Bow draw weights and skill

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by JazzJedi

So I'm doing a historical campaign set during the 100 years war, and I wanted to come up with rules for draw weights and bows. Do these rules exist anywhere? I have a little archery experience:


As for skill, I can hit a bullseye at 40 yards pretty often (90%+) and have shot White-tailed deer at that range in the heart with both my bows. So to hit a deer in the vitals at 40 yards has the following modifiers: Range (-8), Heart/Vitals (-3), Accuracy 3, Extra two turns to aim +2, All-Out Attack (Determined) +1. So assuming that my effective skill is 14 (90% accuracy), that would mean I need a base skill of 16? That seems too high to me, but I'm probably missing some modifiers. Now I know people will say that my target accuracy is not the same as combat accuracy, but I respectfully disagree. Hunting is stressful, and I've shot many deer (longest was 60 yards) and never missed a lethal shot (I've shot six deer total). I'm not exceptional or prolific as far as bow hunters go, and my 84-year old father went bow hunting last year and shot and killed a deer at 60 yards with his 55-lb recurve. He's been bow hunting for years, but never practices archery since he was a kid! He is a bit of a freak... Any better insights of converting real world accuracy to GURPS skill would be appreciated.

My apologies for the long post, but archery is an important part of the campaign and since all the players are archers, we tend to talk in terms of draw weight, draw length, arrow weight, etc. This was our attempt to convert our knowledge to GURPS rules. If these rules have been covered elsewhere, please direct me, and please offer some criticism and feedback. Thanks!

I chopped your quote up a little because I think you have the mechanics worked out, but are still dwelling on the skill part. At the end of the day you arent going to be able to fully simulate your skill without making some kind of judgement calls that really go beyond "Game play" and move into "accurate simulation".

There are a couple of things that are going to get a little handwavy when you try to resolve your percentage of success math with the "Your unmodified skill level is called your base skill. It measures your odds of success at an “average” task under adventuring conditions – in other words, in a stressful situation where the consequences of failure are significant." B.171

The problem there is that statement is handwavy :) It seems specific, but then when you do the math it makes little sense with regard to that statement. Trust me, this was a HUGE thread not that long ago where I was having this same issue. What constitutes an average task, adventuring conditions, and normal stress... my start point might be where you would say cinematic level... or the other way around. For that matter what does "Proficient" actually mean in Game play vs Real Life simulation if you really wanna get in the weeds about this.

Here are the things YOU as GM will have to resolve. The formula for distance is based on 1yd being the 0 point. I disagree with that, but, you as GM have to take responsibility for any variation in the rules. I think this makes bows far too inefficient and penalizes what "proficient" should be and chose to move the zero point to 10yds, then let it scale as it was in the rules.

Aiming actually works pretty well game mechanics wise IMO (I have tried it myself at the range and its a bit of a judgement thing but the mechanics are close enough for game play). The other range, size and speed stuff works fine for me, so I only made that one concession for my games cause I like it that way, and it works for me

The 100yrs war wasn't an archer shooting bullseyes. It was ranks of bow archers laying down semi-accurate suppression at general ranges as far as 300m. With maybe 1 or 2 arrows quickly (with little aiming) as the opponents closed in distance. Or its was ranks of relatively unskilled (and largely ineffective) but cheap crossbowmen shooting volleys of bolts from just behind the main skirmish lines or mixed in infantry style charges. In that I would say your skill assessment as a hunter is close enough for Game Play and probably not far off from a basic Bow Archer on the battle field though its possible your skill wouldnt apply to a 250m volley without some training.

You would definitely have a modifier for HQ weapon on your recurve IMO. Compared to something from 1400 we have superior technological understanding, materials, production and arrows. This isnt to say that there wasn't handmade stuff that might have been similar in qualities to yours, but that would have been the costly exceptions rather than a battlefield bow in the hands of "the basic Archer".

Your Compound bow would have to be regarded as something 3-4TLs higher than the recurve putting you in the 8 to 16 times value, provided the GM was even inclined to allow such a thing. It would border on Ultra-Tech for this TL.

Warbond is really on the ragedy edge of "Cinematic". I allow it because its fun flavor (especially if they lose or break the item) and it doesnt really push the mechanics beyond the realm of heroic in my mind. This is another handwavy thing IMO, cause if you think about it warbond would have to apply to the complete combination of bow AND arrow. The arrows are not accurately machine produced, they are hand made with all the potential variations in manufacture, material and tech. I shoot competitions with guns and I can promise you the ammo makes a difference no matter how familiar you are with your gun (when you are talking about accuracy).

A full frontal torso shot to the thorasic triangle on a human is equitable in size to a vitals shot on a deer IMO so I wouldnt mod that. However you might argue that the deer is more visable as an overall larger SM+1 target so still award a +1 vs a front facing human (though a charging horse is larger still, in your War scenario).

To wrap up, I wouldn't get to worked up trying to equate your actual probability of success with game mechanics, it will only make you nuts and you could never account for every variable of every shot. The more granular you go, the harder it is to account for all the branches of variables. Figure out where your rule of thumb spot is for basic skill, Expert, Master and Cinematic, if it applies, and let it go from there. If your intention is to SIMULATE a battle from that war then some of these things may not apply to you. If your just wanting to get the right feel/flavor for people to be able to immerse in the idea of that era then the don't dwell to much on trying unify reality with GURPS mechanics, it not a productive use of time. And finally, you arent from 1400, you know a lot more than they did in terms of overall knowledge and you have no idea how that might affect things if you really want to get nit picky about your relative skill levels.