Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

The Irish Rangers of my Ärth historical fantasy setting routinely use under-ST bows.

That is, if a given Ranger has the equivalent of GURPS ST 16 (which is not unusual - they're comparable to US Navy SEALs, which I've heard described as tending to be huge and beefy guys) then he'd use a bow rated for ST 13 or at the most 14, because using an under-ST bow makes it more doable to do a lot of rapid-fire quick shots, and hold the bow drawn for a fairly long time in order to aim, and other similar "unusual" shooting methods.

The English longbowmen of the medieval period were about one very specific thing, launching arrows in massed fire at enemy target formations, whereas the Rangers of this AH setting need to be a lot more tactically versatile (although their main concern is being able to penetrate armour, as they're an offspring of the Dragon Slayers, who were obviously greatly concerned with having the capacity to kill targets with very high DR. The Rangers mainly kill Vikings and other monsters, but those do often have quite some DR).

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

What about keeping your Aim? When aiming with a bow, how hard does one have to draw it?

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

The whole way unless you have special sights.

Using Action Points, holding a drawn bow should probably cost you 1 AP per turn, the same as readying one.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

Short draws mess with accuracy as well as range and power, so I don't know anyone except the Danish archer who likes them. Most archers rely on the muscle memory of the draw hand touching the exact same part of their face or chest at the end of every draw.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

Yah, a half-draw is a quarter the energy, or a bit less than -2 per die.

Half-draw and two arrows? 1/8 the energy, for a bit more than -2 per die.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

That would make a light hunting/tactical bow superior in this regard, but it would still remain an option for a character. Have your bow at half mast and sneak around. GM rolls for encounter distance, if the enemy is too close, you do your "wimp shot" as some kind of hail mary/suppressive fire. If they're away far enough, you pull the remaining inches and aim.

In some occasions, still a bargain at -2 attk/dmg.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

As someone who spent years firing bows... I'm not sure this whole 'walking around at half draw" is necessary.

Once the arrow is nocked, drawing doesn't take much time, neither does loosing, one second. It's the sighting and aiming that takes time, and 'half-drawing' isn't going to speed that up.

The only reason to move about with a full draw is you're trying to keep prey in sight while lining up a shot.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

Volley fire though tends to be applicable to many missile weapons. Oddly enough it would be less applicable in a forest fight, although now that I think about it, fire arrows would be. However one difference between archery and musketry is there is less direct and more indirect fire in the former, so archers can have thicker ranking.

There was a way to choreograph it among English longbows. If I remember, Keegan said in the Face of Battle that there were under-officers among the archers and I think they went all the way to the king in chain of command from a sergeant equiv. The arrangement isn't recorded much because few of the nobility paid attention to it at the time.

Re: Walking around with drawn bow
 

Emphasis this.
A lot of people have chimed in on why its a bad idea but there really is no upside to doing this.
Keeping an arrow knocked I can buy, though its still a little awkward but you draw in one smooth motion.