Slingshot: Why not ST-based damage?

[smin32]

Hello, dear GURPS community users.
This time I'm starting a new short GURPS campaign based on a medieval fantasy world where humans and furries roam, magic and alchemy exist.
One of my players said he wanted his character to use a slingshot made from an alchemically rubber-like material.
Fortunately, there is a setting in this world that an ancient civilization with a high level of arbitrary science and technology existed.
So now I'm looking to apply the slingshot data from the GURPS High-Tech page 201, but there's something I don't understand a bit.

Isn't a slingshot a weapon that takes advantage of the elasticity of rubber strings?
I think that means that the character's ST has an effect on determining the power of the shot, just like the bow.
Then, why is the damage assigned to the slingshot, not ST-based, just like a gun?
I wonder if there is any reasonable explanation for this.
And if there is no way to explain this, I would like to discuss how much ST-based damage should be specified and how many times the ST value should be set to the range!

In my personal opinion, considering the data of GURPS High-Tech, I think it would be appropriate if the effective range and maximum range were ×10/×15 respectively (like a shortbow).
And considering that the TL7's slingshot does 1d-1 cr of required ST 6†, I'd like to know what the ST-based damage would be like thr+3 cr (since the actual ST 6's thr damage is 1d-4).
What is your opinion?

[Written by Google Translator ;D]

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by smin32

Isn't a slingshot a weapon that takes advantage of the elasticity of rubber strings?
I think that means that the character's ST has an effect on determining the power of the shot, just like the bow.
Then, why is the damage assigned to the slingshot, not ST-based, just like a gun?
I wonder if there is any reasonable explanation for this.

TL;DR (too long; didnt read)- I guess cause a Slingshot was never really considered as a viable long term weapon given all the other things you could have at a similar TL.


My interpretation is:

The ST component is to pull the shot back while aiming it and releasing it in a controlled manner.
The damage component is from the elasticity of the bands contracting at a rate that may vary based on the material.

You are correct that this seems like an oversight because you are working with similar principals with a Bow, but that uses ST to determine damage.

My best guess is that a TL 5-6 or more(?) "modern slingshot" was never considered as a long term "primary weapon", thus it was never really stat'd as such.
Your using materials that weren't available until guns and other "better" weapons were also available. The mention of it in the books is probably more a one off weapon for completeness in the weapon list, thus the stats are probably based more actual demonstrated damage than extrapolated for ST.

Realistically a slingshot while it CAN be lethal in the right situation, it's more a toy when you put it against the other potential weapons of the same TL. The amount of fabrication required to get a consistent energy from elastic bands that have to pull the same on both sides to maintain accuracy would likely spawn better technologies than a slingshot.

**Edit** forgot to add, don't forget its not a stabilized projectile, so acc at range will have a steep downward curve. Also consider the nature of the projectile. A smooth machined steel ball will have different characteristics than a random sort of roundish stone I picked up.
A 3mm steel ball might fly for 50m or more with reasonable accuracy, but be good for nothing more than making noise. A 10mm steel ball might only fly for 10m accurately but be capable of some damage.

If you intend to allow this as a primary weapon for a PC, you need to develop some rules for different styles of projectiles, degradation of the elasticity, damage to the bands, and maybe extrapolate some damage increase from the Bow/ST charts. Im not sure where those are right now, but I know there was a chart that showed scaling damage for different ST bows.

[Willy]

Depends the problem is most modern slingshots were never constructed as a weapon, besides hunting very small pests. also most nation have a limit how much kinetic energy a slingshot is allowed to have. In some european nation it was a weapon of choice against police forces in demonstrations. It didn´t do much damage but was restricted nevertheless.

Slingshot build before that date were much stronger, including the type used to put fish fodder far away into the pond to lure fishes to the hook. This things could propel things as big as a golfball reliable up to 100 meters.

In fact slingshots were used after WWII by village kids for hunting hares and such, such selfbuild weapons killed a hare reliable at 50 meters and the best foragers hit a fencepole at 70 meters with a carefully chosen stone, or a stinging nettle at 30 meters, no steel ball were used at that time too expensive to shoot into the landscape by a miss.

Imho define the damage that is needed to kill a hare reliable at a hit and use that for a ST 8-9 slingshot, it were kids who used them. 1/2 damage are I guess 25 meters, max 70 m, after that you need the equivalent of robin hood to hit something.

Also keep in mind some survivalists use slingshot as a backup for foraging some of them are build to fire small crossbow darts!

[Varyon]

I believe the intended use case of the slingshot in HT was a case of either a) playing as a child character and using a slingshot purchased from a store or b) being otherwise-unarmed and finding a slingshot, using it as a "better than nothing" weapon.

In those cases, you're going to be using one of the mass produced slingshot toys for kids, which would all pretty much have the same stats. Of course, there's a strong hobbyist and hunter community for adult slingshotters, who have access to much better slingshots. A quick-and-dirty method to stat such would be to assume the weight of a stronger slingshots scale with the Basic Lift of those meant to use them. So, the one in HT is for someone with ST 6, which means BL 7.2. One meant for someone with ST 10 is meant for someone with BL 20, so it would weigh (20/7.2=) ~2.8x as much. For range and damage, just back-calculate from the ST 6 stats - if it has Range 60/90 and 1d-1 cr (away from my books, so going off what you mentioned), that would indeed call for Range x10/x15 and thr+3 cr. At adult levels of ST, steel or lead balls should probably do piercing damage, so probably thr+3 pi. There are slingshots - typically called slingbows - that use arrows; those would be thr+2 imp (LTC2's weapon modification rules are consistent that going from cr to imp is -1 to damage), and probably longer ranged (fletched arrows have better aerodynamics than spheres).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by smin32

I think that means that the character's ST has an effect on determining the power of the shot, just like the bow.

Which is wrong in the case of bows (there's optional rules for basing damage on bow ST) and would be equally wrong for a slingshot.

[Verjigorm]

Anthony is spot on. A 70lb bow does 70lb bow damage, no matter if your just strong enough or twice as strong. Strong archers need correspondingly strong bows.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Anthony is spot on. A 70lb bow does 70lb bow damage, no matter if your just strong enough or twice as strong. Strong archers need correspondingly strong bows.

Yes; bows have ST-based damage because there are a wide range of bows with different draw weights suitable for a wide range of users and it's easier to just assume someone has a bow suited to their ST than to provide dozens of different bow profiles.
In theory, slingshots should follow the same rules, since they are also available in different strengths. However, the most common ones are mass-produced toys and therefore not usually selected to fit the user's strength.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Anthony is spot on. A 70lb bow does 70lb bow damage, no matter if your just strong enough or twice as strong. Strong archers need correspondingly strong bows.

You are right in the point that abow has a minimum strengh which is needed to use it, but there is a catch. With some tricks you can lower the needed weight to draw the bow, recurve tips, compound bows and a lot of other ways are helpful in this.

To calculate the damage you need the bows strengh AND how far you can pull the bowstring back. Roughly the max speed of an arrow is defined by bowstengh AND the distance of accleration. Therefore shortbow, regular bows and longbows, or the special bows used in some regions with more than the archers lengh, japan had such, not to mention compound bows do different damage, because you may need to same strengh to pull the bowstring back but the kinetic energy of the arrow is different.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Willy

You are right in the point that abow has a minimum strengh which is needed to use it, but there is a catch. With some tricks you can lower the needed weight to draw the bow, recurve tips, compound bows and a lot of other ways are helpful in this.

To calculate the damage you need the bows strengh AND how far you can pull the bowstring back. Roughly the max speed of an arrow is defined by bowstengh AND the distance of accleration. Therefore shortbow, regular bows and longbows, or the special bows used in some regions with more than the archers lengh, japan had such, not to mention compound bows do different damage, because you may need to same strengh to pull the bowstring back but the kinetic energy of the arrow is different.

GURPS handles these differences by having different stats for short bows, long bows, reflex bows, etc - although I think compound bows simply have a note that they effectively increase ST by some amount (+1 or +2 IIRC), and are otherwise like whatever more-primitive bow they're patterned after. If you really want to get into the specifics of bow design, "The Deadly Spring" (Pyramid #3/33) has you covered... although personally I was never really able to get a working bow out of that that wasn't crap (I'm not so good at that sort of design).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Willy

You are right in the point that abow has a minimum strengh which is needed to use it, but there is a catch. With some tricks you can lower the needed weight to draw the bow, recurve tips, compound bows and a lot of other ways are helpful in this.

Those are modifications to the ST required to use the bow; they still don't result in strength in excess of what's needed to effectively use the bow giving any substantial benefit.

Originally Posted by Varyon

If you really want to get into the specifics of bow design, "The Deadly Spring" (Pyramid #3/33) has you covered... although personally I was never really able to get a working bow out of that that wasn't crap (I'm not so good at that sort of design).

TDS puts a bit too much effort into the wrong things and thus makes it relatively easy to design bad bows.