Re: archery commentary

[Wright Frazier <khelek@ns1.cioe.com>]

> 
> So I need to be a better than average fire/air mage with one or two 
> combinations of spells from multiple groups to begin to take on some 
> shmoe 2/5 of a met away.  Sound unbalancing?
> 
> In the game that I ran last weekend, the players came up against a Keep 
> with ten guys on the wall with crossbows.  They had to cover an open 
> field of 600' and I informed the players that they were not extended 
> range crossbows.  The average rating was 24 and no one even attempted to 
> run across the field.

And you had a party who didn't think apparently.  Wait till nightfall, sneak
in if you really need too.

As for unbalancing hell no.  You can only plink 1 guy with an arrow.  With
a bolt you get 2-3 at times, with a fireball you can get upwards of 40.
With 1 spell and a megaphone you can whipe out city blocks.  With 1
spell and a megaphone you can cause everyone in a city block to worship
you as a god as well.  Further with 1 spell you can kill instantly with
a bitch of a check.  With 1 skill you can autocrit someone.

A bow with a big range is not unbalancing unless you are a poor GM who
can't handle the situation, or a GM who hates to let players exercise
some free will and acknowledge that shit happens and players do some
completely insane things. 

Oh, as far as a rate 24 party doing nothing, I've seen a party with
an average rate of less 15 formulate and execute a good plan of attack,
keep the momentum and invade a strong hold and take it with nocasualties
and it was not from my lack of effort in trying to kill them.

> You can say that they are hard to find but as these weapons become common 
> ground, I know that 5 people are going to have them by the end of the 
> semester based on the way gms give out items.
> 
> Sorry, but I do not care for the new ranges and am infavor of Dan's idea.
> 

And I'd rather have 5 people be given a nonmagical bow than 5 people
be given a wand of 1/day fireballs.

Wright