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WeaverMount
So it might not be the worst way to die but yeah... redlining cyber limbs, special arrows, and a compound bow = ouch. What's a good upper limit for the pull on a compound bow. SR4 material science is crazy good, but I just don't think trolls should be one-shotting CityMasters WITH A BOW! I have a potential player who is interest in playing this build, and I'd much rather give him some kind of a hard cap rather than try something out and have it be totally broken. Any thoughts?
Slymoon
Have had alot of thought regarding this as well and there are some old threads around somewhere about them.

A 30lb bow will punch a broadhead arrow clean through a deer at 30 yards. A 70lb bow will just get your more range, not more damage.
So as already mentioned (in other threads) I would cap it, and cap it at the DV of a heavy crossbow; 7P I believe. I also think Arsenal has additional arrow type rules.
Ravor
The first thought that comes to mind is unless you are playing in a really Pink Mohawk campaign (And if you are then I just want to say good for you, I wish more people would see the light.) how is he getting around the sprawl with a fragging bow designed to shoot rebar in the first place?
Shrike30
Figure out what kind of max damage he's going to be doing, and then compare it to whatever else you've got floating around in your game. If it's broken, talk to the player about toning the character down a bit, maybe specializing him a little bit less in "death by bow..." this will keep you from having to set a fixed cap on this particular thing. If it's not broken, let him go to town smile.gif

While the raw DV of a bow can get damn high, they tend to lack in the AP and autofire capability, meaning that you can't suppress, you can't fire wide bursts to reduce dodge pool, etc. And a bow big enough to benefit from a maxed out troll archer is going to be absolutely huge... not always something you can haul around in public (mall security hates troll archers).
Sponge
Just an idle house-rule thought... maybe bows should do a fixed damage, with Strength adding to AP instead of the DV. (Of course your arrows are going to get more expensive too if they have to withstand a stronger impact...)

DS
Stahlseele
QUOTE
And a bow big enough to benefit from a maxed out troll archer is going to be absolutely huge... not always something you can haul around in public

Arsenal had an collapsible Bow which only does 2 less DV than usual Bows . .
Odsh
The reason why the bow is so powerful is that it is the only strength-based weapon that doesn't divide strength by 2 in its damage code.
Simply replace (STR min +2)P by something like ((STR min)/2 +4)P and the problem is solved.
ixombie
One thing to keep in mind is that a bow's strength min counts as its rating. So in chargen at least, you can't get a strength min higher than 6.

As for a cap on damage... I disagree. Yes, troll bows can be pretty broken. But trolls are pretty strong. The strongest person in the world, seeing as how cyberware and magical augmentation does not exist, would have a strength 7. Trolls at their augmented maximum have more than double that. Got it? More than double the strongest person who ever lived. That's a kind of strength we can't even imagine. People in strongman competitions lift up cars, pull busses, bend steel bars... What could someone with twice their strength do? Roll the car over on its roof, go for a jog towing a bus, make pretzels out of steel bars. Pull one fraggin powerful bow.

It doesn't really bother me that a troll could pull back a DV 17 bow. After all, a sammy can pick up a DV 18 great dragon launcher, and a mage can cast a force 20 spell (eventually, probably with a force 6 focus and a force 6 bound spirit aiding sorcery, but still). And hell, the President of UCAS can drop a nuclear bomb. Powerful things don't require automatic nerfs in Shadowrun. And it's not like the bow is that far beyond belief. Contrary to what people have been saying, it's actually pretty unlikely that the trollbow could pierce a Citymaster's 20 hardened armor. But with a good shot, why not? If you get 4 net successes, that means you just pulled off the perfect shot and sent an arrow into a tiny chink in the armor, so good for you.

On the other hand, I actually like STR min/2 +4. It means a STR min 14 bow would be as strong as a sniper rifle. Which is pretty reasonable. I dunno.

@Slymoon - If a 30lb bow goes all the way through a deer, the reason a 70lb bow doesn't do more damage is that you can't do more damage than "all the way through." You can't make something deader than dead. But knowing what I know about physics, that 70lb bow has more velocity. More velocity, according to Newton's laws, is more force. More force is more penetration. I'm sure that if you actually tested those bows against various levels of ballistic material, you'd see the difference.
Slymoon
@ixombie

You need to read a bit more about what arrows actually do. Bullets deform ie: mushroom, dumping all that energy, arrows do not.

Secondy, the assumption you have made reguarding 'all the way through is dead' is dead wrong. Plenty of animals (unfortunately) do live with a nice clean arrow hole through them. At that point it doesn't matter if you fired the arrow through the animal with a cannon shot.

You are correct regarding force. Why would you think a troll using a simple mechanical advantage should be pumping more energy/ force out in a single arrow than a .600 nitro express? (lets assume the PJSS Elephant Rifle is close to this with a 9P DV)
http://www.barnesbullets.com/products/rifle/banded-solids/ (note those are solid copper/ zinc alloy)

900 grain bullet
muzzle velocity: 1950 fps, Energy: 7591 ft/lbs
100 yards: velocity: 1646 fps, Energy: 5413 ft/lbs

Based on this: http://home.att.net/~sajackson/ke.html

You can see that an average arrow + velocity of 600 grains 300 fps (arrows dont get alot faster than this) will only yield a WHOPPING!! 120 ft/lbs of energy! (and thats far more than is required for a through and through)

Max it out on that applet at 1000 grains and 1000 fps (absolutely unheard of) and you still only get 2,217 ft/lbs of energy! Not even 1/3rd of the energy of a .600 nitro express. (for those that dont know that bullet is 0.618 inches in diameter)

As I said before there has been a ton of debate and others have done far more in the math scene about it than I will.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...amp;hl=trollbow
Most notable look at Austere Emancipator s posts.


Speaking in game terms, if crossbows and firearms are all DV capped then a bow can survive the cap as well.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (ixombie @ Feb 23 2008, 10:59 PM) *
One thing to keep in mind is that a bow's strength min counts as its rating. So in chargen at least, you can't get a strength min higher than 6.

As for a cap on damage... I disagree. Yes, troll bows can be pretty broken. But trolls are pretty strong. The strongest person in the world, seeing as how cyberware and magical augmentation does not exist, would have a strength 7. Trolls at their augmented maximum have more than double that. Got it? More than double the strongest person who ever lived. That's a kind of strength we can't even imagine. People in strongman competitions lift up cars, pull busses, bend steel bars... What could someone with twice their strength do? Roll the car over on its roof, go for a jog towing a bus, make pretzels out of steel bars. Pull one fraggin powerful bow.


We can imagine, actually. We can even see it happen in reality if we want to. The strongest robots in the world are far more than twice as strong as the strongest human. If you build a bow suitable for use by the giant robot arms from Gung Ho, it probably wouldn't pierce armor for no other reason that that arrows are not armor piercing weapons by necessity. The real mechanical limitations of the bow. In fact, we don't even have to build giant robot bows, someone else already did that for us. A ballista is, thanks to the miracle of applied mechanics, several times stronger than the strongest possible human - and it shoots giant arrows. It is great for sieging Greek and Roman cities but their is a very good reason why modern militaries don't use Hellenistic siege weapons in anti-tank warfare.
masterofm
An interesting point is to make vehicles like barrier ratings. A bow may do a crap ton of damage to a vehicle but you will only open a 1 square meter hole in the vehicle. Explosives are different as they can slag a larger area, but I think rolling it up as the barrier rating as a house rule instead of slagging the car might make more sense with a crazy bow troll. Then again this is the future, so a crazy strong person I guess has a shot at punching a hole in a cars engine to disable it (I doubt it would destroy the car though but to knock out its engine seems more likely at least.)

The reason why people don't use ballista's anymore is because we have ballistics. I mean a cannon is basically a modern version of a ballista. Instead of sieging a town you shell it, but yeah I totally feel you on that.
bibliophile20
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Feb 24 2008, 01:07 AM) *
We can imagine, actually. We can even see it happen in reality if we want to. The strongest robots in the world are far more than twice as strong as the strongest human. If you build a bow suitable for use by the giant robot arms from Gung Ho, it probably wouldn't pierce armor for no other reason that that arrows are not armor piercing weapons by necessity. The real mechanical limitations of the bow. In fact, we don't even have to build giant robot bows, someone else already did that for us. A ballista is, thanks to the miracle of applied mechanics, several times stronger than the strongest possible human - and it shoots giant arrows. It is great for sieging Greek and Roman cities but their is a very good reason why modern militaries don't use Hellenistic siege weapons in anti-tank warfare.

Reminds me of another troll with a giant bow...
acimeriga
Hello, I just got my hands on a copy of sr4 for the first time a few days ago, so Im not up on how these rules work, though I have quite a few sr3 campaigns under my belt.

i would like to emphasize the point that the issue with penetration from a bow vs that from a bullet is a matter of the projectile, not so much the force behind it.

An arrow is able to penetrate kevler, for example, because it stays together, and concentrates its energy in a very small area, and since kevlar is at heart layers of woven nylon, it actually goes between the actual pieces of string woven into the piece of armor (SAPI plates and the like, for those who have worn interceptor armor are a bit different, they are like the plates you could drop into sr3 armor). A bullet, on the other hand, causes a larger wound channel, by expanding, and tumbling upon impact, thus tearing a larger hole, and sending shock waves through the water in a body. Hollowpoint ammo expands more, this is why it is better at stopping a bodies without armor on them, but also why kevlar works better against them, as they expand when they hit the kevlar. Its kionda like the rescue balloon/trampoline things that let you jump out of a burning building 10 stories up, the material billows out and absorbs the shock, while the bullet spends its energy in expanding rather than continuing forward into the body.

Against armor plate, its considerably more simple, assuming nothing like heat rounds and plasma jets are involved, of course. Essentially, a bullet-style projectile either has the raw power to punch right through the armor, or it doesn't, the only issue to resolve is how big a dent it makes, and how much spall comes off the armor inside the vehicle (spall is little pieces of metal slives that come off the inside of a plate of armor when it is impacted on the outside, was a huge problem in WWI). If it can go through the armor, it will likely tear a hole slightly more than its own diameter with it, not much more. Destruction of tanks in modern warfare is accomplished by means of detonating the explosive things ionside, such as ammo, not so much by simply punching a hole in the armor.

An arrow-type projectile also either has the ability to simply go through and through the armor or not, but it wont have much if any expansion upon impact. However, it also wont have any real method of doing any other damage or hurting the vehicle in any way other than that caused by an arrow-diameter hole in it. Imagine, if you will, a hummvee with an arrow sticking halfway out the door. Not likely to make it stop moving, unless the leading half is inside the driver, though, if you replace the meatware, the truck rolls on. As for the idea of shooting an arrow into the engine or some such, well, most engines I know of are simply too hard to be penetrated by something with a rockwell hardness of significantly less than themselves. This means the arrow would hit, but since the end with the arrowhead is suddenly stopped, the back end is still going forward. Something has to give, and its far more likely to be the arrowhead and shaft compressing into a rather heavy disk than it is to result in much more that a scratch on the armor. In theory you COULD make an arrow with an arrowhead and shaft with a rockwell hardness GREATER than that of the armor it is shooting at, but it would be so heavy as to be ballistically unstable, shortening the range to something like a spear, and would be stupidly expensive.

Apologies for rambling, run-ons, and grammar/spelling. Its 2 am, and I havent had a day off in over a week.
Whitelaughter
I'm a firm believer in the troll archer, if only because it fits the gritty feel of the world - you see, the best way to *make* a bow that strong is to use the suspension from a car! So feel free to use street trolls with powerful (if poor quality) bows against your PCs.

Also, Troll have crummy Agility, so he's not going to be as accurate as other street samurai.

Still, bear in mind that a DV 17 bow can fire an arrow 1020 metres in an Initiative Pass (of which there can be 4 in a 3 second combat turn), so must be travelling at least 1020/4 *3 metres per second = 765 m/s. That's what, about 2 and a half times the speed of sound? So the primary advantage of a bow - silence - is gone. I'm not sure what the report would sound like (is there a science geek in the house?) but a loud bang followed by a piece of rebar or a metal stake is going to attract attention.

Be grateful he went with cyber. A troll magician could use an enhance strength spell *and* once he's Initiated have a Guardian Spirit Endow him with the Power(Skill(Archery)) at it's Force - which can easily exceed 6, maybe hit 12!
knasser

I see two issues as regards troll bows. The first is that regardless of the damage it does, it is usually an inferior choice of weapon for the following examples:
  • Lots of security guards / gangers / whatevers come charging at you. Your friends are firing off a couple of shots with each initiative pass, whilst you are firing half what they are due to the need to ready the weapon for every shot.
  • While your friends are sneaking through the compound with concealed pistols, SMGs or even assault rifles or sniper rifles, you have a troll-sized bow. Let's repeat that - you have a troll-sized bow.
  • While your friends are crouched behind overturned desks and behind open car doors exchanging fire with the enemy, you are standing up, steady and immobilewith a sign on your forehead saying "What's the point of living?"
  • Your friends carry fifty rounds of ammunition for their gun without thinking about it and can conceivably pick up more from the opposition if they do run out. You are carrying around fifty reinforced, foot long rods and are unlikely to find a fallen security guard who carries spare, reinforced arrows with him (though you never know).
  • When ghouls jump out of the shadows gnashing their gnashy teeth at you, your friends point their guns and go bang. You have to fiddle around with your bow. Same for when Lone Star burst into your room while your asleep.
  • When your friend loses her predator she swears and goes to buy a new one from Weapons World. When you lose your custom-built bow, you just swear. A lot.
  • When the cops ask the witness if there was anything distinctive about the troll they will have a great answer ready. When the corp detective examines the crime scene, the fallen guards pepperred with arrows might just be noticed. When they're trying to trace where you bought the ammo, it's not going to be hard.
  • When the fireball hits or you fall from the roof or the Air Elemental buffets you around like a twig in a storm, a shotgun is considerably less breakable than a bow.


The other problem with troll bows is not one of game balance, but of realism. People are talking as if endlessly increasing the velocity of an arrow does ever increasing damage. This is not the case. At some point, the arrow can't penetrate any further because there's no further to penetrate, or further penetration cannot do more damage. When an arrow goes all the way through it goes all the way through and there's no extra damage to be done by completing that process faster. I would guess extra damage would have to come from increasing the mass of the arrows and / or the shape of the head.

I'm in favour of not capping things, but just making it clear to the player the many disadvantages of being an archer character. Yes - the disadvantages can be compensated for by carrying firearms as well, but then why bother hauling the bow around?

-K.
Aaron
QUOTE (knasser @ Feb 24 2008, 07:35 AM) *
The other problem with troll bows is not one of game balance, but of realism. People are talking as if endlessly increasing the velocity of an arrow does ever increasing damage. This is not the case. At some point, the arrow can't penetrate any further because there's no further to penetrate, or further penetration cannot do more damage. When an arrow goes all the way through it goes all the way through and there's no extra damage to be done by completing that process faster. I would guess extra damage would have to come from increasing the mass of the arrows and / or the shape of the head.

True, but don't forget about Shadowrun's abstract damage system. It's not always the physical damage that does a person in, but going into shock after taking that damage. Plus, we're assuming that the arrow leaves a through-and-through. If the arrow catches a bone, it will likely break it and, at troll-sped velocities, transfer a lot of kinetic energy into the target, sending the aforementioned shockwaves through the body.

As for a 70 lb. bow doing the same damage as a 30 lb. bow, I've shot with both, and I must disagree. Target-head arrows sometimes had trouble penetrating a dense styrofoam target at 40 yards with the 30-pounder. The 70 lb. bow was like shooting thunderbolts and buried arrows halfway into the same target every time. The 70-pounder also had no trouble piercing chainmail, while the 30 couldn't. The 30-pounder also bounced arrows off of a plush doll target (a Barney doll, I believe), while the 70-pounder turned it into confetti. Neither of these bows were compound bows.

Incidentally, the 70-pound bow in question belongs to a small older lady whom I could lift over my head. She shoots at least twice a week for a couple of hours each session. If she shoots with a seventy-pound longbow, I hesitate to imagine what a maxed-out troll would shoot.
Ryu
Troll bows would need another type of arrows than human bows. The arrow is supposed to reach the target intact.

And I would put projectile speed into the box labeled "accepted consequences of abstraction". The main problem is not creating a stronger arrow (it would, but we get to say "future tech"), the main problem is a range formula depending on strength. The tables would not like weapon ranges with base value and smaller strength multiplier.
Aaron
QUOTE (Ryu @ Feb 24 2008, 11:30 AM) *
And I would put projectile speed into the box labeled "accepted consequences of abstraction". The main problem is not creating a stronger arrow (it would, but we get to say "future tech"), the main problem is a range formula depending on strength. The tables would not like weapon ranges with base value and smaller strength multiplier.

Speaking of the accepted consequences of abstraction, let's not forget that range is also included in that abstraction. I like to read the range table as not merely actual distance traveled but also effective range. That 70-pound bow was more accurate than the 30-pounder because I didn't have to arc it as much; hell, at 20 yards, I was aiming directly at the bull's eye with the 70, but had to aim a bit high with the 30.
Stahlseele
QUOTE
Still, bear in mind that a DV 17 bow can fire an arrow 1020 metres in an Initiative Pass (of which there can be 4 in a 3 second combat turn), so must be travelling at least 1020/4 *3 metres per second = 765 m/s. That's what, about 2 and a half times the speed of sound? So the primary advantage of a bow - silence - is gone. I'm not sure what the report would sound like (is there a science geek in the house?) but a loud bang followed by a piece of rebar or a metal stake is going to attract attention.

that is just beautyfull ^^
acimeriga
I think we can all agree that a troll with a bow has the ability to easily put arrows through a metahuman target.
My issue was more one involving the ability to put arrows through an armored vehicle.

I wonder, though, if the STRING required to handle the tension of that sort wouldnt simply split most arrows in half, rather than propelling them anywhere?

If you have some sort of rebar arrow, I expect thats going to be awfully hard to shoot accurately. Feathers wont do much to stabilize a piece of steel in flight.

Additionally, a rather large part of an arrow's ability to do its job is dependent on the fact that it flexes wildly in flight. Some sort of super arrow that can withstand the stress from the string likely wont be too flexible.

I personally have ruled in the past (sr3) that an arrow going at 450 fps is more than sufficient to penetrate both a metahuman and the standard kevlar he is wearing, but, barring some sort of extremely hard arrowhead (one player spent some time looking for a toxic shaman so he could do some work with depleted uranium), it wont penetrate much at all in the way of armor designed to withstand bullets, cannon rounds, and HEAT ammo. Additionally, plates inserted into standard body armor can be tailored to stop pretty much projectile, and a corp whose expensive mage was found dead after a run with a spear with feathers and a nock on it pinning him to a wall will have a pretty fair idea of what to equip the counter hit team with.
Slymoon
QUOTE (Aaron @ Feb 24 2008, 10:47 AM) *
True, but don't forget about Shadowrun's abstract damage system. It's not always the physical damage that does a person in, but going into shock after taking that damage. Plus, we're assuming that the arrow leaves a through-and-through. If the arrow catches a bone, it will likely break it and, at troll-sped velocities, transfer a lot of kinetic energy into the target, sending the aforementioned shockwaves through the body.

As for a 70 lb. bow doing the same damage as a 30 lb. bow, I've shot with both, and I must disagree. Target-head arrows sometimes had trouble penetrating a dense styrofoam target at 40 yards with the 30-pounder. The 70 lb. bow was like shooting thunderbolts and buried arrows halfway into the same target every time. The 70-pounder also had no trouble piercing chainmail, while the 30 couldn't. The 30-pounder also bounced arrows off of a plush doll target (a Barney doll, I believe), while the 70-pounder turned it into confetti. Neither of these bows were compound bows.

Incidentally, the 70-pound bow in question belongs to a small older lady whom I could lift over my head. She shoots at least twice a week for a couple of hours each session. If she shoots with a seventy-pound longbow, I hesitate to imagine what a maxed-out troll would shoot.


To correct, I never said the 30 lb did the same damage as a 70 lb. I said:

QUOTE
A 30lb bow will punch a broadhead arrow clean through a deer at 30 yards. A 70lb bow will just get your more range, not more damage.
not more damage when refering to this particular situation. ie: deer that is already 100% penetrated.

I can understand the abstract system such as SR has, that is perfectly fine. I do not accept that weapons within the same book that by RL standards are more powerful doing less damage. Now of course you can just assume that the troll bow in question is beyond! the science of SR firearms! And in that case lets throw out the troll.

Human bow: Strength 6+ware(or adept ability) = 9 which means the human can be pumping out 11P which is still more powerful than any heavy weapon.

It will not be ginormous.

Neither will the Dwarf bow. at 8+ware( or adept ability)= 12 or 14P

The problem isnt the Troll + bow. It is the Bows damage stats.

As other people have stated, it is the only weapon that is Not str/2

And a bow is never intended to be a fair competition to a firearm. See many soldiers or snipers training up their bow skills? For that matter with our tech today, why not a super xbow with a micro motor winching system for a sniper weapon? The answer is simple it can't compete. Doesn't matter if you use the leaf springs from 10 trucks. (which would weigh quite a bit)

(to note: I have and do shoot a bow; 70lb longbow which I do hunt with. I have seen a pisspoor release of an arrow *not* penetrate and a perfect release of a smaller bow fully penetrate.)
MaxMahem
My campaign had a fairly famous troll in it, "Bubba" who was an hick who specialized in using a troll-bow. So I've run just about all the solutions people mention here in some for or another.

#1. Have the police give him trouble over it. A bow big enough for a troll is not easily concealed, nor are its arrows. While the bow may technicaly be legal by SR rules, you can bet the police would want to have a nice 'chat' with anyone carrying one around in the city. Something most runners would probably like to avoid.

#2. Down its damage code. I think the STR+2 damage code was probably just an oversight on the part of the developers (one they should probably go back and fix). Changed it to (STR/2)+3 or +4 and you have a much more reasonable weapon. Which for a strong troll still rivals in strength and range to that of a sniper rifle. But isn't damage code isn't so silly as to be up there with anti-vehicle missiles and the like. And is still appropriate for a more averaged strength human.

#3. Restrict access to the bow. The market for 500lb+ pull bows can't be very large, so feel free to increase the availability heavily, and the price by x10 or or so. These are custom made extra-large size bows, not something you can just pull off the wall someplace. Indeed for the more redicuoulsy strong trolls out there their strength may be approaching the limit on strength even for cyber-augmented trolls. A character who is remarcable strong, even for a troll. Such a bow is probably even more expensive. The arrows likewise would have to be custom made for such a bow.

Do these and bow becomes much more reasonable, while still being incredibly deadly. Bubba (STR 14) could still murder people, cars, drones, trucks, and low-flying aircraft/helicopters with his bow. And the bow still has its advantages over a fire-arm, legality, quietness, and most importantly flavor.

Personally I wouldn't worry overmuch about the realism involved. This is Shadowrun after all, and its a Troll wielding the bow. Clearly some elements of realism must be sacrificed. Thats just my philosophy though, gameability over realism any day.
Aaron
QUOTE (Slymoon @ Feb 24 2008, 01:44 PM) *
And a bow is never intended to be a fair competition to a firearm. See many soldiers or snipers training up their bow skills? For that matter with our tech today, why not a super xbow with a micro motor winching system for a sniper weapon?

My guess? Fire rate, training time, accuracy, and cost of ammunition.
Slymoon
QUOTE (Aaron @ Feb 24 2008, 04:16 PM) *
My guess? Fire rate, training time, accuracy, and cost of ammunition.


My point exactly.

Along with lack of range, speed of projectile, atmospheric intolerance due to a larger projectile (ie wind, humidity) and finally stopping power.


I have however changed my tune a bit. Screw capping the damage, a simple (str/2 +2) as MaxMayhem mentioned (and others) above would do it fine, giving an acceptable damage range of 3P - 10P. Now the top end is still more than I think should be (since it equals a Panther Cannon), but I am willing to compromise for the purposes of a game.


I do agree it must have been an error.
SR3 lists the damage as (Str min +2) Moderate (look familiar?) and all the Strength damage base weapons use straight strength.
Where-as SR4 halves all strength for damage except with the bow. (Str min +2)P
jago668
Just a quick math fix. Using (str/2)+2P, your range actually hits 3P-11P. Since with genetic optimization (strength), and exceptional attribute (strength), a troll can hit an augmented strength of 18.
hyzmarca
The real problem here is that the dmaage system lacks granularity, leaving little middle ground between a weapon that causes adequate damage against lightly-armored humans and one that vaporizes tanks.
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