[thalandar]

Page 315, under street gear, bow damage = (STR Min +2)

Page 316 of my hardback book under bow it says maximum Strength rating 8

my PDF page 316 says maxium strength rating 12, maxium damage of an arrow is rating x 1.5

Someone help me how much damage does a bow do?

[FastJack]

Not sure where you go the PDF that has Max Str of 12, mine says Max 8.

But the damage is based off the Str Rating of the bow you bought. If you bought a SR 5 bow, it does 7P damage (5+2), but you have to have a Str of 5 to use it without penalties.

[Fizzygoo]

Yup, as FastJack said, and the max rating a bow can have is 8, so the max damage value of a normal arrow is 10P.

[thalandar]

Same place I get all my PDFs Drivethru.com.  Weird that it says max 12 and the hardback says max 8.  Are we sure this isn't an error?  Trust me as a game master I agree more with the strength 8 cap.  This is for a a player who is running a character in my shadowrun missions game, and I have to be sure I am being fair and by the rules.

[FastJack]

Did you check on DriveThru to see if the PDF has been updated since you last downloaded it? I got mine from the same place, and it's up-to-date according to the site.

[thalandar]

Wildo

[savaze]

In the LotR Fellowship of the Rings movie, Uruk-hai that killed Boromir shot obnoxiously large arrows from it's bow.  You could always house-rule when large sized metas are using ballista sized ammo to change the damage cap.  For large metas you could house rule that they have to pay the up-size cost for their ammo as well...

[hobgoblin]

all editions before the A had open ended bow rules. If one could fork over the cash, one could get a leafspring and steel cable thingy that fired rebar or i-beam. But the "vocal" (or should i say, textual) opposition to this finally found a sympathetic ear, and the current hard cap was put in place.

I would say the problem with most of the rules that get a "vocal" reaction is that they are linear, rather then say logarithmic. End result is that the cost always keeps pace with the performance gain. But then having a more complex formula for calculating costs vs performance would risk scaring someone away from SR and onto "simpler" games. Basically, there is no way to please everyone.

[savaze]

I'll refer you to the science involved in bows to help you brainstorm house rules that seem more logical.  *WARNING* long article on the hows and whys will debunk preconceived notions on bows:
http://www.huntersfriend.com/bowselection.htm  and http://www.huntersfriend.com/bow-review-400-fps-bow/400-fps-compound-bow.htm
After you've read it then you can determine how far science has advanced the bow, then you can determine how much fantasy there will be to simplify your game...

[thalandar]

No there needs to be a limit.  A troll with maximum augmented strength of 15, with out a cap, would be able to fire an arrow that does 17P damage.  Thats more than LAW (Light anti-tank weapon).  Try firing a modern bow into a light armored vehicle an see if it goes through.  Not going to happen, but if you don't use the cap its possible IN GAME MECHANICS. 

[hobgoblin]

lets see, no caps:

bow, rating 15, price 1500
10 arrows, price 50
total 1550 for a 10 shot anti tank weapon

aztech striker, price 1000
anti-vehicle rocket, price 1000
total 2000 for 1 shot anti tank weapon

What would be interesting would be to have the arrows go up in price in a similar manner to the bow, putting a limit on the damage it could transfer to the target, and perhaps shatter on launch if it was not at least half the rating of the bow when fired. If the end package price came out about the time, then it would be a tossup between getting the mods and such and go troll bowman, or get the skills and go with the launcher (say if one play a gnome with aviator goggles and a manic grin).

[savaze]

I agree with the bow damage caps... Purely because the bows don't have the kinetic energy to do that kind of dmg.  

A bow with a high draw (70#) at a 30" pull is ~300 fps.  You'd be better off grabbing a 12 gauge (.69 caliber) shotgun with a rifled barrel firing sabot rounds @ ~1900 fps...  Compare that to a .50 caliber sniper rifle rounds @ ~3000 fps.

The arrow is going to have different cavitation than a bullet, but the heads are designed to do all sorts of things that bullets don't do like: blades that expand on contact, heads that are designed to spin and burrow on entry, and so forth.  The only way you could get higher damage with arrows is if they had armor piercing exploding heads with timers or depth measures like bunker busters.

Hrmm... monofilament heads with Plastic explosive-filled shafts (only the front end???) synced to the smartlink/rangefinder?! Of course, that's crazy talk. *As he runs to the weapons specialist*

EDIT:
Arrow on 70# pull bow is 350+ grains; 12 gauge sabot round +/- 385 grains; .50 cal round +/- 290 grains

[Qemuel]

The only way you could get higher damage with arrows is if they had armor piercing exploding heads with timers or depth measures like bunker busters.

Hrmm... monofilament heads with Plastic explosive-filled shafts (only the front end???) synced to the smartlink/rangefinder?! Of course, that's crazy talk. *As he runs to the weapons specialist*

Ack!  I need to ban players from reading these boards...
<.<