Cinematic Archers

[Mathulhu]

If you buy Heroic Archer and Double Attack (Arrows) the archer can nock two arrows and fire them both without penalty.

I like it being done occasionally but I don't like nocking two arrows and firing them at once being the default attack of cinematic archers.

Does anyone have any ideas to resolve this?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

If you buy Heroic Archer and Double Attack (Arrows) the archer can nock two arrows and fire them both without penalty.

I like it being done occasionally but I don't like nocking two arrows and firing them at once being the default attack of cinematic archers.

Does anyone have any ideas to resolve this?

Allow doing it, but don't allow improving it. This means that you always take penalties when doing it. Also, make sure that you apply the penalties for speed/range, visibility, etc, and be careful with people just pumping points into Bow so they have skills over 16 after taking the penalties into account, allowing them to do this trick at no extra risk.

[mlangsdorf]

Based on my experience, I'd recommend:
1) treating it as a rapid range strike, not a dual weapon attack
2) possibly adding a damage penalty (-2, or -1 per die, whichever is worse)
3) not letting people improve it.
4) Treating it as a Rcl 1, RoF2 attack

Letting Heroic Archers get in two attacks at no skill penalty is a little bad. Getting those 2 attacks that also force the target to defend twice at a penalty is insane.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Based on my experience, I'd recommend:
1) treating it as a rapid range strike, not a dual weapon attack
2) possibly adding a damage penalty (-2, or -1 per die, whichever is worse)

This is solidly based in physics, BTW. Firing two arrows, the bow's efficiency will go up a bit, but probably not enough to matter. But you WILL be dividing the KE between the two arrows, which would notionally reduce the damage to 70% of normal (sqrt of 0.5). If you call this -1 per die (-28%) it's almost perfect, though in normal human ST ranges (which for normal bows is 1d-1 to about 1d+5) you may need to just do the math, and re-figure the damage by points. Either way, Mark's bang-on here.

3) not letting people improve it.
4) Treating it as a Rcl 1, RoF2 attack

Letting Heroic Archers get in two attacks at no skill penalty is a little bad. Getting those 2 attacks that also force the target to defend twice at a penalty is insane.

I like the general cut of his jib here. The Rcl suggestion (with Rcl either being 1, 2, or more) has a lot of merit, and there are a few suggestions for converting spread to an Acc penalty, which for THIS SPECIFIC CASE could be converted to Rcl.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

This is solidly based in physics, BTW. Firing two arrows, the bow's efficiency will go up a bit, but probably not enough to matter. But you WILL be dividing the KE between the two arrows, which would notionally reduce the damage to 70% of normal (sqrt of 0.5). If you call this -1 per die (-28%) it's almost perfect, though in normal human ST ranges (which for normal bows is 1d-1 to about 1d+5) you may need to just do the math, and re-figure the damage by points. Either way, Mark's bang-on here.

Why square root? Intuitively it seems to me that damage ought to be proportional to kinetic energy.

Bill Stoddard

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Why square root? Intuitively it seems to me that damage ought to be proportional to kinetic energy.

Not in GURPS. The damage model since First Edition has basically been "damage is proportional to the square root of KE."

[Peter Knutsen]

Apart from the mandatory penalty suggested by other posters, so that it is always less penalized to not do a double-shot (which may not be possible within the framework of GURPS), the only solution I can come up with is to charge FP for doing it. Something to do with it requiring massively increased effort to over-draw the bow enough to be able to launch two full-speed arrows.

But of course it should be legal in every way for players to ask pointed questions about how much speed/range/damage/modifier they get if they opt not to spend the FP but instead launch two arrows that are not at full speed.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Why square root? Intuitively it seems to me that damage ought to be proportional to kinetic energy.

As Kromm pointed out, GURPS has a longstanding damage ~ sqrt(KE) relationship, which seems to match what I've seen in other sources for penetration (and since GURPS damage is basically penetration, that works out nicely.)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Why square root? Intuitively it seems to me that damage ought to be proportional to kinetic energy.

Bill Stoddard

As covered below, this has been true explicitly ever since Hurst and others gave us DR linear in thickness for firearms, and THAT has set the only damage scale that is empirical and extrinsic since that book came out.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Not in GURPS. The damage model since First Edition has basically been "damage is proportional to the square root of KE."

You sure about that? Pretty sure the 'modern' model of DR and damage (where DR is based on RHA and damage is based on penetration of RHA) dates back to High Tech (1988, so late second edition), and explicitly linking it to a square root formula would be Vehicles second edition (1996, third edition).