Typical ST for a war bow?

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

One arm pulling and holding of 100 lbs doesn't sound heroic average ST 10 to me.

Then make is ST11 or ST12. But it's pretty clear that making it ST17 is not going to get you back to the ST9-13 range that some people prefer. Benchmarks matter in GURPS. Perhaps pegging them to some non-canonical (and ancillary) stats is not going to help you arrive at the right place. I'm sure Doug could give us some other ways to figure ST = pull weight than the ones in The Deadly Spring. I'm sure he probably considered some, at least. So yeah, if an army of ST17 longbowmen seems dumb and ruins the game...don't do that.

[Flyndaran]

Sure, player and GM comfort matter more than anything else, regardless of the personal views of those of us outside looking in.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by safisher

I would think that extrapolating backwards would be easier -- perhaps the 100 lb. bow is ST 10, and then every 10-20 lbs. pull more is ST+1.

Could work, ultimately it's allows lower ST's to pull heavier bows, which is what my tweak does, and is what Trained St would do, both have the requirment of the Skill being there.

My tweak is ultimately just trained ST and the lifting skill in combination.

Originally Posted by safisher

I know Doug Cole did a fine job with his bow article, but he also hosed arrow damage somewhat, too, to make it more "realistic" -- and if I recall, dropped Acc and some other bits.

Well remember the majority of bows are doing imp, so there's still a lot of damage being done (a 1d+2 longbow against flesh is on average knocking an average target to 0 or negative in one hit), what its not doing now is punching though plate.

I don't think Acc. was dropped in DS (but was in the LT "harsh realism" side bar)

Originally Posted by safisher

I think you'd need to take his whole package of nerfing bows just get someplace reasonable. But all of this is trying to rebuild GURPS into something else, if that is your vision of how it works, and that's all fine, too. But it may be more trouble than it's worth; it certainly is to me.

That's fair enough, for me it's not that much hassle and actually actively adds something to my game (I like the risk trade off)

Originally Posted by safisher

It might be easier to make the key assumption that the average military age guy is able to draw the average militarily useful bow (whatever its pull), and then give the specially bred super archers trained ST or Strongbow perk (or a leveled version of Strongbow) and go on.

Yep, sounds good to me, I don't use this rule for every mook archer the players come across. Also all of this question is for me in the context of running quite low powered historical fantasy.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

One arm pulling and holding of 100 lbs doesn't sound heroic average ST 10 to me.

Well TBF it would be two arm pulling, but I agree its not what every ST10 person could do automatically, but I certainly wouldn't have an issue with a trained archer doing it. Which I guess is what this has been about.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Well TBF it would be two arm pulling, but I agree its not what every ST10 person could do automatically, but I certainly would have an issue with a trained archer doing it. Which I guess is what this has been about.

One arm pulling, the other pushing. They aren't working together. Each must hold 100 pounds just in different ways/directions.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not everyone who uses Bow is interested in drawing a heavy warbow. Would someone who is handy with lighter bows necessarily be so good at bending the heavier ones?

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

That's a good point, actually. And it makes it for a nice perk and justification for it.

Yes since it's a house rule for me I don't codify it (but as I said earlier I only allow those who would be training on heavy bows to do this), but if I was I'd make it a perk for certain archery back grounds


Actually thinking about this for those that don't like an automatic trained skill bonus you could also do the whole thing as a technique. Where your level in in the technique is the effective ST you draw with.

So it would say default to your archery/crossbow effective skill (based of ST not DX) of -3, and could be bought up to effective Skill. And even surpassed with the relevant technique mastery perk. (Both technique and technique mastery perk could be made available to certain archery traditions).

I haven't play tested this so that default might be bit harsh for lower skill archers (you could just say ST sets a lower minimum draw ST)

[Polydamas]

I like the use of Perks, because not all archers focus on strength, and because high skill is already highly rewarded in GURPS combat. In the Combat Laboratory the GM had to impose a skill cap because "much higher skill than anyone else" proved to be a winning strategy.

Originally Posted by safisher

It might be easier to make the key assumption that the average military age guy is able to draw the average militarily useful bow (whatever its pull), and then give the specially bred super archers trained ST or Strongbow perk (or a leveled version of Strongbow) and go on.

Well, healthy and lightly-trained archers (good enough to take deer or have fun at target or distance shooting) usually prefer bows no heavier than about 50 or 60 lbs. Some military bows were in that range. Some bows in 16th century Japan, Central Asia, and Christendom had about three times that draw, so their effective Basic Lift for the purposes of archery was three times higher than the average lightly trained man's.

The idea that the Mary Rose bows are the model for all soldiers' bows in history is wrong, but a game needs to be able to represent what made them different from other types of bow, because "heroic archer with a mighty bow" is an excellent archetype.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I like the use of Perks, because not all archers focus on strength, and because high skill is already highly rewarded in GURPS combat. In the Combat Laboratory the GM had to impose a skill cap because "much higher skill than anyone else" proved to be a winning strategy.


Well, healthy and lightly-trained archers (good enough to take deer or have fun at target or distance shooting) usually prefer bows no heavier than about 50 or 60 lbs. Some military bows were in that range. Some bows in 16th century Japan, Central Asia, and Christendom had about three times that draw, so their effective Basic Lift for the purposes of archery was three times higher than the average lightly trained man's.

The idea that the Mary Rose bows are the model for all soldiers' bows in history is wrong, but a game needs to be able to represent what made them different from other types of bow, because "heroic archer with a mighty bow" is an excellent archetype.

Given that the Mary Rose was the flag ship, I think it's reasonable that H8 had top end archers on board. However there is a problem in sample bias here. The Mary Rose bows are some of the few actual bows from the period that we have because of the conditions of their preservation. So its hard to get a true base line for wider application here. Prior to the Mary Rose bows being found estimation of draw varied. (even the Mary Rose bows have pretty high range of draw, 100lb-180lb).

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

One arm pulling, the other pushing. They aren't working together. Each must hold 100 pounds just in different ways/directions.

No, both arms (and in fact the whole upper body) are working together to separate (i.e pull) string away from bow, it's the same 100lbs over the whole system. if it was 100lbs in two directions, the bow would close at 2x100lbs


The arms extend in different ways it's true, and you don't hold heavy bows at full draw for this very reason, but this is almost a whole body action. There are contemporary accounts of this ("leaning into the bow") and heavy bow users today do it too.


I'm not saying its the same as a two handed lift, in fact it's an action that's not much like a lift at all. However that difference is part of the point being made about training. The drawing action is not one that comes up very often outside bows (and chest expanders or gyms). We all lift things from time to time, but we rarely make the drawing action, which is probably why practice and experience (i.e skill in GURPS) can make such a difference.

Douglas Cole pinned the draw at 2.5x BL (and 8x for spanning a crossbow, same as two handed overhead lift), I'd be interested in his thinking on that.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Given that the Mary Rose was the flag ship, I think it's reasonable that H8 had top end archers on board.

Although people who like to talk up archery point out that there were worries in 1544 that English archery was in decline. The ability of the Scots to survive archery at Flodden had been a nasty surprise even if the English billmen won the battle.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

However there is a problem in sample bias here. The Mary Rose bows are some of the few actual bows from the period that we have because of the conditions of their preservation. So its hard to get a true base line for wider application here. Prior to the Mary Rose bows being found estimation of draw varied. (even the Mary Rose bows have pretty high range of draw, 100lb-180lb).

We know that bows and arrows were bought and sold in bulk, and that inventories don't distinguish by size or strength just material and whether they were varnished or not and had horn nocks or not. Since it was possible to order arrows in lots of a hundred thousand, there had to be a vision of the "typical soldier's bow" which defined the properties of the typical arrow. We also have comparative data from Turkey and Japan which shows that there were other traditions where most soldiers' bows had a draw force of 100-150 lbs (although we can't say that all soldiers' bows in all history were like bows in these three cultures). So there is plenty of evidence for gaming purposes to say that some soldiers can draw two or three times the draw weight of a typical hunter without being bigger and stronger than other picked soldiers. Whether that picked soldier has ST 12 or ST 15 is definitely up to the GM.