[LT] Rated ST for bows and crossbows

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

No, but for a given bow with a given design, material, and weight there's a maximum amount of energy that it can give to a projectile. For a crossbow that is going to be the same every time. For a bow it could be less if you're incapable of fully drawing it, but then you probably should be suffering the usual penalties for a weapon you're not strong enough to use.

The fact that all "short bows" have the same stated weight is purely a game convention. It's exactly like all suits of armor of a given type weighing the same, whether for a skinny man 5'2" or a big burly one 6'6". It's not physically realistic, and not intended to be; it just keeps character creation a little simpler.

GURPS has, for example, the category of "short bow." That's a bow of a certain range of lengths, and therefore with a certain draw length, which is one of the two key factors that determine how much energy it can store. The other factor is the draw weight. Each bow has an inherent draw weight, which is not a function of its length, but is a function of its material and cross-section. One short bow could have 2x the draw weight of another short bow.

The GURPS Basic Set just ignores the fact that a bow has an inherent draw weight; it assumes that the draw weight equals the ST of the user. So long as you are strong enough to handle the bow at all (Min ST rating), it's assumed that the draw weight is suited to your personal ST score. A ST 10 user could pick up a short bow and use it; a ST 15 user could use it too, and get more damage.

In Low-Tech, we went for a bit more realism. Each bow has an inherent draw weight, just like each crossbow. If you're ST 10 and you pick up a bow rated for ST 15, you can't draw it; if you're ST 15 and you pick up a bow rated for ST 10, you can draw it, but you don't get any more damage out of it that the ST 10 user, because the bow can't store any more energy for you than for them.

The fact that the bow rated for ST 10 and the bow rated for ST 15 really don't weigh the same is what we handwaved, as I said above.

Bill Stoddard