Bow Rules

[Hinks12]

I thought of back when playing diablo and diablo 2 they had shortbows, longbows, then they had composite shortbows, and composite longbows as well. I had the idea of putting these in an armory but how would we do the rules.

Short-bow (100 Gold)
1 attack die, *1 Attack die to hit

Longbow (250 gold)
2 attack dice, 2 Attack Dice to hit

Composite Short-bow (275 gold)
1 Attack die

Composite Longbow (300 Gold)
2 attack dice

Crossbow (350)
3 attack dice 2 attack dice to hit (takes 1 movement to load)

I had the idea for this from The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battlegame when you fire you need to hit it before you wound it. So I thought that you need to roll a white shield to hit, and if you hit then you can see if you wound with the skull. If you hit and don't wound then the monster can move and attack immediately. Same goes with Long bow except that it has 2 attack dice to wound and two to hit but you only need one white shield to hit. The Composite on the other hand are a better shot and you just need to see if you wound. Special exception to the rule, if you use a ranger for a character then he can shoot fine without seeing if he hits or not and he gets a bonus of +1 on the composite bows same goes with an elf except for the bonus. The Crossbow should take longer to load it is a more complex ranged weapon. Hope you enjoy the idea

[knightkrawler]

I wouldn't give any bow just 1 attack die.
That's for Sling and Blowpipe.

The question is what possibilities do you wanna give the heroes?
Which differences between similar weapons can be accomodated for by the rule system?

My ranged weapon armory looks like this:
http://oldscratch.smackwell.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1335209631
This was a first draft I've improved very much since then, but you get the idea.

In my opinion, HeroQuest - even when pumped and pimped up by houserules - is far too simple and basic
to accomodate for fine differences like those between 4 types of bow.

The way I made my armory was first making up my mind about what do I want to have...
- a ranged weapon to be used by the Wizard?
- a weapon that gives the Barbarian the fighting advantage he deserves?
- a weapon that makes it possible to divide your attack dice on two adversaries?

And only then I came up with suitable weapons and special rules:
- Sling
- Tribal Greatsword
- Morningstar

Just to name three examples.
My

[Ethica]

Isn't this <roll to see if you hit, then roll to see if you wound> system already part of the normal rules? With the crossbow normally you roll 3 dice to see if you hit, then the monster rolls their defence to see if they're wounded by your hit.

[Hinks12]

well that is true i didn't think of that, I was thinking of the rules from The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. the other rule i was thinking of along with it was if you didn't hit it and the monster didn't know you where there they would if you shot at them and even missed. but it is only an idea

[Goblin-King]

Just had an idea for ranged weapons... (that someone in here probably already thought of XD)
The good ones could be piercing!

Say longbow... 2 dice - Piercing
you attack like you'd normally do with the crossbow. All skulls rolled are hits that can be defended against like normal.
But all black shields are auto hits that can't be defended against!

Of course piercing weapons shouldn't ever get too many attack dice as each die has a much higher hit rating than on normal weapons. Do some math to calculate average damage versus gold cost...
I guess the piercing stat could be applied to all types of weapon, not just ranged...

What do you think?

***edit***
And kinda agree with Ethica... Three rolls for killing something are a bit too much in my humble opinion.

[Templar]

Just had an idea for ranged weapons... (that someone in here probably already thought of XD)
The good ones could be piercing!

Say longbow... 2 dice - Piercing
you attack like you'd normally do with the crossbow. All skulls rolled are hits that can be defended against like normal.
But all black shields are auto hits that can't be defended against!

Of course piercing weapons shouldn't ever get too many attack dice as each die has a much higher hit rating than on normal weapons. Do some math to calculate average damage versus gold cost...
I guess the piercing stat could be applied to all types of weapon, not just ranged...

What do you think?

Well, I think that the idea of good weapons being piercing (and crushing) is a great idea. However I think they should decrease the number of defence dice rather than causing auto hits. My reasoning is this: if you hit your opponent it doesn't nessecarily mean you hit somewhere fatal. The thing piercing weapons does is increase the likelyhood of killing a monster if you hit them in the right place. So they are harder to defend against.

Or maybe it's just that I don't like autohits in general

[knightkrawler]

I'm with you there.
Autohits no good.

[Hinks12]

Well i will work on it some more then i will post the edit thanks for the input. If you have ever played Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game then you may know where i got the idea from.

[Goblin-King]

Well it's not "autohits" per se... You still have to roll. But a weapon that always did at least 1 wound would be a little OP.
You don't like the idea and that's fair.

BUT... For the sake of argument...

Normal weapons have a chance to hit an enemy. If unlucky, the enemy's armor deflects the blow.
A piercing weapon have a chance to ignore (pierce!) said armor. Thus wounding the enemy.

oh well...

[Templar]

For the sake of argument...

Normal weapons have a chance to hit an enemy. If unlucky, the enemy's armor deflects the blow.
A piercing weapon have a chance to ignore (pierce!) said armor. Thus wounding the enemy.

You could see it that way yes. Logical reasoning all the way...misa likey

In retrospect I meant "autowound", not "autohit". My bad.

Edit: On the other hand...if you subtract armour dice from an enemy down to 0...that means every is an autowound...
Maybe it should force a reroll instead. I have to think about it
Long story short, I say no auto anything.