Bows?, Is there errata? Options

[Rasumichin]

Awesome, good enough for me!

That's what i say.
And since there's tons of weapons that don't do as much, but still tremendous damage, fire twice per round, are more easily available, don't require you to be a troll and max out your strenght and whatnot, that's enough for me not to change the DV of bows.

But then, i don't care that much about realism in my game either (which is always useful for playing SR, BTW).

[GryMor]

On further research, arrow velocity (for a properly constructed compound bow) should be dependent on peek draw strength times draw length (with a factor for efficiency since draw strength is probably actually a curve). Material reflex can be factored out by giving the arrow a mechanical advantage and increasing the spring's (stave's) strength. Specifically, if you have a 200 fold advantage, the stave would be moving 1cm (or with some pulley tricks I can see in my head, a bit further to allow the stave itself to accelerate and for a lighter hold strength) for the draw moving 2m. Of course, at that point your 'stave' may look more like a tower shield...


Given a draw of 2m and an arrow mass 5kg, with a goal velocity of 90m/s (which, if I haven't screwed things up should be around the energy you were suggesting was required), the force curve needs to average draw strength of 10125 newtons...

That would be equivalent to holding 1 tonne mass, which seems reasonable for a high strength troll.

Additionally, based on clay block tests I've seen video of, it may be inappropriate to equate damage with energy, as a slower slug may do significantly more damage (clay block blown apart, along with slug) than a much faster, higher energy slug (small hole in clay block, slug embedded in something else down range). Due to the abstract nature of the system, I'm not sure it's reasonable to base this on the DV of any particular bullet/gun combination.

Of course, now I've lost the part where you specify what DV you were guessing the required energy for...

[Conan The GM]

I am rather new about these parts, but I've encountered the same 'problem' with bows. Big ass troll with a 12 strength lobbing ballista bolts through the meatbags my NPC's all turned out to be.

How I am planning on mitigating this:
Remembering that arrows use impact armor.
Throw an arrow slapping physad or two at the group every once and a while, your would be archer becomes completely useless on any Missile Parrying physad.
Wind modifiers and other out of door conditions (Go on, shoot an arrow at the helicopter!
Also increasing the cost of and the availability of arrows sturdy enough and big enough for the bow.
Bows are awkward as hell to carry around and rough to conceal.
To string one is a complex action. I do allow him to quick draw his arrows because it does make sense, but I give the bow a recoil rating of 3 per arrow to represent the complicated muscular action that it takes from the recovery of an arrow's shot. On any critical glitch his bowstring is gonna snap. Gonna take abut a minute to put the new one on, and I doubt anyone is going to carry around 2 bows.

Also, I was considering the enforcement of the rule of 'Nothing higher then rating 6' equipment rules to bows. I may do so the next time another player tries to bring in another Uruk'hai(SP?) troll bowman!
Other then that I like the rules as they stand. The presence of bows in the game is a positive one, I think. That way you can have cool elven archer physads that can keep up with the performance of your machinegun wielding samurai.
No problem to big. Remember that although the books do dictate the damage effects of his bow quite clearly, you dictate the effects of the rest of the world.

[Fortune]

Remembering that arrows use impact armor.

Not in SR4!

Ballistic armor protects against projectiles that deliver amounts of kinetic energy to a small area in short amounts of time, such as bullets, bolts, and arrows.

[Larme]

I am rather new about these parts, but I've encountered the same 'problem' with bows. Big ass troll with a 12 strength lobbing ballista bolts through the meatbags my NPC's all turned out to be.

How I am planning on mitigating this:
Remembering that arrows use impact armor.
Throw an arrow slapping physad or two at the group every once and a while, your would be archer becomes completely useless on any Missile Parrying physad.
Wind modifiers and other out of door conditions (Go on, shoot an arrow at the helicopter!
Also increasing the cost of and the availability of arrows sturdy enough and big enough for the bow.
Bows are awkward as hell to carry around and rough to conceal.
To string one is a complex action. I do allow him to quick draw his arrows because it does make sense, but I give the bow a recoil rating of 3 per arrow to represent the complicated muscular action that it takes from the recovery of an arrow's shot. On any critical glitch his bowstring is gonna snap. Gonna take abut a minute to put the new one on, and I doubt anyone is going to carry around 2 bows.

Also, I was considering the enforcement of the rule of 'Nothing higher then rating 6' equipment rules to bows. I may do so the next time another player tries to bring in another Uruk'hai(SP?) troll bowman!
Other then that I like the rules as they stand. The presence of bows in the game is a positive one, I think. That way you can have cool elven archer physads that can keep up with the performance of your machinegun wielding samurai.
No problem to big. Remember that although the books do dictate the damage effects of his bow quite clearly, you dictate the effects of the rest of the world.

I think it's bad to tell a character "You are too good, you are now nerfed."

Here are the things you should remember, IMO:

A trollbow makes an incredibly loud CRACK! that is at least as loud as a gunshot, and can't be silenced.
Samurai with tricked out gymnastics pools will easily flip out and dodge the troll's one arrow per Action Phase.
Spirits have immunity to normal weapons, which can completely ignore those arrows at high enough force.
Vehicles have hardened armor, which can also be immune to the arrows.

On your points:
Arrows don't use impact armor in SR4, but that's good if you want them to be weaker, impact is almost always less than ballistic.
Missile parry is a good idea.
Wind modifiers are not part of the system IMO. Wind messes up a gun at range, maybe not as much as an arrow, but the system just does not account for wind.
People can very easily make arrows with a toolkit sized set of equipment. I think no matter their size or shape, they would be pretty easy to custom order.
Yes, bows are awkward to carry and conceal, but Arsenal has a collapsible bow in it.
For compound bows, you don't have to string them...
I wouldn't allow a quickdraw without the quickdraw adept power, or the iajutsu manuever from Arsenal. That's what those things are for.
Finally a string snapping on a mega troll bow is not like "uh oh, broken string." It's like WHIP! CRACK! "My eye!!!" Bow strings, especially compound bow strings, do not tend to break in real life, but if they do you could get hurt. Though I guess a troll critically glitching could be so strong that he just draws too hard and snaps his bow in half...

[Shrike30]

Troll bows have been around for years. We just used to call 'em ballistas. Materials science has progressed to the point that we can make a "bow" that will withstand the pull required to sling something that heavy that fast, and people science (IE, trolls with 17 Strength) has progressed so we don't need a pulley or winch to wind up our siege weapon any more, just something that can apply enough force to the bow to make it bend back all the way (like a Str 17 troll).

I don't really have an issue with this. Arrows for a Str 17 bow are bigger, is all.

[Slymoon]

I really don't get the hangup on Troll bowmen. It seems the 'balance factor' argument is always "yeah the bow is friggan huge, it ok!"

Ever think of the opposite side of the spectrum?

Dwarf bowmen, 4ft tall and can push out 14 strength with exception attribute and maxed ware or magic.
Are you saying its is all good and dandy because the 4' dwarf can carry a nearly full sized troll bow? Or are the stunties shafted.

Point being, this bow issue always surrounds trolls, stating that the bow size is a balance factor. It isn't and never will be.

1st point, Larme even stated the folding bow, obviously that isn't huge.
2nd point, a maxed dwarf can use a str 14 bow, that won't be huge, unless you just ignore the size for them. (if you ignore it, then it isnt a balance factor now is it.)


Last point,
Snapping a string on a RL normal bow will put an eye out.
Snapping a cable on a ton of force (assuming Grymor is correct) will take your head smooth the fuck off.

[b1ffov3rfl0w]

Also I don't see why you couldn't build a fuckoff powerful crossbow that does 18P. Really, what's the point of having a ridiculously expensive Armorer Facility otherwise?

"Hey, I made my own bullets; they're practically untraceable!"

"Um yeah, we don't have identities actually."

[Shrike30]

You want to build a trollbow into a crossbow by putting a winch and an autofeed on it? Be my guest. Wonder how long it'd take to winch that thing back...

[JeffSz]

I've been reading the discussion about trolls with bows in the "obvious rules problems" thread, and Here's my shot at some rules of thumb:

First some facts: let's assume that technology in 2070, when applied to bows, is good enough that a regular bow can be compared to the very best craftsmanship the medieval world had to offer.

Wikipedia's article on the English Longbow states that the bow's maximum range was around 165 to 228 m. (Keep in mind that this was only useful when there were hundreds/thousands of bowmen firing at hundreds/thousands of massed targets - they didn't have much accuracy at ALL at this range)

The extreme range of the bow in SR4 (STRx60) for a character with STR 4 (an unmodified human who has undergone strength training to maximize his usefulness with a bow) is 240m, which isn't -too- far off the mark, especially since an English Longbow was made of wood. In 2070, the likelihood of improvement is high.

A bow does not shoot straight at long distances; eventually you have to aim upwards and hit the target at the end of a parobolic arc.

An English Longbow in the hands of a man strong enough to pull it could punch an arrow through thick chain armor at a distance (on the end of a parabolic arc).


These Facts in Game Terms:
A Troll with str 15 and a bow made custom for him would of course have that mind-boggling 17P DV. The effects of a 17P DV are NOT as unrealistic as most people seem to think. That arrowhead could DEFINITELY punch through almost anything in it's way.

At short range, 15 m in this case, the arrow will travel pretty much straight like a bullet. Medium range, "To STRx10" (16 to 150 m), the necessity of that parabolic arc starts to kick in, if only incrementally. Then at Long range, "To STRx30" (151 to 450m), which starts within the realistic range of this bow but jumps WIDELY out into crazy-land, that parabolic arc would be really pronounced. EXTREME range of 900m is just... unspeakable.


My Proposed House-Rule Solutions to:

1) The "an arrow can't go through a car engine and hit someone." statement: Of course it can't.

Even if it has the velocity behind it with 17P, it would ricochet off in the wrong direction and damage the engine severely; not pass through in a straight line.

I would say you can't aim at somebody through the engine of a vehicle anyway; you would aim at him through a window, unless you couldn't see him, and then that's a blind-fire -6 to attack. As far as shooting through a barrier, the thing about arrows is that they are long, and have a lot of drag going through thick obstructions (hence why they get stuck in a haystack; an arrowhead can go clean through sheet metal with a str 15 draw, but once it's through, the shaft is likely to stick, so it wouldn't go FAR through);

Solution: As GM you can just say "the arrow gets lodged in the barrier and doesn't hit the rigger," or "the arrow dents the tank's armor, but that's all" and glare at your players if they try to argue. (Feel free to hit them with your hardcover SR4 rulebook if glaring doesn't work).

2) The "That thing has enough power to make the person it hit EXPLODE" statement. Well, no. A bullet can bounce around in the body cavity and cause a lot of damage within the target; an explosive projectile can do the same by..well..exploding. But an arrow is going to make a (relatively) clean path through the target.

Solution: Don't let the arrow do more than the target's BODY*2 + Net Hits damage on the attack.

If there's still more DV left over, the arrow went through the target. If your player says "but I should do 17P damage!" then tell him he does the remaining damage to whatever is immediately behind his target. (Judicious use of the GM glare, GM "intimidating eyebrow raise and pretend note-taking behind the GM screen" or throttling the player with your SR4 rulebook is encouraged if he resists)

Alternately if there is still DV left over, you could use the Serious Injury (did i remember that right?) rules from Augmentation's Advanced Medtech section. I think I saw something in there about impalement.

3) The "That guy is a TANK KILLER!" complaint: Arrows can't do much to vehicles themselves except maybe muck up the engine. Lodge the arrow in the side of the vehicle or let it pass through (depending on it's armor and how strong our Troll is) ; either way, it's not going to seriously harm the tank. Sometimes #'s just have to be thrown out to make way for common sense. If the arrow hits the engine, with a few net hits, let the engine stall. If they make a critical success firing at the vehicle, have a fuel tank explode, or actually let the player hit a driver/passenger that wouldn't normally be targetable.

Also take into account that really HARD substances (like Titanium or Stainless Steel, or the hardest, Diamond) are very BRITTLE and will shatter. Really TOUGH substances (which are more flexible and won't shatter, but will deform easily, like lead or a soft high-carbon steel) would just smush against a tank's armor and bounce away. That's why anti-tank weapons use explosives, for the most part. Don't let your player argue that his arrow is made of Titanium or has Diamond tips or anything like that.

Now, a monofilament-bladed arrowhead made of buckycarbon with an explosive payload behind it... creativity (and a ton of extra nuyen) deserve success.

4) The crazy range thing:
These modifications seem fairly realistic:

Short Range (+0) remains 0 to Strength;
Medium Range (-1) remains To STRx10, but also add +1 to AP
Long Range remains To STRx30, but double the Range modifier to -4.
Extreme Range remains STRx60, but increase the range modifier to -9
Any range of over 240m is an automatic Long Shot, regardless of what the range table says.
- The player may state his case if he has some way of calculating the parabolic arc of the arrow perfectly and taking into account wind messing the whole thing up, but if he hasn't role-played it all along, use your hardcover SR4 Bludgeon to show him who's boss.

This would mean a human with str 4 would be able to fire a custom bow at an extreme range of 240 meters (well over two football fields) with a -9 to his attack roll; if we assume he's got an Agility of 4, and 6 in Bows (because he's awesome), he still gets to roll 1 die, before adding any edge dice or positive modifiers from gear. That's quite generous, as in real life he'd be hard pressed to hit a specific house at that range.

But a Troll with STR 15 would be able to fire the bow only to the extreme range of 240m as well.

The bow will almost definitely be able to fire the arrow 900m, but the troll could never hit an intended target. Rather than rolling to hit if the range were further than 240, I'd say open up a phonebook, close your eyes and point, and whatever name you're pointing at is the name of a random unlucky NPC that got nailed. Maybe use a vengeful loved one as an adversary in a later session, trying to track down who fired that stray arrow (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

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What do you guys think?

[streetangelj]

These are how I houseruled bows and arrows:

Bows: The new stats I will use for bows is as follows-
Traditional Bow ;(STR Min/2+3)P ;8 ;STR Min ;100x STR Min
Compound Bow ;(STR Min/2+4)P ;None ;2x STR Min ;25x STR Min x STR Min
Arrow ;as bow ;N/A ;as bow ;5x STR Min
;Damage ;Max STR Min ;Availability ;Cost