[LT] Rated ST for bows and crossbows

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The fact that the bow rated for ST 10 and the bow rated for ST 15 really don't weigh the same is what we handwaved, as I said above.

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)?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

This is how I'm saying it should be. The bow's ST determines the amount of damage it does. Your ST determines whether you can draw it or not (or do so weakly with corresponding penalties.) I must have misunderstood Bruno's point about minST.

The minST for a bow has nothing to do with how much damage it can inflict, and therefore cannot be based on its draw weight. I took it that minST was "can I pick up and handle a bow of this type without its being awkwardly heavy?" It's kind of an arcane question but I don't see that else it could be. Unless you want to suppose that a short bow inherently cannot have a draw weight less than X; I suppose that could be a sort of "minST," too.

Bill Stoddard

[Kalzazz]

Ill admit, I always just assumed when you went to Bows R Us that all the bows were conveniently labeled in pounds and such, and that the GURPS character knows what pounds of bow he is able to draw, and thus buys a bow that matches his own ST

Admittedly I am now realizing that PCs tend to acquire bows as loot, yet have been able to use them most happilly . . . . . uhm. Hmm, well, I guess magic plot butterflies somehow assist in this

[Crakkerjakk]

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)?

Should be a function of the type of bow and the material used, right? Perhaps with a range of STs and weights for each bow type.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Ill admit, I always just assumed when you went to Bows R Us that all the bows were conveniently labeled in pounds and such, and that the GURPS character knows what pounds of bow he is able to draw, and thus buys a bow that matches his own ST

Admittedly I am now realizing that PCs tend to acquire bows as loot, yet have been able to use them most happilly . . . . . uhm. Hmm, well, I guess magic plot butterflies somehow assist in this

Really you pick up a bow and see if you can comfortably draw it. The problem is how the GM comes up with the types of bows available.

[whswhs]

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)?

It's not clear to me that the cost should come into that. Very little of the cost of a bow is going to be the raw weight of the wood, horn, sinew, steel, or whatever. It will depend much more on the conditioning of the material, the layering of the different materials, the shaping of the bow, and so on—and the amount of labor probably will vary only slightly with the draw weight.

You could probably come up with a set of functions for the physical weight of the bow, going most likely with the BL of the user. But we don't do that for a suit of armor, or a sword, or any other piece of premodern gear. Doing it only for bows seems a bit arbitrary.

Bill Stoddard

[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?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The fact that all "short bows" have the same stated weight is purely a game convention.

Though the difference in weight is generally smaller than the difference in rated draw strength, as bows generally contain a moderate amount of furniture that has weight not particularly linked to draw weight.

[Kuroshima]

Also, I think that crossbows have more parts that are independent of draw weight than bows, meaning that you should have a weight of X+f(Y), where X is the weight of the parts that don't depend on draw weight, and f(Y) the function that gets you the weight of the parts that depend on draw weight. Of course, we're approaching calculus territory, and that's probably not good.

In my DF games, bow ST works as follows:

• Each bow and crossbow has a minimum ST, as per the weapon tables. That's the minimum rated ST of said configuration.
• Max ST is 3x Min ST, as per normal weapons.
• Rated ST is a number between Min ST and max ST, that is defined when the weapon is made
• One enchant exists, costing 250 energy/$5000, that allows the weapon to change it's rather ST to suit the wearer, in a similar fashion to adjustable clothing spells.
• Steel Crossbows can be made to have a much greater rated ST than wood and sinew ones, as per Low Tech, but suffer from poor efficienty.

I don't presume that this is in any way realistic.

[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.