Quote from: SHARK on November 06, 2020, 05:10:04 PMKarl Edward Wagner is a great author! I love his Kane series of books. Very cool stuff!

Yeah. His wrote some good horror stories as well. It's sad he didn't live longer.

I run AD&D1e, and absent using the Weapons vs AC tables, crossbows aren't very useful.

So for them to be in a campaign, you need to either show the different effects of different weapons on armours, or else buff the crossbows up in line with the Rule of Cool.

"Pull out a spear" just isn't feasible. The reason swords were ubiquitous backup weapons was because you can wear them. You can use a spear as a backup weapon on horseback because you can rig a way for the horse to wear it and you can have one hovering over you in a video game and you could do it if you were stationary on foot, by sticking it in the ground where you are going to stand, but you can't do it on foot if you are going to move around.

Quote from: SHARK on November 06, 2020, 05:29:43 PM
It is perhaps surprising to learn that ancient China went through their feudal period in the 1st century AD--as they moved to the consolidation of empire, and bureaucratic system, instead of a feudal system of government. It was during those times, that the Chinese invented and embraced crossbows, using them en masse military regiments in all of their armies as a regular formation.

Totally, in an oriental campaign crossbows and gun-powder fit well in an earlier time-period. I think such a campaign would have a more techy tone than a campaign based on the same time period from another part of Earth. The question is, is the historical time period what you're going for, or an archaic, low-tech feel.
( I don't mean you personally necessarily).

Since we're fantasists and not only historians, we could also postulate, for example, that Atlantis had full-on automatic weapons even earlier than China had crossbows. That doesn't necessarily mean a campaign full of AK-47's is going to feel "ancient". 

Quote from: Zalman on November 07, 2020, 11:42:27 AM

Quote from: SHARK on November 06, 2020, 05:29:43 PM
It is perhaps surprising to learn that ancient China went through their feudal period in the 1st century AD--as they moved to the consolidation of empire, and bureaucratic system, instead of a feudal system of government. It was during those times, that the Chinese invented and embraced crossbows, using them en masse military regiments in all of their armies as a regular formation.

Totally, in an oriental campaign crossbows and gun-powder fit well in an earlier time-period. I think such a campaign would have a more techy tone than a campaign based on the same time period from another part of Earth. The question is, is the historical time period what you're going for, or an archaic, low-tech feel.
( I don't mean you personally necessarily).

Since we're fantasists and not only historians, we could also postulate, for example, that Atlantis had full-on automatic weapons even earlier than China had crossbows. That doesn't necessarily mean a campaign full of AK-47's is going to feel "ancient". 

Greetings!

*Laughing* I agree with you, Zalman. I think maintaining that particular feel is important. I haven't excluded crossbws entirely from my own campaign, but I have made their knowledge limited to particular areas, and even more distantly their availability is very rare and or expensive. And yeah, I'm loathe to ever include blackpowder firearms.

I have similar ambivalent feelings about exactly what you reference with uber high-tech advanced stuff from Atlantis. I know the whole old school pulp thing often has crazy tech weapons, lasers, helicopters, and what ever, but I constantly chew on the larger campaign imlications if such uber tech is allowed into the campaign--despite such items and tech stuff having a powerful allure and appeal.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Bren on October 30, 2020, 05:29:45 PMOne thing I've always wanted to include is a heavy crossbow with a half-draw stop. It works like a heavy crossbow normally, but someone of sufficient strength could fire it like a light crossbow (range and damage) without needing the time to use a goats foot or crannequin. It's a weapon used by the protagonist in one of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories.

Our RQ2 campaign had exactly that, crossbows that could simply be pulled up, instead of being winched. You had to have an immense STR to use them, maybe STR 25, but they reloaded faster than normal. The trolls and Morocanth used them a lot. I think they were more expensive than normal crossbows and the Mostali gave them to the PCs after they helped the dwarves, I think.