marksmanship

[sami1337]

compound bows are short bows right? Or was it a technology applied to all bows?
Either way, i don't think longbows were used for direct aiming.

[KoE]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd guess that what we're using are not longbows. Since they're supposed to be as long as the archer is tall, you'd think they'd be at least 3 or 4 tiles long if they were longbows. But that's more of a feeling in my gut than anything I'm really sure of or attached to.

[Krantarin]

compound bows are short bows right? Or was it a technology applied to all bows?
Either way, i don't think longbows were used for direct aiming.

Yeh, compound bows are generally short. I'm sure they could be made long, but they probably wouldn't be anymore powerful and a bigger hassle to carry around.

On the other hand, composite bows are much more powerful than their counterparts and can be long or short with noticeably more powerful long ones (but possibly impossible to draw).

Edit: yeah, KoE. They might be medium bows (if there is such a thing), but they couldn't really be compared to the longbows of the middle ages.

[sami1337]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd guess that what we're using are not longbows. Since they're supposed to be as long as the archer is tall, you'd think they'd be at least 3 or 4 tiles long if they were longbows. But that's more of a feeling in my gut than anything I'm really sure of or attached to.

But the character isn't that big at al.

Ok well i guess it's safe to assume it's short bows then and you will be trying to aim for a specific body part.
But in that case should it do more damage or should it make you hit or miss?

[Krantarin]

Once you get good enough that you're not likely to miss, you need to take it a step further. Eventually, you'll get good enough to go for vital parts.

Maybe it should be an expensive skill requiring high Marksmanship: dangerously accurate or something.

[sami1337]

perhaps a skill that deals hhp but only little shp.

[Krantarin]

That would make sense-an arrow in the neck isn't anything if not mortal.

[sami1337]

That's what i mean. Obviously you can't say one has enough perception to 1 hit a person. So hitting a neck would result in hhp damage as the damage is not just a flesh wound anymore. no?

[kimya]

well the thing with the bows.

first of all i wanted to suggest that building bows should be more complicated. in fact, it was as complicated to make a decent bow as a decent sword. bows were made out of special wood or even different kinds of wood. there are immense forces at work when shooting them, the wood had to withstand them. also they were very very umm howd you say? they decayed FAST
like the owner took damn care of them. any water - bang there goes your sinew

that said, if they get harder to make, they also need to get stronger and they shouldnt need "string" ...

now to the bows.
long bows are of no use for hunting or one on one fights. theyre really big (like it was said before, sometimes even larger than its owner) and were used in wars to shoot at a large group of enemies, not to kill them, but to hurt them, at best make them unable to fight and to lower morality. basically you cant expect to hit anything you aim at, at that large range. i mean its hundrets of meters range...

but thereve also bee a lot of different bows, for example one that horsemen used, i dont know from what culture. the bow looked like this


the one is stretched the one not. you can imagine the power behind such a bow... those bows were mainly used by nomad horsemen. but also by others. i guess its a classic compound bow, but im not sure how its called in english.

so theres a nice variety =) cant write any further, gotta go

xxx
kimya

[sami1337]

I've reasons to believe bows require more craftsmanship than swords. They even use bone in some bows. But i think we are going a bit offtopic there.