Re: archery commentary

[John Hogg <johnhogg@expert.cc.purdue.edu>]

On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Wright Frazier wrote:

> 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.
    =========================

Huh?  Within game mechanics, or RL stuff?

Waitaminute ... LIGHTENING BOLT ... not crossbow bolt ... my bad!


> 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.
>

So, lemmie get this straight ... with a variety of rate 6 to rate 12
spells, or a base cost 500, restricted, skill (assume you meant
assassination for the autocrit skill), you feel the bow is justified.

I can see your arguement as far as:
Yes, these things exist.
Yes, they too can become a pain in the GM's ass
Yes, they wield a tremendous amount of power, much more than 1d6 at 720
feet.

However, they also cost a good amount of experience to get hold of.

The bow merely needs to be obtained.



By your admission, these are ISSUED (I presume not standard issue) to
SOLDIERS

Soldiers die
Soldiers get overrun on the battle field without chance to withdraw.

pick up bow from dead soldier.

bows are manufactured ... ie, they exist in some appreciable number.
bows must be kept SOMEWHERE.
break in and steal one (or 5)

I'm just saying that with all the stories about characters being jumped by
other characters to get magic items, what's gonna happen when a party
encounters an ACTOR with one of these (7 ft tall and presumably
unhideable and unmistakable) bows?  Hell, they may be jumped simply for
the monetary value of the bow (i.e. the scarcity is an incentive to go
after them not a deterrent)

What happens when the party offers the bowyer half a million silver to
leave geleia and come with them?  (bringing his nearly finished bow, of
course)?

Granted in an earlier post, you presume a character would be stupid or
nuts to steal one of these bows, or kill over it ... However:
 
> 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. 
  ========================

How, exactly, were these things going to be kept out of public
consumption again?

Perhaps my motivation IS from laziness, and not wanting to run combat
rounds from 720 feet in ... but I would still like to see the ranges on
most or all the new bows cut back some ... ESPECIALLY if they run the risk
of having something deferred on them, AND if the x2 range option is kept.

And if we decide to not reduce the ranges ...
Well, I am putting together a new character with a bow, anyway ... :)

Catch you guys later,

John