out was to dig up stuff I haven't done since my high school physics classes, over a DECADE AGO.

So forgive me if I make some boo-boos.

Now, the only way to make the follow calculations easy is to just assume (for the matter of simplification) that the energy it takes to heat one mole of lead scales up at a constant rate.


Well, actually you made the wrong assumptions here. If you want to heat the lead enough to have it beginning to melt, you first have to heat it to melting point. Then you would need the heat of fusion to melt the whole thing. So you'd have to calculate (mass)*(specific heat capacity)*(melting point - outside temparature). The heat of fusion is totally irrelevant, since you just want to get it molten on the outside.

There is another assumption you are making here - that is, that all the kinetic energy of the bullet has been converted into heat, and that all that heat is retained in the bullet.

If all the KE has been converted into heat, then the bullet has already stopped. Only a limited proportion of the velocity can be lost before the bullet is useless as a weapon.

Additionaly a significant proportion of the heat created will heat the air rather than the bullet.

If you assume (arbitarily) that no more than 50% of the velocity is lost, and 50% of the heat goes into the air. Then that makes (100%-50%^2)*50% of the KE available = 37.5%, requiring ~160% of calculated velocity to bring that back to 100%.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-11, 06:01 AM
Supersonic Sling

This magical sling causes the bullets to fly out at supersonic speed, doing double damage. Additionally, anyone hit by the sling, as well as anyone within a 10 feet radius of that, must make a fort save/15 or be deafened for 1d6 rounds.

Moderate enchantment; CL 7th; Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Shout spell; 5000 gp

Good point. If slings were indeed capable of firing bullets at the speed of sound, there should be more sonic booms(beyond just the crack of the thong when you release, which only means that the thong itself moved at the speed of sound. The bullet would be moving much slower immediately after leaving.).


Off-topic: I've long wanted to play a big, hulking carpenter with a greatclub and a bunch of martial maneuvers. "Elder Mountain Hammer!" *smash* :smallbiggrin:

Unless it's a big X of wood, I would figure said carpenter would be better off wielding a mallet(stats of a Light or Warhammer).

Dervag
2007-07-11, 11:29 AM
Okay, this whole talk about melting bullets got in head, and the only way to get it out was to dig up stuff I haven't done since my high school physics classes, over a DECADE AGO...I just finished a bachelor's in physics and I'm headed for graduate school. Your technique is right (and exactly mirrors the one I used); the only problem is that, as Rasilak noted, you forgot the energy required to heat the lead to the melting point. That energy is about five eighths of the total energy, which means that your estimate of the speed required was low, about two thirds what it should be.

But your approach was right. I could easily see a professor assigning this as a test question, and if I were grading that test I'd give you most of the credit for the problem.


One thing you forgot to include, is the amount of energy acquired simply by passing through the air, which is not very much at all. If it were as simple as what you say, simply by holding a piece of lead in the air in a car moving at 60 kph, it should start to melt, which it doesn't.No energy is acquired by passing through the air. The air does not give any energy to the bullet.


You would need to account for the friction in the air.
Another thing that you forgot is that, in the impact of the lead bullet with the target, there is a lot of the kinetic energy of the bullet that will be lost in the deformation of the bullet, the target and in the rebound of the bullet from the target.The friction in the air is the only reason he could make this calculation in the first place. Friction is the process that turns the bullet's kinetic energy into heat and melts it. The process that would melt a lead bullet flying through the air is the same as the process that causes meteorites to burn up on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. The problem is that melting pieces of metal takes a lot of heat, so you need objects moving at meteor-like speeds if you want them to melt.

So accounting for friction is built into the way he tackled the problem, and losses due to deformation and rebound don't count (not least because they all translate into jostling of the bullet's molecules, which is heat energy by definition).


Except for the last part, that math looks OK... except something travelling at 294.495 m/s is going a hell of a lot faster than 18 kph. 18 kph is the speed of a medium fast runner. Hell, Michael Johnson cracked 37 kph on the 200meter dash. :smallsmile:

294.495 meters / second
x 3660 seconds in an hour
= 1077851.7 meters per hour.
/ 1000 meters in a kilometer
= 1077.8517 kph.His figure for the speed in meters per second is close (again, it's about two thirds what it ought to be because he used the almost-right technique).

For this kind of thing, we normally use meters per second because it's easier to do the math with meters per second. A physicist rarely bothers to convert speeds into kilometers per hour; it's an easy slip to make (I've seen it about a zillion times).


The speed of sound is ~ 1245 kph. So this lead bullet would begin to melt at less than the speed of sound.Well, again, the speed is actually low; it's more like 359 m/s = 1280 kph, slightly above supersonic speed.

And, to make matters worse, that would require converting all the bullet's kinetic energy into heat. Which would leave the bullet stopped dead in its tracks. As air resistance slowed it down and heated it up, it would eventually just drop to the ground short of the target. So you'd have to use speeds way above that of sound if you wanted to both melt the bullet and hit the target. And that's even assuming that the molten bullet continues to move forward just like a normal bullet. It shouldn't; it should spatter all over the place, like a water balloon that pops in midflight.


One thing I would like to see though, would be a quick calculation of how much force needed to bring to bear in order to propel said bullet that fast.

/catgirl slaughterYour wish is my command; let's line up some anime tropes for the massacre!

Force isn't a useful concept for describing how fast something ends up going. If we're working in a vacuum, we could get this speed by using a tiny force over a long time or a huge force over a short time. It works either way.

So physicists use the term 'impulse' to describe the amount of momentum that a push gives to an object. Impulse is measured in terms of force multiplied over time, so pushing with ten units of force for two seconds gives the same impulse as pushing with twenty units of force for one second.

The impulse that our force imparts to the bullet is equal to its mass times its velocity. A 110 gram bullet going at about 360 meters per second has an impulse of 39.6 N•s.

You could get that force by pushing with forty newtons for one second (forty newtons is the same force that you have to use to hold up a four kilogram = nine pound weight). But that's an awfully long windup time. It would be more realistic to use a few hundred newtons over a few tenths of a second, so we're talking a force equivalent to ten or twenty kilograms' worth of weight.


Well, actually you made the wrong assumptions here. If you want to heat the lead enough to have it beginning to melt, you first have to heat it to melting point.Right.
Then you would need the heat of fusion to melt the whole thing.Wrong.

Heating the lead to the melting point will give you hot solid lead. To turn the hot solid lead into hot liquid lead, you have to supply the heat of fusion to every bit of the lead that actually melts. The heat of fusion is the energy it takes to pry apart the molecules enough that the solid block of molecules turns into a blob of free-floating liquid molecules. No heat of fusion means no liquid.

Incidentally, if that weren't true there would be no such thing as ice water; it would become all ice or all water almost immediately.


So you'd have to calculate (mass)*(specific heat capacity)*(melting point - outside temparature). The heat of fusion is totally irrelevant, since you just want to get it molten on the outside.At best that gives you a very very thin coat of liquid lead; not enough to notice compared to the piece of solid lead. So you still need to calculate the heat of fusion for whatever part of the lead actually melts, and then add the two results together.


And naturally I have to screw up on the easy part of the math. Ugh!:smallannoyed:

Anywhos, you are most correct, I got so caught up in the big math, that I forgot to double check the small stuff. Such a rookie error too.Rookie errors and out of practice errors look the same from outside the head.


You math on relative velocity is correct, and as to your other curious statement, it is answered by a somewhat simpler equation derived from Newton's second law of motion: F = ma (or Force equals mass times acceleration). The standard measurement for this is defined as 1 Newton of force is required to accelerate a 1 kg mass to 1 meter per second per second.Err... not quite. Almost, but not quite.

Acceleration and speed are very different things. When I say a car is moving at 60 miles an hour, that's a speed. When I say a car can go from 0 to 60 in three seconds, that is an acceleration.

They're different. For example, think about a super-fast sports car that's starting from a dead stop at a red light. If the driver steps on the gas hard, the car will start accelerating very quickly, maybe even hard enough to slam you back into the seat. But if you were to measure the car's speed with a radar gun say, one second after they started, you'd find that the car was going no more than 20 miles = 32 kilometers an hour.

And yet, even though the car still hasn't reached top speed for residential neighborhoods yet, the people inside are still being slammed back into their seats by the acceleration. Whereas the people in a station wagon that's going down a residential street at a constant 20 miles an hour are not being slammed back. It's acceleration, not speed, that slams you back into the seat.

The difference is that the rapidly accelerating sports car will soon be going way faster than 20 miles an hour; the station wagon will not.


Doing the math in my head says that 1 Newton of force would accelerate a 110g mass to 9.09091 m/s/s.And here we have the problem. Each newton of force will give you that acceleration. But acceleration says nothing about speed all by itself. Even a huge amount of acceleration, thousands of times that of gravity, enough to smash the lead ball into a pancake, won't change the ball's speed significantly over, say, a billionth of a second. Whereas that kind of acceleration would launch the thing clear into orbit if it were to continue for a few seconds.

What you did was use acceleration right in F=ma, but then assume that a speed of 294 m/s was the same as an acceleration of 294 meters per second squared. Which it isn't.

In fact, to accelerate anything to even a tiny speed in zero time would take an infinite amount of force. To do calculations on the force required to get an object moving at a known speed, you have to use impulse (as I did above) or make assumptions about how much time you have to accelerate the object up to top speed.


Alternatively, you could do this with conservation of energy...You made a bunch of mathematical slips here, I'm afraid.


Kinetic energy is 1/2 m * v squared: 1/2 * 110g * (295 m/s)^2 = 4,786,375 Joules.Your units are off. One joule is one kilogram-meter(squared) per second(squared), not one gram-meter(squared) per second(squared). So you overestimated the amount of energy required by a factor of 1000.


Work = Force * distance.True, but not applicable to this case, because you can only use that version of the formula when the force and the direction of travel point the same way. Otherwise you have to use trigonometry or vector dot products. Since this is a case where the force does not point in the direction of travel, because you hold the sling in your fist and pull on the sling while the sling bullet is moving around your hand in a circle, you can't use that equation for this case.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but slings are spun above the head, right?Everybody seems to think so; I can't for the life of me imagine how you'd hit anything that way. My impression is that slingers spin the sling in a circle perpendicular to the ground, so that the sling stays on one side of their body as they swing it up over their head and down towards the ground.


So, let's give this sling a radius of 1m for simplicity. That means the circumference is 2 Pi meters. If you spun it around 10 times, the force would need to be 4,786,375 Joules divided by 20 pi meters (62.83m): 76179.77 Newtons.That's not the force inward, just the force of the sling on the rock.If your calculation of the energy had been right, this part would be right, but it wouldn't tell you anything about the force that the slinger applies to the sling (which actually varies as a function of how fast the rock is moving).


That's 70.66 G's, by the way.No, no it isn't. Force isn't acceleration. 76000 newtons gives a 70 G acceleration if the object you're accelerating has a mass of 110 kilograms, about the weight of a strong or somewhat fat man. Since 70 G is enough to kill a person, that force is powerful enough to throw someone so hard that the G-forces would kill them before they hit anything.

If you apply that force to a 110 g sling stone, then the acceleration is actually 700000 G's, which is a greater acceleration than the stone would experience if you were shooting it out of a small cannon.

76000 newtons of force is enough to hold up a 3.5 ton block. At that point, the sling would tear apart, because if the sling exerts 76000 newtons of force on the rock the rock will exert the same amount of force right back, which would tear the back out of the sling anyway.


Quite the force there. Lets calculate what the force inward to see what kind of rope we need here. This force is equal to mv^2/r.
(.11)(295)^2/(1)= 9572 N.
F=mg, so
m=F/g=(9572)/9.8=977 kg. You'd need rope capable of holding up a tonne in order to fling something this fast in a sling this long (which I think is a fairly plausible length.) I don't think we need to call Adam and Jamie to say that this myth is busted.You did your part of the math right, so the myth is indeed busted. To make this work you would need a much longer sling, or a cyborg arm and a steel-cable sling.

So while the Terminator might be able to sling bullets fast enough to melt them, you can't.

dungeon_munky
2007-07-11, 12:15 PM
Everybody seems to think so; I can't for the life of me imagine how you'd hit anything that way. My impression is that slingers spin the sling in a circle perpendicular to the ground, so that the sling stays on one side of their body as they swing it up over their head and down towards the ground.

Aw jeeze, now I need to take gravity into effect. That adds what, one newton to the force required at the bottom?

Saph
2007-07-11, 12:30 PM
Everybody seems to think so; I can't for the life of me imagine how you'd hit anything that way. My impression is that slingers spin the sling in a circle perpendicular to the ground, so that the sling stays on one side of their body as they swing it up over their head and down towards the ground.

Yup. Not only that, but they don't swing it multiple times, either, just once. It's load - swing vertically - release - reload, with no pause to build up momentum.

There's no reason to use a swing horizontally, because the accuracy is so awful. If your timing's off by even a hundredth of a second with the release, your shot will go miles wide.

A Wikipedia link: How to Sling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon)#How_to_sling)

- Saph

mudbunny
2007-07-11, 01:00 PM
The friction in the air is the only reason he could make this calculation in the first place. Friction is the process that turns the bullet's kinetic energy into heat and melts it. The process that would melt a lead bullet flying through the air is the same as the process that causes meteorites to burn up on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. The problem is that melting pieces of metal takes a lot of heat, so you need objects moving at meteor-like speeds if you want them to melt.

Nowhere in his calculation did he take into account the density of the environment that the bullet is passing through. The calculation that was done would be equally applicable in a vacuum. The kinetic energy that was calculated was the kinetic energy of the bullet due to it's speed. It didn't calculate the amount of thermal energy that will be picked up by the bullet due to friction as it passes through the air.


So accounting for friction is built into the way he tackled the problem,

Actually, it doesn't. In order for it to be included, it would have had to included the coefficient of friction of the air, as well as some derivatives (or would it be integrals, don't remember offhand) due to the loss of speed of the bullet due to the friction with the air.


and losses due to deformation and rebound don't count (not least because they all translate into jostling of the bullet's molecules, which is heat energy by definition).

Deformation != melting. And you most definitely due have to take into account the elasticity of the impact with the armor. If it is a purely elastic impact, there will be no melting. The entirety of the energy of the bullet will be re-adsorbed into the bullet bouncing it off the armor. If it is a perfectly inelastic impact, the bullet stays where it is and the armor gets the kinetic energy. (Which, to be honest, is minimal due to m1v1=m2v2 and the differences in the mass of the bullet and the target)

crazedloon
2007-07-11, 01:29 PM
I will say right now that a sling is not as hard as it looks to use.

I was really bored thus I took about 3 minutes of my time to make a simple sling. Then went out and "practiced" about 10 throws in and I was getting the hang of getting the objects to go where I wanted and at a sufficient clip that should you be hit it would hurt. Needless to say I was throwing an old apple (for ease of seeing it as well as the weight) and I could lob it a good 50+ meters away with I would say about 5 minutes practice.

Now take into account the fact that if you were carrying it as a weapon you would probably practice a little more than 5 minutes I can easily see a sling being a simple weapon.

Now the great club I have doubts as to why its a martial but I will say swinging a big stick is harder then it sounds. Ok you can swing it really hard and if you manage to actually hit a moving target (doubtful) you will have a hard time recovering. And that is why a above average weapon prowess comes into play.

The sling you just have to worry about hitting something and if you do you can be assured that it will hurt. With a greatclub you need to hit something. you need to be able to recover/defend yourself and then you need to do it all over again. Which is harder in your opinion?

my .02

Attilargh
2007-07-11, 02:08 PM
Now the great club I have doubts as to why its a martial but I will say swinging a big stick is harder then it sounds. Ok you can swing it really hard and if you manage to actually hit a moving target (doubtful) you will have a hard time recovering. And that is why a above average weapon prowess comes into play.
Yet Commoner Bob can easily learn to swing an equally heavy but shorter implement of gruesome death with one hand, or alternatively learn to control even heavier and considerably longer spear with no problem.

I mean, I know DnD is abstract and all, but a guy with a longspear can swing it around to threaten any harassing bandits, no matter where they're coming from, without any penalty whatsoever. Sticks don't get much bigger than that.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 02:29 PM
Slings should be more powerful... I mean, they've proven to be strong to enough to beat high technology:

http://rhml.lib.mo.us/Joshua%20S/images/stormtrooper.jpg
VS.
http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/ewoks.jpg


Ewoks with Slings > Stormtroopers with blasters AND armor...

Now with that out of the way, to those who mention that a shepherd can easily learn to use a sling, remember that a commoner only gets one simple weapon to learn. I'm sure alot more farmers are proficient with either the staff, or possibly even spear (farming implements are more similar to those than a sling). Also, a great club is apparently as hard to master as something scythe or a rapier... there has to be some hidden quality of the club that makes it difficult to master.

Roderick_BR
2007-07-11, 03:26 PM
Oh? Are they somehow different from normal Rogues?
Do'h! I forgot they changed it in 3.5. In 3.0, they had a specific list of Simple Weapons, and sling was not one of them.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-11, 08:14 PM
Yet Commoner Bob can easily learn to swing an equally heavy but shorter implement of gruesome death with one hand, or alternatively learn to control even heavier and considerably longer spear with no problem.

I mean, I know DnD is abstract and all, but a guy with a longspear can swing it around to threaten any harassing bandits, no matter where they're coming from, without any penalty whatsoever. Sticks don't get much bigger than that.

That's Bull. I would love to fight any person who thinks "swinging a longspear" is the way to fight.

Matthew
2007-07-11, 08:20 PM
Sounds very Jet-Li to me. Still, I think the point is valid enough. Clubs and Maces are Simple Weapons, Great Clubs are nowhere near mechanically suitable as Martial Two Handed Weapons. If they had a Critical Threat of x3 or did 1D12 Damage they might just manage it, but as they are you are pretty much better off with a Spear.

Dhavaer
2007-07-11, 08:25 PM
That's Bull. I would love to fight any person who thinks "swinging a longspear" is the way to fight.

I think he means 'swing it around' as in, to point it at everyone coming to attack him. Not hit people over the head with it.

Attilargh
2007-07-11, 10:58 PM
I think he means 'swing it around' as in, to point it at everyone coming to attack him. Not hit people over the head with it.
Yes, that's what I meant.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-11, 11:21 PM
Well, anytime you move the longspear without involving forward or backward motion is a waste of energy.:smalltongue:

Dervag
2007-07-12, 12:55 AM
Aw jeeze, now I need to take gravity into effect. That adds what, one newton to the force required at the bottom?The centripetal acceleration your hand exerts on the sling is much greater than gravity; you can safely ignore it if you're not trying for great precision.


Nowhere in his calculation did he take into account the density of the environment that the bullet is passing through. The calculation that was done would be equally applicable in a vacuum.This is based on a misinterpretation of the premise of the calculation.

The premise is that you have a sling bullet at room temperature, which must be heated and melted. The method of doing this is imparting kinetic energy to the bullet, then letting a resistive medium turn that kinetic energy into heat through air friction. It's all about the thermal energy the bullet picks up through the air. Air resistance won't give an object more thermal energy than the object loses in kinetic energy.

Moreover, there wouldn't even be any point in doing the math this way if air resistance were ignored. You can't melt the bullet just by giving it kinetic energy. Pushing on objects that are free to move doesn't cause them to melt. Remember, first he calculated how much energy it would take to melt the bullet. Then he calculated how fast the bullet would have to go to have that much energy.


Actually, it doesn't. In order for it to be included, it would have had to included the coefficient of friction of the air, as well as some derivatives (or would it be integrals, don't remember offhand) due to the loss of speed of the bullet due to the friction with the air.Again, this misses the point of the calculation. The was not to calculate the speed of the bullet as a function of time, but to calculate the speed necessary to impart kinetic energy equal to the energy required to melt the lead.


The sling you just have to worry about hitting something and if you do you can be assured that it will hurt. With a greatclub you need to hit something. you need to be able to recover/defend yourself and then you need to do it all over again. Which is harder in your opinion?

my .02I would argue that hitting something with a club is about as simple as melee weapons get.

One-handed clubs are simple weapons. Two-handed longspears are simple weapons. So why shouldn't two-handed clubs be simple?

If a club isn't a simple weapon, then there are no simple melee weapons.


That's Bull. I would love to fight any person who thinks "swinging a longspear" is the way to fight.What he's talking about is the way that D&D lets a guy with a spear threaten all the spaces around him. You can stab someone to the east of you and someone to the west of you with equal ease.

That doesn't mean that the spear is being swung like a club or used as if it were an axe. But that clearly requires that you be able to redirect the spear from pointing in one direction to another in a fight, which you can't really do except by swinging it.


Well, anytime you move the longspear without involving forward or backward motion is a waste of energy.:smalltongue:Yes, but failing to move the longspear around 90 degrees to your right to face the angry fellow with a mace charging at you leads to the greatest waste of energy of all: dying.

Firefingers
2007-07-12, 01:11 AM
Well I think the point many people are trying to make about the long spear is that it is quite simple to move, in fact it is quite easy to threaten all people infront of you (180 degree arc) with a long spear. And much like atomickitty said swinging the spear around makes you look like a knob what you need to do is slide your hands a bit futher down the spear to reduce your range and give you leaverage rotate the now shorter spear to face opponent and thrust allowing your hands to return to the old positions causing a thrust at the opponent on that side. All of this is quite fast and fairly easy even for a beginner to do whereas combat wise the great club follows twohanded sword style attacks and counters to be effective and hence is just like sword fighting.


EDIT: btw yes I do use swords and spears quite often

Skyserpent
2007-07-12, 01:22 AM
Goliath done got pwned by SCIENCE on this thread. Good show!

Roog
2007-07-12, 01:39 AM
The premise is that you have a sling bullet at room temperature, which must be heated and melted. The method of doing this is imparting kinetic energy to the bullet, then letting a resistive medium turn that kinetic energy into heat through air friction. It's all about the thermal energy the bullet picks up through the air. Air resistance won't give an object more thermal energy than the object loses in kinetic energy.

The problem with that section of the calculation is that it assumes:
(1) All KE is converted to thermal energy
(2) All that thermal energy will be contained in the bullet

1: If assumption (1) is true then the bullet has stopped. From the original description the bullet must retain enough KE to impact the inside of the rear of the skull.

2: Since the bullet is being heated by friction with the air, a significant proportion of the energy will be lost to the air.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-12, 02:22 AM
Removal of "facing" was one of the more "versimilitude busting" moves that they did. If you live in a country where bamboo clothes poles are common, try wielding one like a spear. Now, pick say, a 2 litre bottle, possibly glass, and try swinging it more than twice in 6 seconds. Can you do it 10 times? Can you even attack anywhere near as fast as with the spear? And bear in mind, a bottle of that size is only about the same size as a regular club. A greatclub is closer in size to one of those oscillating floor fans(the kind that stands about 2 feet tall, not the 5 foot varieties.).

Attilargh
2007-07-12, 05:06 AM
For the record, the bottle you describe would weigh about five pounds, which means it'd be two pounds too heavy to be a club. The bottle would also be pretty much unusable as a weapon due to its shape. I can swing a three-pound axe multiple times just fine in six seconds. I also have trouble believing in nine-pound bamboo poles, but I've never held one so I wouldn't know.

Anyway, I've come to realise how silly my arguments have been, given how absurdly heavy equipment is in D&D. Oh well.

mudbunny
2007-07-12, 08:05 AM
Actually, it doesn't. In order for it to be included, it would have had to included the coefficient of friction of the air, as well as some derivatives (or would it be integrals, don't remember offhand) due to the loss of speed of the bullet due to the friction with the air.
Again, this misses the point of the calculation. The was not to calculate the speed of the bullet as a function of time, but to calculate the speed necessary to impart kinetic energy equal to the energy required to melt the lead.

And that would be the correct calculation to do, if there was no air resistance and if all of the loss of kinetic energy in the bullet due to the passage of the bullet through the air is due to the transformation (from kinetic) into thermal energy and the heating up of the bullet. However, while the bullet is losing energy, the molecules of air that it is impacting are gaining kinetic energy.

Fhaolan
2007-07-12, 08:07 AM
Anyway, I've come to realise how silly my arguments have been, given how absurdly heavy equipment is in D&D. Oh well.

Yeah, that's always been the versimilitude busting thing for me with most RPGs, the insane weights of things.

Matthew
2007-07-12, 08:11 AM
They seem to have just about got a handle on Swords and Bows (though the weights are in the upper limits), but other weapons seem to continue to weigh outlandish amounts.

Spiryt
2007-07-12, 08:24 AM
Guys, come on...

I prefer when axes and clubs weight are unrealistic.

Alternative will be even more silly amount of things that even not very strong character can carry with him without ANY hindraces...

Or some more realistic, not weight-only carrying system. That would be neat, but hard to do.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-12, 08:26 AM
Yeah, that's always been the versimilitude busting thing for me with most RPGs, the insane weights of things.

You mean 'verisimilitude' perhaps?

I find the biggest problem was the quarterstaff in GURPS... I had reach, gave a bonus to parry, and did as much damage as swords. Ultimate weapon = staff.

Matthew
2007-07-12, 08:44 AM
Guys, come on...

I prefer when axes and clubs weight are unrealistic.

Alternative will be even more silly amount of things that even not very strong character can carry with him without ANY hindraces...

Or some more realistic, not weight-only carrying system. That would be neat, but hard to do.

Veh? Just use some common sense. It's the traditional way to prevent Player Characters from carrying bjillions of weapons around.

Fixer
2007-07-12, 08:50 AM
I think I am going to allow my PCs a slight amount of leeway when it comes to encumberance. Making the encumberance dependent on how difficult it is to get the item in question.


If it is available as a move action (dangling handy and unprotected from wear-and-tear), it encumbers with full encumberance.
If the object is available as a standard action (hanging from something but protected from normal wear-and-tear), it encumbers with 90% of its weight.
If the object is available as a full-round action (in a mundane backpack and pretty well protected), it encumbers with 70% of its weight.

Magic items, of course, can adjust these figures (like a handy haversack or bag of holding) as normal but these would help take care of some issues.

Kurald Galain
2007-07-12, 08:56 AM
I found the method of "I won't look at encumbrance if you won't carry ludicrous amounts of stuff" to work well.

Fixer
2007-07-12, 08:59 AM
Well, yes, but if someone is packing a general store around I start counting.

(Must wait 14 more seconds before posting?)

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-12, 09:12 AM
A 2 litre bottle would be in the vicinity of 4 and a half pounds, assuming water. 4 or less, if you use oil.

Edit: The suggestion with glass wine bottle was to simulate greatclub, which is 8lb.

I have no idea how heavy bamboo poles are either. They are easily 2m in length(less if you use some indoor varieties), around an inch in diameter and hollow. I tested one and estimate it at less than 5kg, so under 10lbs. Even as little as 8lbs. If you had a spear that long, with a solid wooden shaft, it could easily exceed 10. 2m might be pushing Ranseur levels though.

Saph
2007-07-12, 09:19 AM
I found the method of "I won't look at encumbrance if you won't carry ludicrous amounts of stuff" to work well.

Yeah, that's pretty much the method I use too. :)

- Saph

Kurald Galain
2007-07-12, 09:37 AM
Yeah, that's pretty much the method I use too. :)

- Saph

Oh yeah, except when the paladin was fighting shades and got strength drained to the point where he couldn't carry his armor any more :smallsmile: