Bow Rules

[Von Necron]

My game group uses weapons classes. So Bow is a weapons class. If interested its under the topic Von Necrons House Rules under Master Armory.

[Goblin-King]

What you should (could?) do is decide the average damage output per turn for each weapon. Do math against 2 and 3 def dice. Those are the most common. Unless of course you have scores of custom monsters

A weapon with a chance to make 8 hits is not overpowered if it only hits every 3rd turn (custom dice?).
A weapon with piercing/autowound is not overpowered if it only gets 1 die.
A weapon that rolls 6 dice is not overpowered if it must charge/reload 1 turn before use.
etc etc...

[cynthialee]

seems more complicated than it has to be

supposed to be a simple board game with limited rules for ease of play

these bow rules would take to much time out of game trying to remember what types of bows do what and stoping to referance the rules

[ken]

We think the Euro Rules are too loaded against the poor monsters, we tried our house rule of if the bowman does not get a skull on his roll, all heroes duck and roll a combat dice. First skull loses a BP. We tried our last few games "bowless", seems a more level playing field.

[sadkitchen]

Our custom bows were super simple. (I don't remember the prices off the top of my head)

Sling = 1 combat die
Short Bow = 2 combat dice
Long Bow = 3 combat dice

They all had the same rules as the crossbow except that the wizard can use the sling and no shields with the bows.

-SadKitchen

[Ethica]

Yeah keep it simple. The orignal crossbow style rules are fine, it's a powerful weapon yes, but heroes shouldn't really be affording them until late in the first questbook (unless of course you allow more than 1 search per room/passage).

[Karlssonontheroof]

I see many expanded armouries having a bow or two.
The crossbow Usually has some basic downgrade like only fires once every second turn, so adding a main long range weapon (bow) you can use every turn needs a drawback


Would it be interesting to connect skill to the weapons?
One could use mind points to represent skill/coordination required to aim effectively.

Given that, perhaps a bow could let you roll as many attack dice as your mind points, but you only hit on

I see a few adding range to the bows (I personally feel it's too much complexity, but with these rules I'd say anything beyond 2x the Hero's starting body points hits on

Basic stats:
Rolls 2, (range 16) equivalent to 1.3 normal combat dice
Rolls 3, (range 14) equivalent to 2 normal combat dice
Rolls 4, (range 12) equivalent to 2.7 normal combat dice


A more powerful weapon could add one or two combat dice to the roll.


.

[Kurgan]

First I want to say I'm totally okay with the bows having "infinite" range and "infinite" ammo. That's not unrealistic to me in the least for game purposes, but those could indeed be used as factors to limit their power if you want.

Now the base rules don't say the Crossbow can't hit diagonal squares, only that adjacent squares have to be one square minimum between you and the target. When I realized this and started allowing it, the weapon greatly increased in value to the Heroes.

You can make it a lot weaker if you say it can only hit one square away in any direction AND it has to be exactly diagonal (not "Line of Sight" which in the Instructions Manual Drawing is more loose... there's a line that kind of goes around the edge and just barely counts). That's how we USED to use it, before it was pointed out to me that wasn't the intention of the NA edition in print.

I have interpreted it as a pistol crossbow and reloading as a free action (being one handed, it doesn't interfere with Shield use). Some have limited ammo and charged to reload them, I don't do that but you could. Bolts are different than arrows. I did introduce a cheaper bow that's weaker and a stronger and more expensive longbow, but I made both of them two handed while keeping the Crossbow as one handed.

Others have decided all bows should be two handed, and prevent simultaneous shield use (how you handle weapon switching is up to you). You could make it require an action to switch or even go really strict and limit carrying capacity (most don't).

I use black dice to simulate proficiency, so however you handle it, you could say a bow shot with black dice is going to hit more often than with standard white dice. But a green die will HIT less often than white. Pay for archery lessons or give classes a certain thing, or maybe if you post up next to a piece of furniture you get better aim or something? Or coordinated shooting with two archers adjacent or diagonal from each other to hit targets better? Lots of things you could do.

I completely arbitrarily decided that the Mystic (like the Wizard) can't use bows, period, and the Dwarf can't use the Longbow, but the Cleric can.

They say bows require more skill to use than crossbows generally and longbows or warbows require more strength. Various ways you could simulate that if you want to differentiate them further rather than just making them each a replacement for the other.

You can read about my suggestion for "group tactics" here.

[The Admiral]

I keep it simple. well fairly.

Bow = 3 attack dice but can be used with a one handed sword. A bow is light and can be easily held in one hand while a sword is drawn. No shield though. Same price as a crossbow.
Shortbow = same as bow but with 2 attack dice. 250 gold coins.
Crossbow = 3 attack dice. More powerful so target loses a defence dice, but heavier, so it's considered a two handed weapon. So no use of another weapon or shield. Also only 1 die in close combat as Hero is using it as a club.

No range, ammo or reloading restrictions.

I do allow the Elf to train his bow skill for 500gc. This increases his attack dice with any bow by 1.