stuff

[Joel Gunderson <belgarat@expert.cc.purdue.edu>]

I think people are putting too much stock in the power of missile weapons.
If a keep has enough gramshire crossbows to cover 1000 yards in every
direction, then the typical single party of adventurers will die if they
attempt a frontal assault on said keep.  In real history, (somebody
correct me if i'm wrong) an exponential amount of lives were expended
trying to take keeps.  In this setting, yes, the new weps are tremendously
powerful.
	In a party setting, however, I don't see the problem.  Yeah, some
fool can have a tremendously long range with one shot for like a d12 of
damage.  Unless he is carrying a whole shload of these huge weapons, he is
going to spend about 8 rounds reloading.  That's plenty of time to run up
and stick a sword in his gut, or at least flit to some better cover.  Like
Steve said, deal with the situation creatively.  Restricting the skills
necessary to use these weapons is also going to tremendously limit the
number of players willing to use them, especially if we also reduce the
ranges to the 'layman's limit' as people have been suggesting.  
	I understand that some people feel that these weapons will
overbalance the system, but I have no reservations.  If you look at a
medeival siege, there were no mages.  On Jearn, we have a few of them
lying around.  Like some other folks have said, a mage with longeyes is
going to fuck over any party due to the fact that if the party does not
have sufficient range capabilities there is nothing they can do.  I ran
into this in my adventure this past weekend.  These weapons will make the
non-spellcaster a little more heinous.
	As for these getting out to the general populace, I don't see what
the big whoop is.  As Wright has repeatedly explained, these weapons are
very difficult if not impossible to find.  And even if they do get out,
they're not nearly as bad as a few other tech items i could think of that
currently exist.  Dammit...I was spewing again.

Foo