Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 30, 2023, 12:25:54 PM
Bows only work in specific circumstances, e.g., scores of bowmen against a marching army, or shoot and run tactics. These are NOT the types of combat you see in dungeons (bows would be terrible in dungeons BTW).

Historically, dungeon crawls don't exist, and conflict is typically out in the open, maybe in a field, or maybe in a forest.

And practically, a standard dungeon with corridors ten feet wide and ten feet tall is spacious enough to use bows and spears in. It might not be ideal, but if I saw five guys with spears marching side by side down a corridor at me, I'd leave immediately.

An actual cave, though? No, I wouldn't even take a spear or a bow into a cave. Too narrow, you might not even be able to get a spear through some twisty places.

Edit: Hell, I probably couldn't get myself through some of the places I went caving as a much younger man.

The funniest part of this thread is that Monte Cook was responsible for beating archery with the nerfbat in 3E D&D.

I thought ranged weapons were handled pretty well in AD&D 2e.  With bows having strength penalties, but only bonuses if specially constructed, a team of longbowmen would generally have a bit longer range but do less damage than an equivalent team of crossbowmen, which I thought was a reasonable take on things.  I'm not sure whether AD&D did it or not, but I know by 3.0 you would want to use shortbows if you were on a horse, making sure that they were actually the superior option for all of that game and Pathfinder 1 (the fact that almost everyone use composite longbows instead is because the horseback riding rules were woefully underutilized by most players, despite being extraordinarily powerful anywhere they were allowed). 

In all of these versions, however, the player character generally had the option of turning the shortbow or longbow into a real weapon that scaled.  Be it a fundamental rate of fire on the bow, a special ability of the fighter class, or some feat, in all cases you could get a bunch of arrows out in a round, and the arrows had at least a bonus to hit from dexterity and a bonus to damage from strength.  In 4th and beyond, you basically get your Dexterity bonus to hit and damage, making them function extremely similar to melee weapons, with a bunch of mild restrictions you can usually get around.

The fact that a player can invest crap into this- starting from attributes- is probably the issue.  When it comes to ranged weapons, you want a system that gives reasonably equal prominence to:
1- A longbow shot by a superior man
2- A shortbow shot by a superior man riding a superior horse
3- A crossbow shot by a dextrous man
4- Early firearms shot by someone trained with their idiosyncrasies

Meanwhile, weapons like:
1- A science fiction blaster rifle
2- A modern selective fire battle rifle
3- A modern semiautomatic rifle
4- A modern submachine gun
Should all be a superior version of (4)- "Early firearms shot by someone trained"- and be superior enough that the other options should fall by the wayside.

Similarly, weapons like:
1- Sling
2- Blowgun
3- Atlatl (assuming your system understands this as a ranged weapon and not an enhancement to a thrown weapon, either is a valid model)

Should generally be inferior to the first list in some fashion.

I really think that the issue comes down to the rate of attack.  Systems seem to understand that a single telling sword blow is scored more often as fighting men gain experience, but are unwilling to extend this level of abstract to ranged weapons, wherein each arrow can be tracked, each muzzle load costing a precise quantity of per-round activity.  This distinction, plus the D&D-ism of the "weapon damage die", is what has yielded the situation OP is complaining about.

Quote from: Venka on February 01, 2023, 05:05:49 PM
...
Similarly, weapons like:
1- Sling
2- Blowgun
3- Atlatl (assuming your system understands this as a ranged weapon and not an enhancement to a thrown weapon, either is a valid model)

You are mostly in the ballpark, but not on slings.  Slings suffer the same thing that longbows do, only earlier and without the fan appeal.  Slings in capable hands are quite a good weapon, better than many bows.  The trouble is that getting capable with a sling, like the longbow, takes constant practice from someone that starts relatively young. 

When you've got a lot of shepherds in the area that grew up driving off predators with a sling from a young age, you've got a well-trained core of skirmishers ready made.  When you don't, it's a whole lot easier to train some archers using some moderate pull, shorter bows. 

Like the longbow, if a system can reflect the real abilities of the weapon, and offset that with increased training to get there, a sling ought to be rather scary to opponents, as soon as capability is demonstrated.

Knowing that enemies who can, will attack the PCs from outside melee range with bows and arrows; any party of PCs would be well advised to have at least a couple of bows among the adventuring party.

It seems that if bows need real strength to use, then strength penalties should apply.
Apply the strength penalty rules for bows (from whatever edition that you prefer), but double or triple the penalties added for longbows.

Stringing/unstringing bows and crossbows should have a table like donning or doffing armour.

For every day that you leave a bow/crossbow strung, there might be a -1 penalty to attacks with that bow, and these penalties are permanent beyond X days. Every threshold at X days with the weapon still strung makes that many penalties permanent in an escalating fashion, i.e. first threshold might be 5 days, next one 3, next is 1. If the number of penalties exceeds the weapon's [hardness rating?] then the bow is rendered useless even as a child's toy.

Quote from: ClusterFluster on February 06, 2023, 11:01:05 AM
It seems that if bows need real strength to use, then strength penalties should apply.
Apply the strength penalty rules for bows (from whatever edition that you prefer), but double or triple the penalties added for longbows.

Stringing/unstringing bows and crossbows should have a table like donning or doffing armour.

For every day that you leave a bow/crossbow strung, there might be a -1 penalty to attacks with that bow, and these penalties are permanent beyond X days. Every threshold at X days with the weapon still strung makes that many penalties permanent in an escalating fashion, i.e. first threshold might be 5 days, next one 3, next is 1. If the number of penalties exceeds the weapon's [hardness rating?] then the bow is rendered useless even as a child's toy.

Maybe, maybe not.  That gets into the granularity of what you are doing.  Are you also going to have rules for caring for armor?  Shields breaking?  Cleaning and repairing weapons?  How about practice time?  In reality, people lose their edge pretty darn fast with weapon skills if they don't practice constantly.  Sure, they are better than most people, who are untrained, even when rusty, but they aren't anywhere near peak. 

Fact is, there are a lot of reasons why historically certain weapons were favored, and many of these don't translate well into games without introducing details that may seem overly fiddly to many people.

Strength penalties or minimums have been used in a lot of systems with various weapons.  The problem you run into there is how Strength scales.  Because a bigger 10-year old or even you average 12-year old can learn to use just about any weapon well, if they start training with it.  Or in other words, you don't use a heavier pound longbow because you are strong.  You are strong (in the particular way needed for a longbow) because you used a lighter bow constantly and then worked up to the current poundage.  This isn't true of every weapon (e.g. rapier), and it's not true for many stamina issues, where you need other training to supplement the weapon training, but again, we are getting into fiddly territory.  If you average adult in D&D has a 10 Str, or even a little lower, they can still, with training, learn almost any weapon available.  So it makes Str penalties and minimums kind of moot, or not realistic, or both.

What he said ^^^

"Your hear shuffling sounds from around the corner."

"I string my bow."

"A cute little puppy walks around the corner."

"I unstring my bow."

That would get old fast. It can just be assumed that you string your bow when preparing for combat. Just like you hone your sword blade after combat, and oil your crossbow cogs or whatever.

Roll init. If you lose it's because you were too slow stringing your bow. There's your reason.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on February 06, 2023, 11:48:50 AM
Maybe, maybe not.  That gets into the granularity of what you are doing.  Are you also going to have rules for caring for armor?  Shields breaking?  Cleaning and repairing weapons?  How about practice time?  In reality, people lose their edge pretty darn fast with weapon skills if they don't practice constantly.  Sure, they are better than most people, who are untrained, even when rusty, but they aren't anywhere near peak. 

Fact is, there are a lot of reasons why historically certain weapons were favored, and many of these don't translate well into games without introducing details that may seem overly fiddly to many people.

Strength penalties or minimums have been used in a lot of systems with various weapons.  The problem you run into there is how Strength scales.  Because a bigger 10-year old or even you average 12-year old can learn to use just about any weapon well, if they start training with it.  Or in other words, you don't use a heavier pound longbow because you are strong.  You are strong (in the particular way needed for a longbow) because you used a lighter bow constantly and then worked up to the current poundage.  This isn't true of every weapon (e.g. rapier), and it's not true for many stamina issues, where you need other training to supplement the weapon training, but again, we are getting into fiddly territory.  If you average adult in D&D has a 10 Str, or even a little lower, they can still, with training, learn almost any weapon available.  So it makes Str penalties and minimums kind of moot, or not realistic, or both.

You can get strong enough through training without incrementing your strength score at all... well put, that makes sense.

And yeah, you do have a point about the fiddly nature of the kind of rules I'm proposing, and I can't say I was excited about posting them. Maybe it would be easier to record 3 fumbles with that weapon before its damage is halved, and if you don't repair it before 3 more fumbles, it breaks in your hands. Magic and wondrous items being different, of course--

Edit:
--but that's tangential to the real problem with bows in combat in general, which I didn't address...

Somewhat related to my first concession here:
I've mentioned to my player group that the AD&D exceptional strength scores should have just been a bonus XP modifier (for any attribute used by a relevant class), and then we could dispose with the guaranteed attribute increases over level ups that creates such a scaling nightmare for monster design. Taking a feat could give you the +2 you want, if you want to play with any feats at all, but that at most.

Quote from: rytrasmi on February 06, 2023, 12:06:46 PM
...

Roll init. If you lose it's because you were too slow stringing your bow. There's your reason.

That's way more elegant, thanks.

Bonus XP modifiers are a very lumpy reward system.  If the party is nearing a big XP payoff, it's entirely possible for the guy with the XP bonus to not get a single session with +1 level over the other guys.

And that's the other part of the problem- the XP bonus tends to be measured as respect to the rest of the party.  Now, you could easily be using a system that delivers challenges based on the total XP given to the party, or simply has a set of challenges that ramp up over time.  In those cases, bonus XP is a great reward.  But if the PCs have any input about what encounters they have and what missions they take, and most especially if the GM is building encounters based on the player party, it's no kind of bonus at all.

Oldest school D&D had a mild bonus if it was above a certain amount, and the pre-AD&D modifiers were less impressive than the -5 to +5 that was introduced with 3.X.  The other benefit of exceptional strength in AD&D 1e was that it was the only nod to realism regarding the physical inferiority of female strength as opposed to male, as while there was no penalty for a lady warrior, she could never have above some strength (was it 18/51?), so if you happened to roll so splendidly on character creation, well, play a dude, bro!

Basically, the odds are great you can just delete the damned exceptional strength table completely from whichever version of AD&D you are running.  I guess if you are using the Skills and Powers "2.5" version, which allows players to buy their way up that chart, then you might not want to, but those characters are really min-maxxy and I doubt you're running that stuff.

I agree with everyone that says bows are useful in actual war... Nothing much to add there.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 30, 2023, 01:10:44 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 30, 2023, 12:25:54 PM
Completely agree with OP - ranged weapons and thrown weapons are not really comparable to melee.

I'd bet someone with a dagger beats someone with a bow nine times out of ten, even if they start 100 feet apart (provided they received the same amount of training and similar physiques, of course).

In most D&D games, the dagger is a weak 1d4 weapon, while bows to 1d6 or even more.

Bows only work in specific circumstances, e.g., scores of bowmen against a marching army, or shoot and run tactics. These are NOT the types of combat you see in dungeons (bows would be terrible in dungeons BTW).

But... rule of cool. People want Legolas in their D&D games.

Curious as to your reasoning here...  My RL skill with a bow is on the lower end of the intermediate range and I'm pretty sure I could get in at least one hit in this situation.  And in RL one hit is all it takes to end the fight if it's in the right spot.

I have (equally) limited experience with bow and dagger. I can say it is extremely easy to hit a human-shape punching bag with a dagger in the throat. A bow is nothing like this in my experience.

Of course, if you're a experienced bowman - as someone mentioned, "starting with the grandfather" - it might be a different story.

Not to mention I do not believe 1 hit = 1 kill to be true for bows; I think daggers are at least as deadly and I bet I can stab three or more times for every arrow.

Even police training IIRC teaches daggers are incredibly dangerous against GUNS if you are, say, 10 feet apart, due to taking a fraction of a second to draw and shoot. Bows take much longer.

Quote from: Lunamancer on January 30, 2023, 01:56:12 PM
If you're talking about large scale battles, where most fighting men are 0th level, where one-hit-kills are most common, he who goes first has a massive advantage. It doesn't matter that a two-hander does d10 while a bow only d6. Even though you can close 100 feet within a single round, the bow has a decent chance of killing before you even get into melee. Even in the case of spears, when weapon length determines first strike during charging, hasty closing into melee, and when the "mass of pikes" rule is in effect, overall the spear is going to be mightier than the sword.

I'm not, I'm talking about D&D games how I usually se them played - a party of about half a dozen people against monsters in a dungeon or wilderness, usually encountered in a small distance.

Also, I believe spears to be a completely different conversation.

But yeah, good point.

Quote from: Lurkndog on January 30, 2023, 02:46:52 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 30, 2023, 12:25:54 PM
Bows only work in specific circumstances, e.g., scores of bowmen against a marching army, or shoot and run tactics. These are NOT the types of combat you see in dungeons (bows would be terrible in dungeons BTW).

Historically, dungeon crawls don't exist, and conflict is typically out in the open, maybe in a field, or maybe in a forest.

And practically, a standard dungeon with corridors ten feet wide and ten feet tall is spacious enough to use bows and spears in. It might not be ideal, but if I saw five guys with spears marching side by side down a corridor at me, I'd leave immediately.

An actual cave, though? No, I wouldn't even take a spear or a bow into a cave. Too narrow, you might not even be able to get a spear through some twisty places.

Edit: Hell, I probably couldn't get myself through some of the places I went caving as a much younger man.

Yup, agreed, but D&D does dungeons crawls.

Also, longbows in Moldvay can reach up to 100 feet with no penalty. I d'ont see this working in a long corridor and, even in the open, I doubt it would be hard to dodge a missile if you can spot the single archer shooting a single target 100 feet away.

Spears are a different thing IMO. A short spear might work better than a swung weapons in cave...

Quote from: Venka on February 06, 2023, 12:56:58 PM
Bonus XP modifiers are a very lumpy reward system.  If the party is nearing a big XP payoff, it's entirely possible for the guy with the XP bonus to not get a single session with +1 level over the other guys.

... The other benefit of exceptional strength in AD&D 1e was that it was the only nod to realism regarding the physical inferiority of female strength as opposed to male, as while there was no penalty for a lady warrior, she could never have above some strength (was it 18/51?), so if you happened to roll so splendidly on character creation, well, play a dude, bro!

Basically, the odds are great you can just delete the damned exceptional strength table completely from whichever version of AD&D you are running. ...

I felt that I could have that character become a new campaign NPC, say after getting 3 levels higher than the party average, but in trying to formulate the rest of that rationalization, I get why it'd be easier to just delete that table after all: too much complexity and not enough depth. The attribute caps should be just good enough without those tables. I might stubbornly reread them on the off chance they are truly salvageable...

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 06, 2023, 03:12:29 PM

Quote from: Lurkndog on January 30, 2023, 02:46:52 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 30, 2023, 12:25:54 PM
Bows only work in specific circumstances, e.g., scores of bowmen against a marching army, or shoot and run tactics. These are NOT the types of combat you see in dungeons (bows would be terrible in dungeons BTW).

Historically, dungeon crawls don't exist, and conflict is typically out in the open, maybe in a field, or maybe in a forest.

And practically, a standard dungeon with corridors ten feet wide and ten feet tall is spacious enough to use bows and spears in. It might not be ideal, but if I saw five guys with spears marching side by side down a corridor at me, I'd leave immediately.

An actual cave, though? No, I wouldn't even take a spear or a bow into a cave. Too narrow, you might not even be able to get a spear through some twisty places.

Edit: Hell, I probably couldn't get myself through some of the places I went caving as a much younger man.

Yup, agreed, but D&D does dungeons crawls.

Also, longbows in Moldvay can reach up to 100 feet with no penalty. I d'ont see this working in a long corridor and, even in the open, I doubt it would be hard to dodge a missile if you can spot the single archer shooting a single target 100 feet away.

Spears are a different thing IMO. A short spear might work better than a swung weapons in cave...

You would have about half a second to dodge a longbow at 100 feet and it's a pretty flat trajectory for that 100 feet, so might work in a 10x10 corridor.