Bows and Adepts, Scary Combined Power? Options

[Wutasumi]

Maybe they're a bit large but...

-Already Silienced
-Goes ungodly distance
-Pretty good damage code
-Different arrows can have devastating effects

[Krieger]

To add to spotlite's comment about bows/crossbows not being overpowered, I'll just throw out Missile Parry. Especially useful when you run out of arrows yourself. :D Granted, our group hasn't seen a lot of Adepts take it, which is a reflection of how widely used missile weapons are in our campaigns, but it's there on top of dodging and whatnot.

[Siege]

Swords and melee weapons can do hideous amounts of damage - but they aren't common nowadays for the same reasons bows aren't.

Guns are better. It's easier to produce grunts capable of the basic components of marksmanship, they don't present as large a target profile and can throw a lot more ammo downrange without tiring out the shooter.

To become proficient with archery takes a good deal longer, using a bow takes a fair amount of standing and open space and how many shots can you nock and loose before your arm gets tired?

And as Indiana Jones demonstrated, melee weapons require a fairly close distance to work - whereas a gun can kill you before you get close enough, although that's not always a guarantee.

-Siege

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Shockwave_IIc]

[DrJest]

[Edward]

I did archery for a semester at school. I would say 30 seconds is an appropriate base time to string a bow but reduce it based on a quickness (4) test. I could usually string my bow in les than 30 seconds but my fellow students where not necessarily as efficient. These where target bows.

As to rate of fire I would have been firing one every 3-6 seconds in SR terms depending on the number of take aim actions I felt like making. The stated rate of fire for longbow men sounds slow. Was it perhaps based on having them fire in volley rather than individually?

Edward

[Ombre]

I don't think bows are so overpowered in SR...although it's true they can be quite devastating (especially in the right hands, i.e. adepts) because they ignore ballistic armor, they also have their drawbacks. As someone said before, they are not very concealable to begin with, whereas a big fragging gun such as a Manhunter or Predator can (according to SR rules, at least) be hidden under a jacket or coat. Which means in case of a surprise assault on your runner team, while they are walking down the street, your shwarzeneggeresque zen archer adept won't be able to pin people to the walls with arrows.
Then there is the rate of fire/ammo capacity issue. I've recently run an adventure pitting the players against a ghoul community. At the end of the run the situation devolved into an Alamo-style combat with waves of ravening ghouls crashing on the runners to get into melee combat. One of the players was a bow adept (and yes she has the quick draw power with a RangerX), the other a fairly classic street sam with Wired Reflexes and a nasty SMG. Although arrows were quite lethal against those unarmored enemies, the full-autofire capacity of the SMG proved to be far more effective to prevent the ghouls from reaching melee range...
Bows are very lethal, but under the right circumstances, which is as a sniper weapon...
But as I told my adept player, bows are not a stupid choice even in the 2060s. Plus there is some style in plugging people with arrows, not to mention the psychological intimidation aspect...

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Thistledown]

[Edward]

I don’t see how this debate on arrows and armour is a problem in SR.

We have varying opinions and demonstrations saying that an arrow will slice threw soft body armour and that soft body armour is not the only armour that is around. And Austere Emancipator reminding u that stab resistant body armour is now in moderately common use.

The SR mechanics would seem to model this very nicely. Armour has 2 ratings impact and ballistic. A stab resistant vest will have high impact armour and thus work against arrows. Soft Kevlar will be represented by a few points of ballistic armour.

As to what the average man on the street is wearing. If he decided he anted armour he likely has something along the lines of a bullet/stab resistant vest. The listed armours give these slightly higher ballistic ratings. Anybody that isn’t worried about being attacked is wearing impact armour based on eth danger posed by there activities. Motorcycle leathers (even if fake) industrial coveralls and clothing on that line will range in effectives up to that of rapid transit armour. Those that wear it don’t likely consider it armour, they consider it protective clothing but if they get into a fight without guns it will still help them.

Edward

[SirKodiak]

The way I'd handle the quickdraw issue is to simply have two quivers, side by side: a larger main one, and a small specialty one. Generally if you're doing quickdraw, you're going to want to pull a standard arrow for killing people. If you want something stranger (screamer, etc...), you don't get the quickdraw bonus, because you're having to look into the smaller quiver to find that exact arrow.

IE, I'd only allow the quickdraw bonus if they don't look at what they're pulling out of that quiver, but that seems like a situation which can be handled.

[Fortune]

That's basically how I've always worked it as well. Quickdraw only works correctly if the quiver used only contains one type of arrow (unless a random effect is wanted ;)). Of course, if the archer only ever uses two types of arrows, and he has a quiver for each, he should have no problems.

I have, in the past, ruled that the Quickdraw was a Free Action in and of itself. This still allows for 2 attacks per phase however, for an aware player's character. Assuming an arrow is nocked at the beginning of Combat, it should go as follows...

Simple Action - Shoot, Free Action - Quickdraw, Simple Action - Shoot

then

Free Action on any other PC or NPC phase between your last shot and the beginning of your next phase (no book reference at the moment, but this is allowable in canon IIRC) - Quickdraw

Rinse and repeat! :)

[Thistledown]

[spotlite]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Tarantula]

[Moon-Hawk]

And bear in mind the unfair comparison inherent to Shadowrun. You should be comparing firearms to a standard bow with a strength min of about 4 or 5. It works out about realistic. Strength min 6 bows for a very powerful bow, and are roughly comparable to a pistol. I can handle that, so far. I'm not sure how futuristic the Ranger-X bow is supposed to be; if it uses special materials (ooooh) so maybe more comparable with a heavy pistol for a very powerful bow. Eehhhhh, allright, I guess. Maybe we're pushing it, but I'm with you. Now compare that to the cyber-troll's strength min 15 or more bow that makes Ulysses' bow look like it fires bits of plastic tipped with suction cups! It's considerably more like firing an arrow OUT OF a gun, and comparing that to a gun, and I don't know how to begin to wrap my mind around that.
Considering that if it were possible to get an arrow up to near-bullet velocities, how would arrow damage compare to bullet damage? I don't know, but I bet it would suck to be on the recieving end! I'd like to see myth-busters do that little experiment, though.
But I think if we compare SR arrows fired from a standard bow with strength 5 to an SR firearm, we can all sleep a bit easier.

[Nikoli]

Could always call for an errata on Bows, with a "logical limit" to the strength min.

[Tarantula]

[Moon-Hawk]

It's more like a manual-pull ballista, but why not?
I think the ammunition should get more expensive, though, not just the bow. It would help limit the craziness pretty well, I think.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Tarantula]

[DrJest]

I had cause to visit Wales Archery Specialists today (my recurve is as old as I am, and the lower limb is starting to twist again - time for a honourable retirement and a new bow for me), and I was looking at the compounds with all their toys (and giggling, I admit - old men and posers, dontcha know ;) ). Friendly rivalry between the Bare Bow and Freestyle divisions aside, it hit me that the expensive ones (and here I'm talking from about £600 upwards) would be ideal for a bow adept. They're surprisingly short - a little under my torso length - and also surprisingly shallow in brace height -that's from the centre of the riser to the string at rest - assuming you don't put all that crap on it. They'd actually be quite concealable, more so than a rifle or even a crossbow, and for urban sniping just as effective.

I then went out on the Net looking for data on compounds. I found some interesting stuff on a site dedicated to game hunting with bows:

"like the coveted 300 yard drive in golf, the 300 fps mark seems to be the benchmark. In the current market, a bow that shoots 296 fps (202 mph) is generally considered slow, while a bow that shoots 305 fps (208 mph) is considered fast - in spite of the fact that only 3% separates the two. So manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to produce bows that pump out big 300+ fps IBO speeds."

200+ mph? Jesus, I've been an archer for years, I never knew they went that fast.

The site I got this from also notes that heavy arrows are not necessarily an advantage, and that the tradeoff between lighter, faster arrows and heavier ones is actually relatively minor. There are whole reams of data on the site, so I'll just throw you the link:

http://www.huntersfriend.com/bowselection.htm

Most of the hard data on weights and kinetic energy is about 3/4 of the way down. I do want to show this point though:

"while some archers stubbornly stick by their hefty "big-game" log style arrows, an increasing number of archers are discovering that lightweight arrows can be just as effective for hunting large game - perhaps even more effective. And it should be noted that a properly placed arrow - impacting with 49.66 ft-lbs of KE would easily generate a clean pass-thru on a Whitetail Deer or Elk. So with respect to kinetic energy and big-game hunting, the practical difference between an arrow generating 49.66 ft-lbs and another generating 54.16 ft-lbs - would really be how far the arrow sticks in the dirt after passing through the animal. "


Lastly, an argument in favour of capping the str min of bows:

"Draw Weight - Super Human Strength

The truth is, many guys just can’t resist their "He-Man" impulses to try to shoot heavyweight bows. If you’ve ever visited a busy archery shop, you’ve certainly noticed guys who seem determined to prove their super-human strength by yanking and jerking these 70+ pound bows until they're on the verge of a hemorrhage. In spite of the strain, most guys will still choose bows which have too much draw weight. Some compound bows are available up to a 100# draw weight. While these bows will produce remarkable penetration on a target, they will not necessary produce faster arrows speeds or flatter trajectory. Since these bows must shoot arrows which are very stiff and heavy, they rarely outperform their lower weight counterparts. A 100# bow will need to shoot at least a 500 grain arrow and will require very high quality accessories to help dampen and withstand the heavy shock and vibration the bow is likely to produce. This type of bow should only be used for special purposes where huge amounts of kinetic energy is necessary. Think carefully before ordering this type of bow. These heavyweights are available by special order only. And since high draw weight bows are easily dry fired, we do not accept returns on bows which have draw weights in excess of 70#."

[DrJest]

Oh, some more data - weight and size, this time:

"In response to the demand for lighter and lighter compound bow designs, the average new compound bow now weighs only 3.7 lbs (without accessories). Considerably lighter than their recent predecessors, these lightweight designs are the result of careful machining and high-tech lightweight materials. Modern bow risers, which account for most of a bow's mass weight, are typically made from aluminum or magnesium. But in order to save weight, many manufacturers machine away excess metal from the risers and cams, giving them a Swiss-cheese like appearance while still maintaining the structural integrity of the parts. A few bows, like the Carbon Series by High Country Archery, take a different approach, utilizing carbon fiber composites instead of metal to construct their risers. Unfortunately, lightweight bows come with a few drawbacks as well. To begin, most lightweight bow designs are quite expensive, averaging $400 or more."

"You've probably noticed that bows are becoming increasingly compact, with an average length just over 36". Some short axle designs are even pushing below 30". Often marketed as "more maneuverable", these stubby designs have become quite popular, particularly for treestand hunters. Short axle bows have a few distinct advantages beyond the obvious. Most of the short-axle bows are quite fast, shooting at least as quickly as their longer length counterparts. They also have noticeably less hand shock, since most short-axle bows use a high limb deflection angle, or pre-bend. And since their risers are generally smaller too, most shorty-bows are lighter as well. Most importantly, you'll find that short-axle bows often have fairly generous brace heights - allowing them to regain some of the forgiveness lost to the short-axle design. Many shooters report that short-axle bows shoot just as accurately as longer bows. Admittedly this might be a stretch, but it's a close race nonetheless. Properly tuned, short-axle bows can shoot quite well. However, most tournament archers, who need ultimate pin-point accuracy, stick with the longer - more stable designs. Before you choose a short-axle design, you might want to consider a few small drawbacks though. Short-axle bows are generally intended to be shot with a mechanical release. If you are a finger shooter, the acute finger-pinching string angle at full-draw will make holding back your shorty quite uncomfortable. Most finger shooters look for bows with at least a 38-40" axle-to-axle length to avoid this problem. You may find that not all accessories will work with the short-axle bows either, since the risers don't offer enough room for large sight-mounting plates and some quiver systems. You may also have to shop around for a peep-sight that can accommodate the acute string angle at full draw. Some standard peeps, particularly the tube-aligned type, get over-rotated on short-axle bows and must be modified or replaced in order to get a clear viewing angle through the hole."