Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Role of archers in low-tech parties?

Anthony · 12-07-2009, 12:43 AM

At low tech, archers (and slingers, and other ranged troops), were perfectly useful and a significant component of many armies, but the methods they used aren't really applicable at the small unit scale of PC conflicts, because they relied on area fire, not aimed fire: if you fire an arrow into an area 100' x 100', you have a maybe 1/1,000 chance of hitting a person in that area. If, however, you fire 100 arrows into that area, and there are 100 people in that area, the expected result is 10 hits. Aimed fire against irregularly moving targets really doesn't work well beyond a time of flight of 0.5 seconds or so, which will limit aimed fire with low-tech missile weapons to ranges of 10-30 yards (depending on the weapon).

12-07-2009, 12:43 AM	#102
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Re: Role of archers in low-tech parties? At low tech, archers (and slingers, and other ranged troops), were perfectly useful and a significant component of many armies, but the methods they used aren't really applicable at the small unit scale of PC conflicts, because they relied on area fire, not aimed fire: if you fire an arrow into an area 100' x 100', you have a maybe 1/1,000 chance of hitting a person in that area. If, however, you fire 100 arrows into that area, and there are 100 people in that area, the expected result is 10 hits. Aimed fire against irregularly moving targets really doesn't work well beyond a time of flight of 0.5 seconds or so, which will limit aimed fire with low-tech missile weapons to ranges of 10-30 yards (depending on the weapon).