[LT] Rated ST for bows and crossbows

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Is there an easy patch to differentiate the weight and cost of these bows? Perhaps multiple the weight and cost by the BL of the rated ST, divided by some constant (20 to keep ST10 bows the same)?

No easy way, but Bill mentioned the energy would scale roughly with weight, and from collision rules it seems GURPS damage scales as approximately the square root of KE. So, squaring the average damage for a bow would give us its KE in arbitrary units, and once we establish a baseline KE (that corresponding to the ST the LT bow weights would be rated for) we could use that to determine the weight ratio. For example, let's say a 3-lb longbow (from the LT table) is one that's rated for ST 12, for 1d+1 damage. That's 4.5 damage, or a KE of 20.25. So, a longbow rated for ST 18 (1d+4; I'd recommend against converting adds to dice for this exercise), with an average of 7.5 damage, would have a KE of 56.25. Thus, such a bow would weigh 2.78x as much(56.25/20.25=2.78), or about 8.3 lbs, if simply made from the same materials but thicker (better materials would shave some weight off). This is an extremely rough estimate, however. Note also that, at least in this case, the ST 18 bow is a higher fraction of an ST 18 character's BL than the ST 12 one.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Well, yeah, but that means that the party winds up with things like '8 ST 7 shortbows used by kobolds, 1 ST 8 shortbow used by the big kobold, 10 ST 10 shortbows used by bandits, 8 ST 13 shortbows used by bugbears, and 1 ST 19 shortbow used by something with ST 19 I cant think of offhand'

How does the DM decide prices for this when they drag them all in to the pawn shop? Would they all price the same or not?

Market forces would dictate what the merchant would expect to get from them. I'd expect the ST 10 bows to fetch the best prices (decent "everyman" bows). ST 7 and 8 bows would really only be used in a pinch or by older children, ST 13 would be decent for dedicated archers (but they'd probably want longer bows of better quality than the bugbear), and ST 19 would just be a display item. If this is DF, however, might as well just sell them at normal price.