Re: archery commentary

[Greg Mowczko <mooch@ns1.cioe.com>]

Combined comments on Rick's and Wright's post follow. 

> From: Wright Frazier <khelek>
>
> > From: Rick
> > 
> > There has been a lot of discussion regarding bow range extension.  On 
> > the one hand, I do like Johns idea of baseing it on the archers bow 
> > skill.  However, noone has mentioned that the addition of the Keiron 
> > Great bow last saturday has already increased bow ranges by 225% (160 to 
> > 360).  I would like to see what effects there are on the game from more 
> > than than doubling the bow range before we try to add a skill option 
> > boosting it by up to 450%.

Using a bow skill to allow for the increase sounds good. There should still
be the increases based on the type of bows introduced. Maybe the ranges should
be dropped back down a bit but I don't believe they should get dropped down
as far as they were. If warriors don't like being picked of by arrows they
should ditch the armor sprint to the bowman and KILL him quickly and efficiently.
Or get a firemage to go forth and blow them away with a fireball. 8d6 in one
round after being the target of a couple of arrows is a risk. The only problem
I see with the range situation is that there tend to be scores of dedicated
archers for the enemies while we, as adventurers, tend to be diverse.

> > I has been stated that a chart based range system would be more 
> > time-consuming than a skill based one.  Having played Role Master (often 
> > refered to as Chart Master because it has tables such as the one 
> > proposed), I can say from experience that the chart based system is 
> > always slower.  My advice is don't set a prescedent for charts.  AQ 
> > currently has only 3 charts, it's one of the great things about AQ.
>
> Next, this "chart" arguement is not a valid one, _IF_ I did put in a 
> chart it would be part of the current weapon chart that already exists.
> Either by flat out saying what S/M/L ranges are, or listing one of
> the ranges and letting it be known that M and L are found by
> multiplying x by y.  Simple.  

Well of course adding some entries to a chart is simple I just don't see
the necessity of it. But while we are on the subject of range. The pole
arms have a minimum should bows have one as well? ( circumstances accepted
such as firing point blank at a prone target )

> Further it is no more of a complication that currently exists in AQ with
> people having to look up various damages...oh wait..they already know
> the damage of their weapon...just as they'd know the range of
> their weapon.  As for GM's, I'll gladly make each of you a copy of
> the GM cheat sheets I have if you'd like.  

Keeping the damage in my head is easy. For some reason though I can't
remember ranges all that well. Hell half the time I can't remember to
add my pluses on my "to hit"s that my sword gives me.

> Also there are far more than 3 tables, Rick..I have 3 pages of really
> reduced stuff.

There are NO regularly used tables that I use. There is the occasional
crit damage and sometimes I like to see what my odds of rolling 4d6 vs.
14 are.

[comments about bow availability and prices removed]

						Greg