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[DT]

What I do is just edit the arrow's damage to a low number to make it at least fair when you fight those bowgoblins...

[Krash]

quote: You do also have to remember that bows are generaly very powerful and most are designed to kill in one shot. I like the bows the way they are now because I think its more relistic than say Oblivion where I can have an arrow sticking out of someones eye and they run to go tell the gards.

Even in medieval times, most arrows (even bodkin arrows fired by longbows) were unable to pierce plate armor (unless you got an incredibly lucky hit, which you get if you fire thousands of 'em).  This is why later medieval knights often didn't even wear shields (or very small ones).  
There are records of crusaders fighting muslims, looking like a porcupine from all the arrows lodged in their clothing.  And yet, most of them weren't badly wounded.  Also, a wound from an arrow is often not enough to completely stop someone if it doesnt hit a critical spot.  The bleeding and/or infection is pretty nasty in the long run though.

And Oblivion is the antithesis of realistic combat.

quote: I still think it's overkill though, for every goblin bowman and his mother to be able to run an arrow through a fully armored legendary dwarf's heart with one single shot. I'm serious, I've had this happen like five times. They always pierce the damn heart.

Them kobolds are nasty.  I mostly avoid them.

[mickel]

Medieval archers weren't very good marksmen, and medieval bows weren't all that good. It's one of those cases where civilians (in this case hunters) were a lot better with a weapon than the military. Archers had a low status, and were usually just rabble bundled together and given a bow and being told which end of the arrow is the pointy bit, and then being pushed into battle. If they got one salvo off in the general direction of the enemy before they ran like rabbits, it was a good day.

That's why the English longbowmen were so feared. They were drafted from people who had actually seen a bow and arrow before the day of battle. They still did a lot more with their swords than with their arrows, especially in the battle of Agincourt, but they were still a lot better than your average G.I. archer.

That being said, a good archer, had they been employed in combat, would probably have been pretty formidable. Or, well, five hundred good archers...

But all of this was made moot by the appearance of the crossbow, which is a different beast entirely.  

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
[QB]Medieval archers weren't very good marksmen, and medieval bows weren't all that good. It's one of those cases where civilians (in this case hunters) were a lot better with a weapon than the military. Archers had a low status, and were usually just rabble bundled together and given a bow and being told which end of the arrow is the pointy bit, and then being pushed into battle. If they got one salvo off in the general direction of the enemy before they ran like rabbits, it was a good day.

This does not at all apply to the Crusades example posted previously; Muslim archers were not at all rabble, especially Muslim mounted archers.  The bow, their weapon of choice, was good enough that it was a prime weapon over vast regions of the world, regions that at the time were as advanced and effective at war as anywhere on Earth.

Nevertheless, the bow was not a super weapon.  Quilted armor (used by the Crusader infantrymen described as "looking like porcupines"), plate armor, scale armor, and even raw silk layers (used by the Mongols) either stopped the vast majority of arrows under actual battlefield conditions, or prevented them from driving deeply enough to do crippling damage.

The penetration power of an arrow or bolt falls off rapidly with range.  If your archers are stationed far enough away that a thrown handaxe cannot maul them, and we're talking combat conditions rather than the sandbox of a shooting range, and the target has reasonable armor, it is one arrow in several dozen that gets to a vital organ or artery.

In DF,
1) Archers and crossbowmen, especially skilled ones, shoot far and away too quickly compared to combat movement rate.

2) The number of arrows and bolts that hit somewhere on a large, slow-moving body, or on a creature that isn't actively dodging, seems more-or-less reasonable.

3) It is far too easy to hit a single, tactically-aware, rapidly moving target.  In reality, it is actually fairly difficult to get a bead on something that's charging at you, ducking and dodging as it approaches.

4) Arrows/bolts that hit are vastly too likely - even in non-optimal combat conditions - to do critical internal damage to small areas (eyes, heart, etc.). Penetration power is overdone for creatures with organs shielded by any sort of armor, bone/shell, or mere bulk.

5)  Basic armor (as opposed to the absurdly over-layered plate-on-chain-on-chain-on-chain) is not effective enough.  It is especially not effective enough at more than point-blank range and when you are aware of the shooter.  It's one thing to ambush someone and get that first crucial shot in a joint or raised visor; it's quite another to drive an arrow home through a raised shield!

6) Too few arrows and bolts are salvageable.  In reality, the majority of projectiles that miss can be salvaged, and many of those that hit can be recovered.

[Sylverone]

I very much agree! I'm not sure, but from what I've seen, running perpendicular to an archer's aim doesn't decrease your chances of being hit. If it did it would add a much needed tactical aspect to fighting against projectiles.

I had a thought earlier. One addition to the current armor that would improve some aspects of play would be a tower shield. It could be considerably heavy but give you full protection from projectiles in the direction you were moving. It's weight would slow you down so it would still be balanced. Maybe while you were holding up the shield your frontal vision would be limited? If you were hiding behind a big shield so that you wouldn't get hit by arrows, I don't think you'd be poking your head around to look at the one firing them at you... but maybe having it block your vision would be going overboard.

[Armok]

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>

1) Archers and crossbowmen, especially skilled ones, shoot far and away too quickly compared to combat movement rate.

2) The number of arrows and bolts that hit somewhere on a large, slow-moving body, or on a creature that isn't actively dodging, seems more-or-less reasonable.

3) It is far too easy to hit a single, tactically-aware, rapidly moving target.  In reality, it is actually fairly difficult to get a bead on something that's charging at you, ducking and dodging as it approaches.

4) Arrows/bolts that hit are vastly too likely - even in non-optimal combat conditions - to do critical internal damage to small areas (eyes, heart, etc.). Penetration power is overdone for creatures with organs shielded by any sort of armor, bone/shell, or mere bulk.

5)  Basic armor (as opposed to the absurdly over-layered plate-on-chain-on-chain-on-chain) is not effective enough.  It is especially not effective enough at more than point-blank range and when you are aware of the shooter.  It's one thing to ambush someone and get that first crucial shot in a joint or raised visor; it's quite another to drive an arrow home through a raised shield!

6) Too few arrows and bolts are salvageable.  In reality, the majority of projectiles that miss can be salvaged, and many of those that hit can be recovered.</STRONG>

Yeszs indeed.

Sylverone, you probably already know this and I don't want to insult your knowledge and intelligence, but you can easily mod in a simple tower shield thats blocks much better and is much heavier than a normal shield, not exactly whath you are suggesting but might work just as well.

like this (Untested!):

code:

 
[ITEM_TSHIELD:ITEM_SHIELD_TSHIELD]
[NAME:tower shield:tower shields]
[WEIGHT:125]
[VALUE:25]
[ARMORLEVEL:5]
[BLOCKCHANCE:30]
[BLOCKPOWER:150]
[UPSTEP:3]
[MATERIAL_SIZE:6]

And don't forget to add it to a civ and generate a new world! (for adventure mode i suppose, I don't THINK you need to regenerate the world to make them in dwarf mode)

[Garry]

Arrows are easy just make yur raws have SPEeD = 1 and then just go fast!

[Asehujiko]

The RNG just hates me or arrows are even more powerful then i imagined. I used adjuststart to start with about 10000 pieces of iron chainmail. I dumped them in a depot and abandoned it. My adventurer picked up everything(exept the second sword). A quick calculation showed i had about the same ammount of armor as an Abrahams tank. I crawl(yay for a speed of 10 or so while stealthing to a nearby dark fort. After strangling a child i encounter a bowman. To be more accurate i encounter his weapon.

The flying iron aroow strikes you in the chest!
Your left lung has been pierced!
Your rigt lung has been pierced!
Your heart has been pierced!
It is mangled!
You give into the pain.

[jester]

Bit of something about historicaly bows/crossbows.
1. apart from longbows/compound bows most archers (non professional) used hunting bows (designed for medium game) these wouldnt peirce much armour, this is what the average peasent archer had, spray a few volleys and hope to slow a few down.  compound bows fire with a fair bit of power (peirce a bit of armour, smaller so could be used from horseback), most "eastern" armies used the compound bow, the mongols were famous for them.  The long bow was the .50 cal of the castle era.  Once trained (takes 10+ years, start your boys of as kids) 3 arrows could be in the air at any one time, a proffesional english bowman was meant to be able to thread a womans bracelet at 75 paces. (people still do)  Bodkin arrows are designed to peirce chain and plate, they would consistantly at 150 paces.  The reason these arrows work is that they are 1 yard long and had hardened needle points, basic physics says that all that weight with all that power behind applied to one tiny, hard point will easily drive through mail, plate if it hits dead on.  Being hit by a long arrow would often put you on your arse as well.  End result Modern military thinking is that a unit of english longbowmen would have been better than any unit of the same size up to the end of the American civil war (breach loading rifles) Its just the training time that was the problem.  Long bow shooting was the only legal sport in england for a long time.
 The reason for the muslim porcupines could have been silk padded armour (tightly wound layered silk pads are used as bullet proof vests now, silk isnt kevlar but its close)  Fighting the mongols brought up the same reports (I have heard the sane thing about scots and thick tartan).  Layers of thick furs/tight cloth/silk would make very effective armour against arrows just for the padding/ layers effect.
 Crossbows are good but very slow to reload (up to 1 min) you can teach any yoyo to use a cheap crossbow well enough within a few weeks.  Good crossbows would also easily peirce mail at medium ranges (plate was a problem until they got close).  Crossbow wounds could be much less debilitating than bow wounds (having a 10 inch bolt in your leg is bad, a 1 m arrow will put you effectively out of the fight).  During seiges women fighting with crossbows were often used as a militia.

[Lightning4]

quote:Originally posted by Asehujiko:
<STRONG>The RNG just hates me or arrows are even more powerful then i imagined. I used adjuststart to start with about 10000 pieces of iron chainmail. I dumped them in a depot and abandoned it. My adventurer picked up everything(exept the second sword). A quick calculation showed i had about the same ammount of armor as an Abrahams tank. I crawl(yay for a speed of 10 or so while stealthing to a nearby dark fort. After strangling a child i encounter a bowman. To be more accurate i encounter his weapon.

The flying iron aroow strikes you in the chest!
Your left lung has been pierced!
Your rigt lung has been pierced!
Your heart has been pierced!
It is mangled!
You give into the pain.</STRONG>

I modded in a playable adventurer that was a size 25 demon with a damblock of 50.

That was the first thing to happen when I encountered an elite kobold bowman. Practically his first shot.

Thankfully, I gave him [NOBLEED], but if he didn't have that, a size 25 killing machine could be brought down with one single shot from a bowman, despite having skin thick enough to shield them from a hydrogen bomb.

[ October 25, 2007: Message edited by: Lightning4 ]

[Skeeblix]

This thread is now obsolete. I just played an adventurer questing after an Elite bowman.

Weaving work pretty damn well at keeping them confused, but if you're far away, you have to get preeetty crafty with it to keep them from hitting you. You either don't move enough and take one in the head, or you move too far in one direction and he leads the shot, and you still take one in the head. It's like walkign a razor.

Anyways, he hit me twice with poisoned arrows before I cut his head off and died.

[Syreal]

Huh. I'd honestly like more than one report of successful dodging before I put my life on the line against a bowman.

quote:A quick calculation showed i had about the same ammount of armor as an Abrahams tank. I crawl(yay for a speed of 10 or so while stealthing to a nearby dark fort.

Hilarious!

Oh, and in regards to everyone who is citing historical evidence, I will believe whoever can support what they say with viable sources. It has been quite interesting in any case, though. I think we can all agree that bows are much too powerful in DF, but whats disputable is exactly how much they are overdone.