Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Bluetooth on <01-18-12/2358:29>
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So the bow in Arsenal does Str min +1. Now I vaguely recall seeing somewhere that somebody said the bow had been changed. Is the change or is the some errata I need to find?
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I think that is the new version. I believe they used to be directly based on strength not just like many melee weapons which led to some very ICBM-like troll archers. And now since you can't get rating greater than 6 the best bows are 8P.
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Not that I think bows are weak damage weapons, they are rather slow compared to firearms, but that is kind of right too.
What I don't get, is that they have a relative low upper limit on their damage. With the technological progress in 2072 and with strange and wonderful new materials it should be possible to make a bow more effective than that.
I have tried to pull an 80 pound yew bow and that was hard and I couldn't take a steady shot. And I have used a 70 pound modern compound bow without difficulty.
So why can't the huge troll get a bow build for his size and strength??
Rasmus
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Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 12. The maximum Damage Value an arrow fired from the bow can inflict is equal to the bow’s rating x1.5.
IOW, trolls can. You may not be able to get it at game start, but considering its availability (a flat 2) and cost (Rating x 100¥), you should be able to jander down to your nearest sporting-goods store and pick one up tout de suite.
Check the forums for discussion on how truly nasty bows can be -- including debates over the use of the 'multiple impact' software out of War! with it.
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Thanks.
I don't know why but I had gotten into my head, that bows where caped at 8.
And true you can make grenade spam with MRSI from War.
Rasmus
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I don't know why but I had gotten into my head, that bows where caped at 8.
Cos they are, Wyrm has an outdated version of the book.
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Can you quote it for us, please, Mäx?
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Quoted from SR4A (third printing) page 316
Material science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 8.
I guess he means this. Previous printings capped it at Strength rating 12. Damage code is still (Str Min +2)P.
That's a bit of a bummer.
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German Arsenal (errattaed) Bows are limited to STR 8 so max Damage is 10K (11K with explosive Arrows)
HokaHey
Medicineman
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German Arsenal (errattaed) Bows are limited to STR 8 so max Damage is 10K (11K with explosive Arrows)
I still think that's a bunch of BS. They could, with modern materials and methods, build a Bow that would require Strength 8 to fire properly*. It wouldn't be cheap, but they could do it. They just don't bother, since it would be unusable by anyone on earth. In 2070, with all the other advances in material science, there's no way in hell they couldn't do better.
That nerfed cap is nothing more than someone dumping haterade all over Troll Archers because a vocal minority got a bug up their ass and decided to bitch about it.
*Hell, they were making cart-mounted ballista, which are just huge crossbows, that could probably do better than that centuries ago, and we've come a long way since rope and lumber.
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Truth is, and those if you who bow-hunt know this, a skilled archer of any strength can drop some very large, tough targets. But an average user, like your typical non-English Medieval bowmen or even your typical Native American, not so much. They're following the age old principle that one arrow will take the fight out of a guy, and he'll probably bleed to death later.
Edited a typo
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They're following the age old principle that one arrow will take the fight out of a guy, and he'll probably bleed to death later.
Except there's no "bleed-out" mechanic in the game. Plus, their stated reason for having a cap to begin with is the mechanical and structural limits of constructing the bows... which is the same reason they gave when the cap was 12.
Admittedly, at 10P a Str-8 Bow is, converting at the standard rate of -3AP = +1 DV, only slightly less powerful than a Barrett. However, the fact that an ICBA (Inter-City-Block-Archer) has to take 2-3 actions to fire one shot more than makes up for that in my opinion.
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I still think that's a bunch of BS. They could, with modern materials and methods, build a Bow that would require Strength 8 to fire properly*. It wouldn't be cheap, but they could do it. They just don't bother, since it would be unusable by anyone on earth. In 2070, with all the other advances in material science, there's no way in hell they couldn't do better.
That nerfed cap is nothing more than someone dumping haterade all over Troll Archers because a vocal minority got a bug up their ass and decided to bitch about it.
A strengt 8 bow does same damage as a god damm assault cannon, that nerf is absolutely justified.
As bow's that do more damage then tank cannons make absolutely no sense what so ever, but yes i kinda agree that the strength limit is stupid, they should have just changed the damage code to half strength + x.
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They're following the age old principle that one arrow will take the fight out of a guy, and he'll probably bleed to death later.
Except there's no "bleed-out" mechanic in the game.
Well, unless you reach Physical Damage Overflow. I believe you "bleed out" until you're stabilized at that point. Then again, nerf bows like that, and how likely is a bow going to put you into overflow?
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I was giving that as a justification for low bow damage; net hits/archer skill is where the damage really comes from if you want to represent real-world bows
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A strength 8 bow does same damage as a god damm assault cannon, that nerf is absolutely justified.
As bow's that do more damage then tank cannons make absolutely no sense what so ever, but yes i kinda agree that the strength limit is stupid, they should have just changed the damage code to half strength + x.
Gotta remember the difference in AP, though. Against a nice sturdy armored car with 16 armor, like a Roadmaster, the bow would need 6 net hits to be able to do anything, while the Assault Cannon would do it with even the minimum 1 net hit needed to get the round on target. Most squishy human targets would probably take stun damage as well, representing bruised ribs from a big honking plasteel rod smacking into them at high speed and failing to go through the armor.
And yeah, if they'd made it (1/2 Strength + X), I'd be a lot happier. My big bitch isn't really the end-result of the damage, as much as how low the strength cap is, given what I know about material science.
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Doesn't a sniper rifle cut through armor pretty well and loaded with APDS even more for like -5 armor? It's got an advantage over a bow, not only shooting faster, but takes out more armor. I'm curious what kind of damage they'd give a crossbow, cus those suckers are worse than bows.
Haha! I'm totally going to be making a character that uses a crossbow in shadowrun! :D
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But an average user, like your typical non-English Medieval bowmen or even your typical Native American, not so much...
Don't over-sell the English just because of Agincourt. There were plenty of groups across the world at that time who were 'elite archers'. You want to really see something bad? Take the Mongolians -- firing from horseback, and using a bow that could fire more than half a kilometer, twice the range of the English longbow...
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Good point. What I was trying to do was contrast "elite" bowmen with rank and file conscripts and hunters.
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Good point. What I was trying to do was contrast "elite" bowmen with rank and file conscripts and hunters.
Sooooo... Agility 6, Archery 6 with a specialty in "Obscenely Powerful Bows" doesn't count as "elite", then? Remember, the scale in Shadowrun is pretty condensed; 6+6+Specialty is about as high as you can get as a human without going into Qualities.
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xD ^
That's 14 dice :D Good luck dodging with an average of 3 reaction!
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xD ^
That's 14 dice :D Good luck dodging with an average of 3 reaction!
And that's just an average highly skilled human... now make it a SURGE'd Ork with Metagenetic Improvement Agility and Genetic Heritage (Optimization: Agility), Muscle Toner 4 and Suprathyroid gland, to hard-cap at 12 Agility and get up to Strength 8. Now, tack on Aptitude Archery (natural 7 Skill) Reflex Recorder Archery (8 Skill). Now, Awaken the guy and give him Quick Draw and 2 points of Improved Ability (Archery) (10 Skill). And, of course, don't forget the Smartlink and Specialty (4 more dice).
That's 26 dice to shoot, with an average of 8-9 hits... 14-15 if you spend Edge to reroll failures.
So, since this is probably a silent ambush coming at you from out at the back end of Extreme range (480 meters on a Str 8 bow, IIRC), and therefore there's no chance to evade, that archer could give someone a seriously bad day.
Of course, that's saying the best archer in the world could maybe get an arrow into the engine block of a Roadmaster on his best day, while a sniper with a Barrett firing APDS, using the same setup, just has to make the bullet connect.
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Trollbow with Dikoted Arrows. :P
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Trollbow with Dikoted Arrows. :P
Dikoat went away in 4th; I think they assume that by this point it comes standard on everything.
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I keep hearing that presumption; I think it's just flat-out wrong.
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But an average user, like your typical non-English Medieval bowmen or even your typical Native American, not so much...
Don't over-sell the English just because of Agincourt. There were plenty of groups across the world at that time who were 'elite archers'. You want to really see something bad? Take the Mongolians -- firing from horseback, and using a bow that could fire more than half a kilometer, twice the range of the English longbow...
/quote]half k?are you sure, and remember both carssy and agincourt happen in rainy days. if you use a bow even a recorve from a horse back you dont get the pull you need and the mongols useed hit &run tactic so they worked from clos range
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I keep hearing that presumption; I think it's just flat-out wrong.
If you have a better theory as to why, if it's not standard, Dikote isn't listed anywhere in the SR4 books as an available mod / upgrade, then please do elucidate.
Until you, or anyone else, can provide another explanation that does better than "It exists as an optional process, they just don't have stats for it," then the theory that it's become standard is the de facto correct explanation, being the only one that fits the observable facts without becoming unnecessarily convoluted. Those facts, of course, being 1) Dikote existed in SR3 and previous as an upgrade option, and 2) Dikote does not exist as an upgrade in SR4.
Also, -1 for you for bad etiquette. If you're going to rebut someone's position with a blanket negation like that, you need to follow up your assertion with supporting evidence and/or an alternate position, otherwise you're just going "Nuh-uh! Is not!"
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*sighs* Fine. Since you require it:
The issue is playability and game balance. The argument against SR4 dikote is that in SR2 and SR3, in comparison to the much tighter damage codes in SR4, it didn't do much.
I was actually looking at Dikoting as something to write up for the 1st issue of the Dumpshock Datahaven, and I talked with a few folks about it back then.
Mechanically, Dikoting became a problem due to the much narrower definitions of damage codes. Dikoting was cool, but it didn't provide a massive bonus in SR2/3. Now though, a +1 to DV is huge. It just doesn't fit as well into the current iteration of the rules, sadly.
Unofficially, the explanation I give is that Dikoting has become superfluous. Modern techniques at metalcrafting have made weapons and armor innately stronger, and while you can still spend the nuyen to Dikote something, it doesn't actually improve it any because the material is already at the Dikote level. All Dikote really does now is "bling it up".
This is your explanation. Mine is simply that those writing the rules have not yet decided on which way this is going -- mainly because for the most part dikote has not yet been mentioned. If somewhere in the game designer conversation on ammo, modifications, or armor it said, 'for those of you who miss dikote, it's gone. <Insert explanation here>', sure, it no longer exists. Instead, in all the publications to date, it's mentioned precisely once -- in the game description of the Aztechnology Cuanmitztli Main Battle Tank ('dikote mesh plating', War!, p.168) -- which means that the game designers have yet to make a hard decision.
My argument for it is that every other type of weapon has an armor-piercing (APDS or AV) technology. My reply to Bull's post above was as follows:
That makes sense if there's nothing else comparable, but -- like with the original Dikote -- there is: APDS / AV rounds. My interpretation would simply be that a) dikote adds +1 Impact only to armor with ceramic plates (i.e. you're dikoting the plating), and b) adds the 'Anti-Vehicular' characteristic (-4 AP vs. people, -6 AP vs. vehicles and barriers) to a ceramic or high-temperature metal (steel, titanium) edged melee, thrown, or projectile (as in arrows/bolts) weapon. It cannot be added to any sort of high-speed projectile, such as firearm/gunpowder ammunition or gauss rifle ammunition; get AV rounds if you want that.
Anyhow. The debate continues from there. My apologies that I didn't want to repeat the issue.
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But an average user, like your typical non-English Medieval bowmen or even your typical Native American, not so much...
Don't over-sell the English just because of Agincourt. There were plenty of groups across the world at that time who were 'elite archers'. You want to really see something bad? Take the Mongolians -- firing from horseback, and using a bow that could fire more than half a kilometer, twice the range of the English longbow...
/quote]half k?are you sure, and remember both carssy and agincourt happen in rainy days. if you use a bow even a recorve from a horse back you dont get the pull you need and the mongols useed hit &run tactic so they worked from clos range
sorry but do to f.u by me my post is part of the quote
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You need to make sure your typing outside of the [/qoute] part.... and not inside it. ^
XD
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And yeah, if they'd made it (1/2 Strength + X), I'd be a lot happier. My big bitch isn't really the end-result of the damage, as much as how low the strength cap is, given what I know about material science.
I think I'd have preferred that just for the simplicity of it being like melee weapons and thereby simply ruled. As it is I'm not actually certain how bows work. The other weapons I understand, but bows are written and handled differently, so I'm still trying to grasp them.
Bows have minimum strength ratings that indicate the minimum strength a character must have to use that weapon...Material Science limits high-tech bows to a maximum Strength rating of 12. The maximum DV an arrow fired from the bow can inflict is equal to the bow's rating *1.5.
While I understand that the max damage is Rating*1.5, but I'm still not sure what "minimum strength" is. Is it just "minimum strength = rating"?
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While I understand that the max damage is Rating*1.5, but I'm still not sure what "minimum strength" is. Is it just "minimum strength = rating"?
Yeah, pretty much. The idea is that stronger bows need more muscle to hold steady.
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The advanced bows allow you to adjust the pull strength. That same mechanism can be its weakness though. The compound bows, popular with hunters, relax a bit once past the initial draw. So you aren't really 'holding' at high strength, just drawing back at that level.
Regular bows do mean holding back at that strength level. You'll probably need aircraft cable instead of sinew for the string though.
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The idea is that stronger bows need more muscle to hold steady.
I see. That doesn't necessarily fit with modern composite bows, but you've got to rule it somehow in order to get it to fit in the system. Thanks for the answers, folks.