[Silver tears]

I was talking with one of my Dm friends and we were talking about a player that we have in common ... the guy almost always play elven archers .... the conversation went on to ...

" hey, it would be cool to play an archer like they were in reality ..."

So basically there are the archer that shoot straight to the ennemy and those that shoot in a parabol motion wich are more historically right ...

So I was thinking, If you play an archer, how do you see it mostly ???

[Darius]

Hey , Its Fantasy - everyone knows the hero's shoot bows like rifles and on a Flat trajectory

Usually my Hero's and NPC's shoot like Legolas in LOTR and my Commoner/warrior's do the parabola and massed fire thing.
If you did it realisticaly then there's no way you could shoot badguys at long range in a corridor or tunnel as the arrow's would hit the roof.

D

[Silver tears]

That's why I tought about doing a "parabolic Archer" .... "specialized" with longbow, having skills relating to it like meteorology and things like that...

I would aske for a range bonus, but as a drawback he would be such a wuss in any underground combat ....

[Ssri-Tel-Quessir Hitokiri]

Well... I guess that dwarves wouldn't consider that class as one to choose... 'Course I haven't really ever seen a dwarf use a bow... Why is that?

[Darius]

Ssri-Tel-Quessir Hitokiri, on Aug 1 2004, 04:53 AM, said:

Well... I guess that dwarves wouldn't consider that class as one to choose...  'Course I haven't really ever seen a dwarf use a bow...  Why is that?

Because their only choice is the "Shortbow"

D

Sorry , couldn't resist

[Darklook]

I always imagine the archers to be shooting in a straight path with much speed, simply because it seems more logical. If the opponent is really far, the arrow just looses some speed and therefore causes less damage.

I just don't see how shooting an arrow in a parabolic motion can have enough power to rip through the armors we see in D&D and cause damage. Perhaps a special kind of arrow with heavy and sharp arrrowhead can have a chance, but still that should have a radical attack penalty.

[Darius]

Darklook, on Aug 2 2004, 12:47 AM, said:

I just don't see how shooting an arrow in a parabolic motion can have enough power to rip through the armors we see in D&D and cause damage. Perhaps a special kind of arrow with heavy and sharp arrrowhead can have a chance, but still that should have a radical attack penalty.

English Longbows at Crecy and Agincourt were fired long range at the French Knights ,300 - 400 meters, in volleys (to shoot any bow that range you need to do a parabola and fire at about a 45degree angle) , at that range and angle of desent , the arrows were going through the thighguard , through the thigh , throught the back of the thighguard , through the saddle and embedding themselves in the Horse's and the french were wearing plate!
They were just using standard clothyard arrow's which is what the DnD arrows are modeled on and the DnD longbow is the English(Welsh) longbow.
yes it was volley fire , but an english archer had a good chance of hitting a mansized target at that range or at least getting close enough the scare the living daylights out of you.

D

[BrotherMouran]

There's a reason it's called 'archery'... arrows travel in an arc. If the range is particularly short, it may seem to be a straight shot, but even then an arrow travels in a parabolic arc, whether or not it is noticable.

Firearms are also subject to this... they travel at a higher velocity initially, so are able to overcome the effects of gravity to a point, but when they begin to slow, they begin to arc more.

[Darklook]

When about 7000 archers shoot from a higher position and target about 36000 soldiers who made multiple charges as a group with about half million arrows, some of them are bound to hit the leather/uncovered part of their body.

There were about 8000 french casualties. Let's just say archers killed all of them (which wasn't the case, there were about 5000 more english soldiers on their side), the hit rate is 1.6% (lower if you include the soldier kills).

As you can see, the shots were pretty random. Barely 2 arrows hit from per 100 arrows that were shot. The accuracy rate is very low, and that's why I said if anyone decides to shoot in a parabolic motion, he/she should suffer radical attack penalties.

Also, it is absolutely impossible for an arrow with iron or steel arrowhead to go through a steel platemail, through the padded armor and damage the skin without flying at an extremly high speed (in real life..). Therefore, the french weren't wearing the kind of platemail we see in D&D or..they were wearing the same kind of platemail, but the arrows didn't directly contact the steel, instead they hit the parts that weren't covered by metal. They were also probably wearing half-plates.

An English (Welsh ) longbow is six foot long which is pretty normal and it required a strong man to use it. However D&D bows does come in different sizes, depending on how big bow your character can handle(just like almost any other weapon in D&D).

I agree that arrows/bullets do curve because of loss of speed but that's not a parabolic motion (especially guns). But I did imagine this a little wrongly. Yes an archer needs to aim slightly higher to hit a far away target correctly sometimes, which results in a wide but short parabola. What I thought you guys were saying is that for example if a character is 80 feet away, you shoot upward toward the sky and hope when it falls in a parabolic motion, it will hit and damage the enemy.

[Darius]

have a read of this http://www.planetsim...gbowman.htm#500

DnD plate , and platemail is exactly the same type of armour the french wore , at Agincourt the armor was heavier and the archers were on the same level but the english still killed the french by penertating the armour at long ranges , remember the french were bogged and standing still at about 150 yards and receiving aimed fire .Every englishman was required too practice with the longbow by law ,and be able tho hit a man sized target at 200yards.Gothic plate could possible hold up to close range fire , but most common armours are going to be penertrated even at ranges where the arrow has a disernable arc in its course.

D

[mipadi]

Keep in mind that in D&D, the maximum range of the longbow, barring feats or enhancements that increase it, is 100 feet -- a third the length of a football field. Most ranged combat in D&D occurs well within this 100 feet. While technically you would still have to fire in an arc, it wouldn't have to be much of an arc at all to cover a range of less than 100 feet.

[Darius]

mipadi, on Aug 2 2004, 02:01 PM, said:

Keep in mind that in D&D, the maximum range of the longbow, barring feats or enhancements that increase it, is 100 feet -- a third the length of a football field. Most ranged combat in D&D occurs well within this 100 feet. While technically you would still have to fire in an arc, it wouldn't have to be much of an arc at all to cover a range of less than 100 feet.

longbows have 100ft range increments , ranges are 30 ft for close , 100 ft for short ,200 ft for medium , 300 ft for long and 400ft is extreme range

D

[Darklook]

Did you see the arrowheads in the link you gave me? Those are not standard D&D arrows. I did mention before that it might be possible to penetrate armor and cause damage with a heavy and sharp arrowhead , and those looks quite sharp and heavy.

[Darius]

it used to be the bodkin points were the 'Flight" arrows and the heads used for the 100 yard arrows from the link(not sure what their called) were the "Sheaf" arrows used in 2ed , but thats changed in 3ed and now its just the Sheaf arrows, in DnD and ADnD the normal head was the Bodkin.of course we could really confuse the mix and throw in japanese arrows and all their capabilities

D

[ladyofdragons]

A lesson on bow & arrow in reality. Not everyone will need this, but for those who haven't shot or studied physics it might be informational.

According to the laws of physics, an item projected through the air is subject to the laws of gravity and friction. An arrow, shot straight ahead at a 90 degree angle to the ground, will loose inertia due to air friction and gravity will lower it to the ground. Because combat/hunting arrows have heavy heads and light ends due to metal tips and feathered fletching, the arrow turns downwards and more often than not the arrow plunges headfirst into the ground.



Each bow is rated in poundage, the amount of pull necessary to bend the wood, extend the string, and fire the arrow. The higher the poundage of your bow, the further you extend the string, the more force is transferred to the arrow, and the further the arrow can travel. A higher poundage bow pulled by a stronger man can fire an arrow further than a similar arrow fired on by a weaker person on a weaker bow. Just compare my husband and I practicing. The arrow with more force will be able, of course, to embed itself further into a flat target.

In order for a bowman to overcome the range limitations of a straight arrow shot, they need to overcome gravity. This is done by shooting upwards at an angle, creating a parabolic arc in flight. The greater the angle (to a certain degree), the further the arrow can fly before hitting the ground, simply because it has further to sink before it hits the ground. The force transferred to the arrow upon firing does not change, it flies just as fast but further.



Archery as a practice and art is the study of creating a repeatable motion. If the archer can manage to repeat exactly his motions on firing one arrow to the next, the greater their accuracy. Of course, no two pulls are ever "exactly" the same. Each arrow's fletching has differences, each arrow has different weight points. If outdoors, each pull may pass through different wind zones that alter the trajectory of the arrow. The archer can learn to compensate for conditions, but generally it's not possible to forsee every wind gust in a long range shot. The ranges at agincourt were about 900-1000 feet, over double the D&D extreme range. But if you've got bunches and bunches of archers with bunches and bunches of arrows, you've got the liberty of shooting and having lots of misses, if it kills off a few knights.

In order to do a 300 foot long range shot with a longbow, you might figure on a 30-40 degree angle. If you are standing in a field, not a problem. If you are underground, this might indeed be an issue. If a 5' tall elf wanted to shoot a long range target while standing in a 10' high tunnel, where his shoulders (and thus the beginning of the arrow's flight) would be at 4.5', with the top of the arc at 150' in distance, I do believe the arrow would bounce off the ceiling before reaching the 150' necessary to complete a 300' range (my geometry's a bit too rusty to figure it all out, but that's my impression).

As for damage, it's documented that longbowmen were able to pierce plate armor with their arrows. I don't know how many footpounds of pressure/force are applied to an arrow strike with a good sturdy longbow, but it is realistic that a good sharp-tipped arrow with that force applied can go through metal. As each bow is rated for poundage, longer sturdier bows do more damage. I have somewhere an old old Dragon magazine article with the "bow built for strength", which allowed characters to use their damage bonus on arrow strikes. A fantasy representation of this is Lurtz from LOTR and his treetrunk shortbow. That took some serious muscle to pull, and caused damage based on the force transferred to the arrow. I haven't actually played a character who uses a bow in 3E, I'm not sure what the 3E damage rules are for bows & damage.

Anyway, if anyone out there is in high school or college, I seriously highly suggest taking Physics as your science, if you can. Yeah, there's lots of math formulas involved, but it's the science that will help you really define combat in D&D in a relatively realistic manner. And since they give you the formulas, it's just plugging in the numbers.