High Fantasy advice: Because I hate my GM

[Ubiquitous]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

What I'm trying to tell you is that "strong wood and string" is your INCORRECT impression of what you need. You need more than "strong" wood, you need just the right kind of wood. You also need the right kind of material for the bow-string, possibly high-quality linen or other materials, that are not as simple as "strong wood and string."

You are trying, still, to minimize the difficulty in what you seem to think - and others with, if not more knowledge, at least better reference materials to hand - should be easy, but in fact is definitely NOT so.

Your GM was probably correct to deny you easy access to materials to make a high ST bow (and we're talking something like 160-200lbs draw here for a ST18-20 bow). Finding the wood that won't split, the string that won't break, etc just isn't available on every corner chandlery. In fact, you don't need more than a ST10-12 bow (50-72lbs) to put food on the table, so there's no real reason for some small POS village to have access to materials from which you can make a spring-energy storage device that will only be useful in war.

It's possible your GM was being adversarial, but he was also correct in his judgment that at least at that time and place and with so little effort (one day), you couldn't procure or make what you wanted.

On the other hand, if there were bow-capable trees around (elm, hickory, ash, osage, yew, locust, even maple...but NOT oak) of decent thickness (8-12"), you probably could make a CHEAP ST18-20 bow in that time...assuming you had access to the tools to fell the tree, carve the bow, and make or buy the string. A strong bow is just a matter of a thick limb of proper wood. It won't be as efficient or accurate or as durable as a properly made one, but it probably doesn't have to be.

I'll agree on all those points caused by me not knowing what I was talking about/doing, and this is why I posted it here; so people could point that out. But ANOTHER reason I posted it here...instructions how to make a cheap ST-18-20 bow.

What are the rules for Cheap things again?