Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Bow

The bow is a great weapon, used to purpose throughout history, if a little overstated. And its been nice to see the bow makes its appearance in various books and movies, most recently in The Hunger Games, but also in the Avengers and last week in the pilot of Arrow.

Interestingly it plays a very small role in our Thursday night games. I'm not sure anyone in the party carries a bow, and if they do, they use it very rarely. Interestingly the kids game I run on Saturdays, I think everyone has a bow...but for the cleric and illusionist...as they shoot the crap out of any monsters as often as they can.

Here's a nice diagram:


The age old question of how many arrows one could get off in a round continues to plague our table. Castles & Crusades' official rule is one arrow per round. This causes a bit of rancor at the table from some players. My guess is that it will never be settled. I'm not sure about DCC RPG or D&D 3/4/5 but its probably two. I think specializing in a bow might be the best route to improve this, or even making it a subclass of the fighter...of course that's a slippery road to rules, rules, rules.

Of course, this video sheds some interesting light on that question:


1 comment:

Philo Pharynx said...

I've found it depends on how the encounters are set up. In a dungeoncrawl a bow is rarely useful as you couldn't get off many shots before the monsters were on you. In a wilderness adventure it depends on the terrain and how good you are at spotting the bad guys before they're in face-ripping range.

Some characters aren't skilled in a bow or combat in general. Others have different options. Why would you use a bow when you can use magic missile?

As for the speed, realism is only part of it. For one, the example archer wasn't the most accurate. For another, there's the issue of game balance. If an archer fires much faster than a swordsman, they have a definite game advantage.

Some games have more abstract combat. You may not be firing one arrow per round, but you get one effective attack in.

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