Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

The Strongbow perk lets you use a "heavy bow" rated higher than your regular ST. But where are the rules for these heavy bows?

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

They're just any bow that is strung to a higher strength. Unless you want to delve into things like The Deadly Spring (Pyramid #3/33) which will calculate all things to match up bow ST with materials and size and weight and such.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Okay, but where are the rules for that?

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

p. B373: "your range and damage are determined by your ST – or in the case of a bow or a crossbow, by the weapon’s ST." A heavy bow is simply any bow with ST higher than your own.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

B270 - "Crossbows and ST: Bows, crossbows, and prodds have their own ST value. Use this instead of your ST to determine range and damage. You must specify the ST of such a weapon when you buy it. You can always use a weapon that is weaker than you. You can use a stronger crossbow or prodd; it does more damage but take longer to cock (see Shots, above). You cannot use a stronger bow" - and B373 - "Muscle-Powered Missile Weapons: These include bows, slings, and crossbows. As with thrown weapons, your range and damage are determined by your ST – or in the case of a bow or a crossbow, by the weapon’s ST. See the Muscle-Powered Ranged Weapon Table (p. 275) for details" (emphasis in the original in both cases). Martial Arts and Low-Tech reiterate this IIRC.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Where are the rules that say how much a higher than listed ST for a bow affects its damage?

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

They make it fairly clear that you only use the bow's ST for damage and range, so using having higher ST than the bow requires results in a bow that functions exactly like it would for someone who exactly matched its ST. Strongbow doesn't make any bow you pick up somehow stronger (although Weapon Master arguably does), rather it means you can use a stronger bow. So if you have Bow at sufficient level to get +2 ST from Strongbow, and you have ST 12 to start with, you can use up to an ST 14 bow.

As for exactly what effect using an ST 14 bow has over using an ST 12 one, a longbow for example deals thr+2 imp and has Range x15/x20. So an ST 14 bow does 1d+2 imp and has Range 210/280, while an ST 12 one only deals thr+1 imp and has Range 180/240.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

But where do those figures come from?

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

From the weapons tables that list the damage for each type of bow as thr+?, and general damage rules for muscle-powered weapons are on B268 under "Damage". The rule regarding bows and crossbows using "their" ST is on B270 under "ST (Strength)" in the third column, the last paragraph of that section before "Bulk".

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

OOOOOH! So you treat the ST assigned to the bow as if it were the ST score for a character to determine base damage?

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Exactly. (And likewise for the bow's range.)

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

For crossbows yes, all the time, since you lock them at full draw. For other bows, only if you have sufficient ST to draw it up to that (extra effort, time, etc. can compensate as normal).

The various perks and such allow you to exceed your regular ST to match the bow without extra effort and time and such.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

For other bows, lacking sufficient ST (after accounting for traits like Arm ST and Strongbow and options like Extra Effort) means you simply can't use them. Yeah, realistically you'll be able to pull the string part of the way back, but from my understanding, unless the bow is specifically designed to have multiple points of release, the result is probably going to be worse than if you just grabbed the arrow and chucked it like an oversized dart.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Yes, if after all the things that might explicitly or gm-licitly allow you to "get" to the correct ST, you fall short, then you don't get to fire the bow.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

The way you wrote the previous post made me think you were suggesting a regular bow could function using the user's ST if that were lower than the bow's, but perhaps I just misread it.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I, perhaps over-generously, would allow a character to use a bow that's too strong for them. They'd only get to use it at their ST, and they'd take a -1 to hit per point of ST they were lacking, but they could use it. I probably wouldn't let them aim, either. So it's something a character might do in desperation, but hardly something they'd want to do over getting a bow of properly matched ST.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

If you really want to shoot heavier bows...
Maybe a technique?

Some cool name
Hard
Defaults Bow-2, cannot exceed prerequisite skill

You can use bows with ST more than user ST by 2. Including additional damage from the bow
On the first turn you start to draw with a ready maneuver as normal
On the second turn you continue with another ready maneuver, but uncomfortable posture give you -2 on dodge and you can't retreat, block, parry or use acrobatics.
On third turn you can shoot.
You get a cumulative -1 to attack every turn of holding bow drawn

Or something like that.
Yes, I know, it's reskined springing attack. And I could mess up with numbers. But this looks as clunky as realistic shooting of heavy bows for me

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I could get behind that. The "outright cannot use if ST is too low" rule arguably falls under the Harsh Realism umbrella, while a rule like yours should be fine for any moderately-cinematic campaign.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Realistically, there's a pretty significant distance between "can use effectively" and "can use at all", particularly for ancient bows (it might not be true for compound bows), because using a bow effectively requires that you can draw the bow and hold it like that, with minimal trembling, while aiming, which requires significantly more strength than is required to draw it at all.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I would use the Extra Effort rules and hit them with Fatigue.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I doubt very much that warbows were 'aimed' in any way after they were drawn. I think it was one motion, draw and release when you're at the top of the draw. The 'aim' was provided by positioning your body right and subconsciously turning it if the angle between you and your target changed (such as when you rode past, for mounted archers). The necessity of aiming with your body, no sights or other equipment to make it easier, is one of the reasons archers who can use a warbow are raised to it, not trained. The musculature and shaping of the body is the other reason, of course.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Using a weapon that's too 'strong' for you already does, though only after the battle.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I should say, I'm not a medieval archery expert, had a 120 bow though. And I'm not the strong guy, lets call me 9.5 HP by weight. First of all, keeping arrow at full draw is tiring, so you want to shoot faster, you still be better aiming, at least for a little bit. (But maybe it's just me being a bad archer)
Problem is, bow with the same ST as user doesn't feel like a warbow. It's more like hunting bow.

Second point, as far as I know, you need lighter bows for horseback, and for shooting from the castle walls you need lighter ones too.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

120-lbs. draw weight selfbow is pretty heavy. It's within the range which many historians believe historical warbows to have been. If you can actually pause and sight along the arrow while holding 120-lbs. of tension with one arm, you're probably as skilled and strong as most historical archers.

Your second point is a good one. A lot of the gentry, knights, men-at-arms and nobles were amateur archers. They hunted and they might even be good at shooting deer with their bows. Why didn't they take bows to war?

Because of social attitudes, yes, but such attitudes rarely last very long if they are contrary to good tactics. The association of bows with the yeomanry made sense, because they had the ample nutrition needed to develop that kind of strength, and the free time to shoot bows enough so that their aiming was unconscious, done with the body rather than sighting along the arrow.

Having amateur archers also bring their bows wouldn't add anything, because the men who grew up pulling warbows were shooting at much longer range than hunting bows could reach, to force men in formation all the way on the other side of a battlefield to slow their advance or perhaps even stop entirely in some convenient cover. They were mostly 'suppressive fire', which is an important component of combined arms.

The way I've seen it described is that archers don't aim in the same way that top skeet or trap shooters don't aim with their shotgun. They aim with their whole body and when their stance is right, the shot is right.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I'm not at all strong or skilled, i meant I had one (for a week, restring it, cause it got to me without a string, understood that the only shooting I could get is in my back and sold it, still get some insight)
And by aiming a little bit I meant one or even half of the second, because you not keeping bow static while drawing, so you need at least position it in the right direction and 'aim'. Maybe you are right, and it's not really aiming...
And with heavy bow you need more than second to draw, at least from my experience.
Another thing is to draw and hold a bow, you use your whole body, not one arm.

For amateur shooting knights and man-at-arms...
I don't know why you even need that. If all your army is archers... That won't go well, I suppose. If this was the winning strategy, than I suppose we would see only archers in historical armies.
Next warbows are heavy for a reason. So you can't just came with your hunting bow and be useful.
Warbows are tiring. You don't want your army to get tired before the fight.

Edit: rereading my first comment I now understood why it sounds like that. I'm not a strong guy meaning that maybe it's not holding bow is hard, maybe I'm weak. It's not that I'm so inhumanly strong for my weight) sorry for that. I'm bad in English too)).

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I believe the Pyramid article "The Deadly Spring" had some rules for being able to use bows that called for longer draw times. But I've never really been able to get the design system of that to work (I always wind up with bows that have far higher draw weights than the example weapons with comparable output). A later article, "The Arrow of Progress," had some Ultra-Tech bows that were designed to have multiple release points, with later ones taking longer to draw (roughly mimicking the Overdraw mechanic of some bows in Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds and Horizon Forbidden West), but that's a bit different than what you're talking about here (those are all compound bows, typically with assistance from memory materials like bioplas).

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Surely the simple answer would be that the people we're talking about didn't practice horse archery, and the people you're talking about fought as cavalry?

Having your cavalry force join your foot archer blocks would be all kinds of weird.

(Curious whether they avoided shooting bows during sieges as well, though. It's something I never hear about.)

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Assuming similar capability of bows, the side firing from the height of a wall would have a decisive range advantage over an archer below. I suspect that beseigers would only engage in archery in support of determined assault efforts (or feints, I suppose).

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

I don't know the tactics practiced on this point, but I could see a counter-argument - if you're trying to take the walls, you must have superior numbers, so trading attrition to reduce the enemy's archery strength during the assault could be a positive.

But that's not really relevant to the question, because the people in question are on both sides of the wall.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

As I said, the time the besiegers might want to use archery is during committed assaults.

You mentioned sieges. Generally one side of a siege gets to fire from a fortified, elevated position

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

If your nobles, knight-equivalents and gentry practice archery enough so that they can shoot warbows while mounted, they are obviously not just amateur archers. That connotes a society where archery is central to the image of a warrior and the warrior aristocrats fight as mounted archers. This applied in many steppe societies, Indo-Iranians like the Persians and Parthians, which was then adopted by East Roman armies from certain regions, it was famously true of many Indian peoples, the Japanese samurai and, of course, Turkic and Mongol steppe empires.

When I mentioned that aristocrats didn't bring their hunting bows to war, I meant in societies where amateur archery, for hunting as a sport, was practised by the aristocracy, but archery was not part of the ideal of the warrior aristocrat in wartime. It was seen like modern football, perhaps, in that some modern military officers might have played high school or even college football and are proud of their football prowess as a peacetime demonstration of martial virtues, but they don't bring a football to war.

The societies I'm talking about, in context, were Norman and other French nobles, Saxons, the Welsh, Scots and other societies part of battles where yeoman archers fought. I assumed the context was fairly clear by the way 'yeomanry' was there in the text. In those societies, aristocrats often used bows for sport and probably achieved similar skill as modern hobbyist archers.

On a battlefield, that kind of amateur archer does not add any meaningful value to the archers who were raised to shoot heavy warbows. Because even a skilled amateur hunter will not have the experience or capability to shoot as far as the distance between two armies during the maneuvering that happens on a battlefield. There, distances where archers loose might be 200-300 meters, especially for harrying fire, meant to distract and slow the targeted formation.

No bow hunter shoots at that kind of range. Their bow doesn't have the power and they don't have the skill to hit at that range, not even when the target is a whole formation. Experiments on how hard it is to hit even large formations of men at a long distance have been performed. Without extensive practice in judging range and adjusting stance to account for it, most people, even skilled bowhunters, don't even hit close enough for the targeted formation to notice that they were the target.

The hobbyist skills of bowhunting and the ability to use a warbow as it was used in medieval European warfare are not close enough to each other for the hobbyist bowhunters among the warrior aristocracy to bring their hunting bows to war, any more than a lieutenant in command of a mortar platoon would bring their football to war, even if they played quarterback for the Army Black Knights in college.

Even warrior aristocrats where the ideal of a warrior was a horseman and knight fought on foot when it was more practical. Plus, pre-modern warfare consumed horses like modern armoured warfare consumes fuel. They died so fast that most armies in the field started to run out, even if each aristocrat brought several horses.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

Fighting on foot where appropriate and merging into otherwise homogeneous formations of common troops are distinct propositions.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

They mostly used crossbows.

Re: Quick Question - rules for heavy bows
 

When he was sick at the Siege of Acre, Richard of England had himself carried into a shelter to shoot with the crossbow from his sickbed. Presumably he had people to span the bows for him.

Lots of videos of people shooting heavy bows on YouTube these days eg. Tod's Workshop channel