Hey all,

I was just wondering if anyone had any house rules for Bows that they could share.

Bows seem incredibly broken to me. I have a player making a troll adept who uses a bow and I can see this becoming a HUGE power issue. He'll basically be hurling missles with piercing damage greater than an assault cannon. Sure his rate of fire won't be as great as a gun, but it won't really need to be.

Anyone else encountered this?

SR4A "fixes" the Troll Archer issue.

By fixes, I mean put in a poorly-thought-out & inelegant/clumsy limiting factor that in practical application does basically nothing except in the most extreme circumstance.


What I use is (Str / 2) + 3P. All other rules apply normally (Collapsible bows [Arsenal] deal [Str / 2] + 2P)

That's precisely what I do, as well.

SR4A errata caps bow strength at 8 doesn't it? I would have thought that's a nice simple fix?

That makes the damage value the same as some sniper rifles and greater than light machine guns, etc...

Doesn't seem to make sense to me. Maybe I'm not reading something right. I dunno.

I just hate how it seems impossible to find a happy middle ground between "Hey, that reasonably strong fellow with the bow doesn't completely suck as a character," and "LOLOLOLOL, troll shoots thru tanks LOLOLOLOL." Balancing the latter without gimping the former seems to be something they can't pull off.

Muspellsheimr's fix seems good. I mean, yes, a Troll with strength 16 will still have an 11P weapon, but frankly if you've got strength 16 you deserve a good trick from it!

Our group continues to have never had a problem with a trollbow devastating the opposition. SR4A is actually being implemented with the "Max rating 8" rule being ignored.

Troll bows don't have autofire, don't have a blast radius, and don't do cool things like bypass half armor because they're lasers or gauss weapons. They've just failed to become a major issue.

I also use this same house rule in my campaign. ITs worked beautifully.

Stupid question...

When you say SR4A do you mean the anniversary PDF? As in SR4Anniversary?

Yes. Because nobody likes the Sound of SR4.5

And because that's the official abbreviation. "SR4.5" won't appear in any products.

The "unofficial" abbreviation being WWLOMTRAPT - What Was Left Of My Tax Return After Property Taxes, coined by BlueMax.

Yes, I've seen the uber archer and honestly, its a non-issue for me. If I did feel like it was an issue, I'd probably go with Muspellsheimr's house rule.

IMO, the SR4A fix is... meh. But if you like your rules RAW and wriggling, that's what you ought to use.

Anyway, there are many, many better weapons one could be using than a bow.

-paws

To me, it's less an issue of their being "better" weapons than a bow, and more the issue of the absolute retarded silliness of an arrow piercing a tank or shooting through a school or something.

Unless you start using non-linear decay functions which pnp games will never do.

Hey, I'm an engineer, what can you say? This is also why so many of my homebrew systems fall apart - I start using math that you need a degree to understand and then what the point?

Embrace your inner pink mohawk.

-paws

Yeah, that's my problem with it to, especially when you factor in redlining cyberarms. I don't think that bows are too powerful, but I do think that it breaks reality when they can exceed the power of a missile launcher. The real crap of it is that according to RAW, your bow can be a traditional wooden longbow, yet there are no limits to bow ratings. Per RAW, you could have a strength 20 longbow made from oak by hand with a sinew string, and that's just too much. Even though I almost never use realism to justify house rules, this would be one case. Of course, it's more or less fixed in SR4A, I would have liked to see the cap lower, but it's close enough.

RAW is actually mute on bow materials. I'd say it's fair to force bows that require superhuman strength to string and draw have equally exotic constructions. Some sort of phlebotinum metal string with a steel recurve, perhaps.

I still laugh about people who are totally OK with Magic and Ware but not with People who use this Strength to make Bows hit harder.

I don't care about how realistic magic and cyberware are, because they're not real things in the real world that I can draw a real comparison to. I know bows. I know how they work, I know how to handle one, and I know what you can expect one to do with anything anywhere near human strength. They're impressive -- damned impressive -- but they shouldn't be doing anything on par with assault cannons, shooting through tanks, or similar silliness.

Well, i have NO problems at all imagining a bow with requirement strength 14 or so. You can just take a Scorpio for example: It is pretty much a stationary sniper-crossbow. Built with technology of over 2000 Years ago. Using a winch like modern crossbows. It had little trouble firing through four heavily armored warriors on the field. I can easily picture that thing picked up by a cybertroll and use is like a bow (Well he can rip the unesseccary parts of.) I don't think that there is cap on strength bit a bow due to material on that low a level.

Also we can say... when we build a longbow for a troll we can make it over three meters long. With highly efficient technologies and materials. (Composite, with pullies and such you can expect a really insane bow)

Let's see... mongolian bows for riders (A very short one, but with composite materials horn and different woods) could have a pull of around 70 kilograms max. An English Longbow (which has more height than its user may have about.. 50?? kilogramm pull.

So i have no problem with a... let's say 3.20 Meter composit longbow, trollsized with a pull of 300 kilogramms and a 200 gramm arrow, firing about 400 meters. No problem at all... yay for 18S-Bows.... or, well 10DV Bows... depending on taste and edition.

Frankly, I have no problem with the idea of trolls blowing holes in armor with a super bow. Have you guys actually seen what a modern hunting bow can do? I've seen one fire an arrow through a tree (accidentally, the guy using it didn't realize how strong it was... and the guy was not particularly strong himself). Considering that, I'd say that an even more advanced bow used by someone with more than double average human strength would have incredible penetrating power.

JaronK

A well made bow built for a troll would be deadly if HUGE. Bows are likely made manly for tolls as the can make them deadlier than some more "high-tech" weapons. However I am in favor of increasing the availability and cost of the strength 9+ bows and there arrows. as well you'd be using something more in line with a small spear.

I guess people's main beef and reason foir calling them Broken is twofold:
a) original SR4 Bows were the only weapon to realy DIRECTLY on Strength only, not on STR/2 plus something.
b) while people can accept the bow being more penetrative than even a cyber dick combined with the jackhammer modular accessoire, they can NOT accept that the DAMAGE is higher and thus the HOLE would have to be bigger, while, and i loathe to use the word in any context concerning shadowrun, REALISTICALLY *shudders* The Arrow should just pierce through most things without doing too much harm to the intended Target. Which would be taken care of by bows doing STR/2+4 Damage so high Strength Characters don't get shafted completely, while getting more of an negative AP bonus after a certain strength. Maybe make them Minimum Strength to use and calculate Damage from that point and every point of strength above the minimum strength would give an additional -1 AP.

Sure, eventually your bow needs to be made of some sturdy alloys, probably has pulleys on its pulleys, and has to shoot arrows that don't disintegrate during launch. It's nothing the Sixth World can't handle. And it's awesome!

Should those bows pierce tanks really pierce tanks? Well, a strength 16 troll is not quite twice as strong as the strongest unaugmented human if you assume strength is linear as dice pools are. That's impressive, but I think even a rifle should do better. Caps, please!

A note: there's another troll who decided to more or less launch arrows with a siege weapon. He decided that arrows igniting during launch was a feature, not a bug, as long as enough arrows were used. Actually, more Discworld in Shadowrun can only go well.

Ah, yes Detritus.
The First OC'd Troll ever ^^

A longbowman pulled a bow of 150-180lbs pull and could go 400 yards. Most bows in other cultures were between 50-80lbs of pull, which is still more than sufficient to kill. Personally I have no problem with capping it out at 8. Bows are not uber weapons as they stand now. I believe in the cap of 8 more on a relative realism. If you have a higher strength then the arrows would be better served as a physical propelled delivery system rather than a kinetic killing projectile. Basically, a bow would be used to shoot equivalent of armor piercing grenades or fragmentation.

I am personally more bugged about machineguns and firearms. Why do longarms have a higher DV than the heavy machine guns (which would have identical or heavier bullets)? Why do heavy pistols have differing penetrations for effectively identical bullets? Why aren't crossbows using the firearms skill as the aiming is nearly identical?

My main reason is A. I like consistency. If muscle powered weapons do 1/2 str have them all do 1/2 strength. That is why I prefer Muspellsheimr's fix. Now if it was the Katana that was the exception that used full strength I'd try to reach through my book to strangle the authors.

Has anyone ever explained why, every other weapon in the game went from STR to STR/2 for damage going from SR3 -> SR4?
Why only bows... oversight? Intentional?

Whoops... i haven't even realized that the bow would have Str+2 in core... Must have just ignored that, because nothing uses strenght alone.

Well of course str/2+2 (or maybe +3 for bomposite bows)... but no cap. My opinion.... (maybe it was just a typo and everyone just got with it?)

I assumed it was the shift in what the power of the attack meant. In SR 4 a 10DV attack does 10 boxes, in SR3 a 10power attack from a sword might just do M damage. Once the power level became the damage instead of the difficulty to reduce the damage it was a more powerful stat. Sort of like how heavy pistols went from 9 to 5.

Again Shinobi... but why apply that treatment to everything except bows?

Swords.. axes.. clubs... pistols... guns... etc. But not bows.

Sorry I'm tired and misread your post. Why bows?

1. Oversight.
2. Someone on the design team loves bows.
3. The same lame reason you can add strength damage to bows in D&D but not crossbows. Its like a mechanical device man, it totally amplifies your strength, unlike every other giant frakin lever based weapon in history. The bow is like a big lever and mechanical, and you magically put your strength into it because you can like pull back further.

Having been on to many D&D boards at least until 4e(shudder) I'm trending to option 3. Which basically means someone has a bizarre idea that because you pull a bow back with your strength and its also this magic lever device that it works differently than every other lever based weapon(every melee and muscle powered weapon)

My house rule for bows is: "Play D&D if you want to be an archer, I am not running a shadowrun game where bows are a valid weapon choice."

Usually, I try my level best to stay out of threads based on "realism", but..Really?

Man, the NAN must be pretty pissed in your games. What do Wildcat operatives use now that bows are written out of being?

Their soldiers use firearms like everyone else. And before you ask, I don't have Tir ghosts ride unicorns into battle while wielding lances and longswords either.

It's not based upon realism, although I don't see bows being more powerful than .50 BMGs, it's a style choice. Some stuff I do not run games for, and trollbows fall in that category.

Oh come on, no one actually rides unicorns into battle. That's just in the Bubblegum Tir sims, omae.

I'm curious but... Where'd you all get this 'bows cap at 8 now' thing?

Is that the new rule that you're talking about? Apparently material science isn't all that great in the 70's.

Also,
That is to say: The user's actual strength rating has nothing to do with the damage done, it simply determines whether or not the user can actually pull it. (There's a -2 dice pool modifier per point of strength below the bow's min).

And the damage is listed as (STR min +2)P on pages 155 & 315.

I just wanted to make a note of that for you all so that you can argue over what it actually says. I mean, obviously run it as you wish.

I just have one Question right now:
Has anybody really ever seen a high Strength Bow break the Game?
Of course, if i make a High Strength Troll, i usually Give him a Bow and oe or two Points in the skill for long range silent hits and chemical delivery or to go rambo with exploding tips.
But do i actually use that thing in combat? No, that's basically like a Sniper-Rifle. Everywhere else, the Bow is horrendously outclassed and basically useless.

Stahlseele:
That's actually one of my issues w/ the bow as written (and also the Grenade Launcher).

At those long ranges you're talking about... the arrow is actually in the air for MORE THAN ONE COMBAT ROUND (3s). They don't fire in flat arcs at those distances... but in high ballistic arcs. Look up clout archery for a bit more info (which is shot at 180m). Now toss in the rediculously silly extended ranges bows get, compared to the really short ranges guns get on the chart. Really easy way to put it.. gravity is 10m/s^2... if apogee is 5m elevation (a mere 16'), its on a 2s flight time (basic rules of gravity and vertical deceleration/acceleration in 1s things fall ~5m). If you go up to 20m (65') you're on a 4s arc. 45m (150' up) we're in the realm of 6s airtime.

I do think bows are perfectly suitable for players... especially stealthy types looking for quiet forced entry options. Just I believe that, stealth and getting reasonably close (say 50m) should be issues for that. Not making high str bows make sniper rifles look weak.

Bows have other problems... like limited ammunition. (you try carrying more than say 3 dozen arrows on your person w/o them turning into a major impediment.

Mind you, this is just realism POV from someone who enjoys spending time at the range. Not necessarily apt for a game.

Though I have to admit the 'rambo' factor and such does make it a cool pick for SR.

Yeah, before i got riddled with minimum 4 Essence left my ultimate bow-troll had the full setup of mathematical subprocessor, rangefinder and so on. Because, yes, i actually remembered the high arch this time <.<
As for Ammo: Yes, quite the liability. Which brings me again, to my point of Bows being Sniper-Weapons . . ALL of my Bow-Trolls use Shotguns in actual combat. Because, as i see it, if i have to actually fight someone, shit has allready hit the fan. Who cares about stealth at that point.

My sam is kind of a weapon specialist at heart, who likes to tinker with other types of skills. I plan on giving him a couple points of Archery(Bow) just to show that-and who knows, it might actually come in handy sometime. (With a Strength of 9, even with a Str/2+3 houserule, he's still hurting people bad with it-an exploding arrow turns the damn thing into a panther cannon.)

However, if folks have a problem with the whole shooting-through-a-tank; make arrows half their damage or whatnot against hardened, heavily armored targets, or give a big + AP to the hardened/vehicle/building targets, in addition to other houserules. I would say not to even hard body armor-I HAVE seen bows with scaary penetrating power, but just make a call to heavily armored vehicles. (Car doors I'd say are game. I mean, I've seen not-too-strong people do severe damage to one. A really good arrow could likely shoot right through an ordinary car door easily.)

I see no problem with the str+2 bows. Yes, a huge bloody arrow fling from a small ballista is going to do a lot more damage than a bullet. F=m*a at least when I was in school so if I got 50x heavier projectile (arrow) than a bullet, you get same force if it goes 50x slower. Which is why bows are so deadly. Then again: SR uses abstract rules on damage so it doesn't take into account the place where the arrow did actually hit. Say if an arrow passes through the chest, tearing some internal organs doing some serious damage, where the same arrow passing through the arm, would make a hole and maybe render the whole hand useless, but still the person might survive. Same thing with bullets really, but now we are discussing about bows.

If someone wants to spend all the points to get one's troll to STR of 16 just to use the yber-bow, so what? Those points are away from something else. The same troll could spend only a small portion of the points and just go for assault cannon doing also devastating damage. Did anyone remember to take into account the fact that if you shoot with a bow to a solid object, a wall or alike, it makes a tiny hole when it penetrates it (if my memory serves right, 1 point of structural damage per such projectile) where the missile what everyone is comparing the arrow to, would make full blast damage and a big hole.

There's some odd arguments also about materials. Anyone heard about such exotic materials like say... steel? You can make quite a sturdy bow from that without too many problems for a troll. You also need an arrow to survive the takeoff but that's another story.

The important think in damaging the taget is actually Kinetic energy that's (m/2)*(v*v)
So that bullet that goes 50 times faster, does a lot more damage.

Aye.

But where is the problem if a fast bullet and a slow but really heavy object deal same amount of damage? That's the part I don't quite understand

Which is what the comparative analysis boils down to in the long run... I too see no problems with Bows as written... they are after all a niche weapon... I can carry several hundred rounds for my M203 assault rifle as well as 8 or so grenades (40mm), several concussion grenades (4) and several clips of pistol ammunition (3 for the Baretta), along with a LAW Rocket for anti-armor purposes... did so in the Gulf war as a matter of fact, as the Radioman no less...

How many Arrows are you gonna carry? definitely not the amount of rounds that the standard grunt carries on a routine basis... and this is why it is a niche weapon...

This was going to be MY question. Modern bows are all compound, to boost the maximum draw on the arms themselves for any given user strength. So if maximum human normal (without the ability boost quality) is a 6, and judging by the Karma costs to increase, the numbers aren't actually linear. So if a human with strength has the ability to press 450 pounds, what can a troll with a strength of 18 do (quality + genetic optimization)? We're talking about truly frightening levels of peak physical prowess. With such puisance, the troll would be bending old style I-beams bare handed. In order to make a bow function, the "string" is just a means to transfer the force from the tips of the arms to the center where the arrow is. The real challenge is the flexible yet strong material that has to RESIST the pull, creating the stored potential energy which will be suddenly released to accelerate the APFSDSDU-er, I mean, the arrow. (Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot / Depleted Uranium - a kind of tank-fired round, often referred to as a silver bullet, able to punch through all but the most phenomenally tough tank armor - it's a joke, based on the implied velocity and impact energy of an arror tossed by a STR 18 Troll Archer.) You have to be able to resist that much pull, not permanently deform, and then not SHATTER on the rebound when the force is released. I know I keep harping on materials technology in 2070, but even for me that sounds a lot like pure drek. Pure steel would permanently deform under that stress, as would almost all metals. Most modern composites would crack on the pull or shatter on the release. Yeah, I am sure some odd exotic liquid metal / carbon nanotube composite laminate would probably stand up, but it's getting to the point of "mind boggling" and the thing's price would rival that of parts on one of the ships plying between the moon and Evo's Martian base. Talk about "space age"!

Oh, and as to "no explosive radius", they make warheads-er, I mean tips for that.

Kerenshara: And the bow's not the only thing that needs to be able to survive those forces; the arrow is also being subjected to it. At short ranges, having the arrow shred as it's coming off the string might not be too much of an issue - best case scenario, you'd end up with something of a shotgun effect - but out at the longer ranges, it's going to be a question of pure luck whether you hit what/who you were aiming for and miss everything else - if any of the resulting fragments are even still able to make the trip without being stopped by wind resistance.

That said, I'd be willing to accept phlebotinum being used to overcome these problems if it weren't for one simple issue: I don't want bows that can act as artillery pieces in my game. If the troll wants man-portable artillery, they can track down an assault cannon, or a heavy machine gun, or a gaus rifle, or a rocket launcher, or any of the actual artillery weapons. Bows shouldn't be on that list; they've been outclassed by firearms since rifled barrels were invented and having them suddenly pull ahead again hurts my suspension of disbelief.

I imagine a troll bow wouldn't use distorting metal or composites like a normal bow... it would be far more like an ancient ballista, which is in fact designed for such forces (and launches a VERY large arrow). Pistons can actually store that much force quite easily and safely, for example. Also, don't imagine a tiny human sized arrow being shot at supersonic speeds. It's more likely a MUCH larger arrow being fired at a similar speed to a modern bow, but with a super sharp large tip. Basically, it's a dikoted spear that's hitting someone... and there are tales of such spears penetrating multiple soldiers on the battlefields in ancient days (when shot from ballistas, which put out similar force).

JaronK