Stating the Hwacha

[stranger38]

Hello guys. let's try to stat a hwacha.

the hwacha is a korean siege weapon. a battery of rocket propelled arrows. It apears in Ghost of tsushima game and the walking dead series.

As far as i can tell. the rockets are not like the low tech rockets or explosive arrows. the rockets just push the arrows around.

it is a compact rain of arrows per say.

but what you think of stats?

gunner? artillary?
about damage? i guess 1d imp if that much, but high rof.

[Varyon]

A quick bit of searching online reveals this weapon has some stats in the Ranoc setting. That's a fan-produced setting, not anything official, but it could serve as a jumping-off point at the very least. Arguably, like with rockets skill should probably be capped at 9, but before applying the bonus for rapid fire... and considering 100 shots is good for a +7 (getting you to 16, which is the cap for effective skill generally), I'd say you can probably just disregard this so long as you aren't firing a partially-filled hwacha. Honestly, it should probably just be treated as an area effect attack with bombardment, but I'm not sure what size area (and what effective skill for the bombardment) would be appropriate.

[Fred Brackin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBu...season)#Hwacha

The Mythbusters made a Hwacha on ep 110. There are some numbers that could help with stats. There was also a small explosive charge that would worsen the wound of anyone who was hit by an arrow.

Taking 500 yards as a Max range you get the equivalent of a ST25 longbow. That would be 2D+4 under 1/2 D but drops back down to 1D+2 at that Max range. The explosive charge would probably be less than 1D Cr added to an alreadyt serious 1D+2 Imp.

The Mythbusters conclusion was that myths about the Hwaha were fully confirmed but the weapon had practical limitations in that you fired off 10 man-days of production in a single volley. Also, like other black powder rockets you couldn't store them for long periods of time. They had to be constructed a short time before use.

The area affeted may actually have been smaller than was desirable as well. Perhaos 3 hexes by 4 hexes.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A quick bit of searching online reveals this weapon has some stats in the Ranoc setting. That's a fan-produced setting, not anything official, but it could serve as a jumping-off point at the very least. Arguably, like with rockets skill should probably be capped at 9, but before applying the bonus for rapid fire... and considering 100 shots is good for a +7 (getting you to 16, which is the cap for effective skill generally), I'd say you can probably just disregard this so long as you aren't firing a partially-filled hwacha. Honestly, it should probably just be treated as an area effect attack with bombardment, but I'm not sure what size area (and what effective skill for the bombardment) would be appropriate.

That reasoning about effective skill makes sense to me; it's what I would have suggested, though I hadn't looked up the bonus for number of shots.