Archers in Heroes on the Mass Scale

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

In the latest issue of Pyramid, there's an article on converting characters to mass combat units.

In order to qualify for the Fire class you need a 1/2D range of 200 yards and the ability to do 1d+2 imp damage.

The problem is: an archer needs ST 14 to achieve that with a longbow, ST 15 with a regular bow and a truly ridiculous ST 20 to do it with a short bow. While I'm aware that some archers in medieval times used extremely powerful bows and must have been very strong, those numbers seem unlikely to me, especially for horse archers with short bows. I would think something like 120 yards and 1d damage would be a more reasonable minimum.

I specifically envisioned career archers (or at least the heroic sorts you see in movies or TV) when making those rules so I did kind of assume a high ST or Strongbow. I suppose you could use a 120 yard minimum if you wanted (my original notes projected 150, but I changed that at the reviewers request).

Please keep in mind that the entire article is NOT meant to allow you to recreate elements - there is no reasonable way to do that and match the numbers from GURPS Mass Combat - I tried. Lots of good folks tried. The TL6+ numbers match up to a particular formula, but the TL5 or less do not. That's one of the reasons why I focused the article on heroes and heroic elements, not just any old element.