Playing with nerfed archery, missile rebalance

[Tiburon Silverflame]

You would be committed to firing a particular bolt....

Hadn't thought that through, but yeah, and that could be a problem. Even given the switch to adding the brand's effect, having the right round 'in the chamber' would be very important.

The comparison with guns might be fitting...depends. Are there different types of ammo that have differing impacts on monsters, or is all the ammo 'vanilla' damage? What's the ratios of "number of rounds available" versus damage per round versus what damage can I do with other ranged attacks?

What would have to be the case, is that the crossbow does a LOT more damage than the bow, to make up for the grossly lower rate of fire, and being forced to pre-select your ammo.

[buzzkill]

What would have to be the case, is that the crossbow does a LOT more damage than the bow, to make up for the grossly lower rate of fire, and being forced to pre-select your ammo.

I don't think that a crossbow would necessarily do more damage than a long bow in the hands of a skilled user (BTW, I have no RL experience with archery). I do think that a crossbow would be immensely easier (vs. a bow) use in the hands of a non-skilled user. Thus, in the interest of balance, rather than upping the damage on x-bows, I feel that non-archer classes and/or races should suffer a *significant* penalty to hit (I'm thinking like -50 for a mage, and pile some more on top of that if your a hobbit or some other unsuitable race) for conventional bow use, and thus be mostly limited to x-bows and slings. This penalty could be slowly mitigated though time with increases in clvl.

[Ycombinator]

I don't think that a crossbow would necessarily do more damage than a long bow in the hands of a skilled user (BTW, I have no RL experience with archery).

That's a typical force-velocity trade-off in mechanical systems. Because bolt is not held by human hand, crossbow allows applying *MUCH* higher tension to the string at the expense of slower recharging. Think of levers, pulleys and ratchet. Crossbow typically fires heavier projectiles at faster speed than any bow.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

In a relatively low-tech environment, too...it's not hard to see putting primitive sights on a crossbow, and even just aiming down the line is easier with a crossbow than with a regular bow. It's a lot harder to hold that arrow steady, while the bowstring is under tension, with a regular bow. A crossbow shoots like a rifle in this regard.

As far as velocity: one thing we forget is draw length. Wiki points out: the reason crossbows need a crank is because they typically have shorter draws than regular bows. Work = force * distance...force is draw strength, distance is draw length. So if you want the same power OUT of a crossbow with shorter draw, you need to have a higher draw strength...and therefore the crank.

But as we've said: the above discussion is trying to remain grounded in reality. For game purposes, we can just say that, if the xbow's going to have the same rate of fire as the bow, it should be doing comparable damage. If it's going to be notably slower, with e.g. the suggested separate (slow) action to reload...it has to be a lot higher. Or we just won't use them.