Slings and strength

caruga

This is half a question, half a suggestion: should strength bonus be added to sling damage? In BG1 it was added, in BG2 you needed a specific sling for it.

What do the rules have to say about it? It seems a common theme in BG2, nerfing slings, nerfing grand mastery... maybe they could have started by taking that 25% damage reduction off of normal difficulty instead of all that.

ElectricMonk

This is what I found in my 2nd Ed AD&D Player's Handbook:

Ability Modifiers in Missile Combat
Attack roll and damage modifiers for Strength are always used when an attack is made with a hurled weapon. Here the power of the character's arm is a significant factor in the effectiveness of the attack.
When using a bow, the attack roll and damage Strength modifiers apply only if the character has a properly prepared bow (see Chapter 6: Money and Equipment). Characters never receive Strength bonuses when using crossbows or similar mechanical devices.
Dexterity modifiers to the attack roll are applied when making a missile attack with a hand-held weapon. Thus, a character adds his Dexterity modifier when using a bow, crossbow, or axe but not when firing a trebuchet or other siege engine.

Dee

You might need to look under slings. They're kind of like hurled weapons - in 3e, for instance, slings are treated as thrown weapons for the purposes of adding your strength modifier to damage - but it's not really clear in this case.

Personally, I would like slings to get my strength bonus to damage. Although it does kind of make sling-fighters really, really powerful.

Senash

After reading was thinking about just what @Aosaw said: wouldn't that make slings a bit too powerful? But then, I'm not really familiar with damage calculations...

Boaster

It would give a reason to wield slings.

Linkamus

As long as an archer kit will still out-damage a fighter using a sling by a fair amount, I'd say go ahead and apply the strength bonus if it makes people happy.

Tanthalas

@Linkamus

Eh, since Archers can get extraordinary strength too, they'd be able to take advantage of the STR bonus too.

Linkamus

Tanthalas said:

@Linkamus

Eh, since Archers can get extraordinary strength too, they'd be able to take advantage of the STR bonus too.

Ya, but it'd be stupid for an archer's weapon of choice to a "sling" ...

Boaster

Give the "Strong Arm" bow the Strength bonus. It requires 19 Strength. No other bow, that I can think of, has this requirement. It make sense, since it has an unusual Strength requirement.

That's my vote :P

sandorclegane

a rounded stone can do a lot of damage... but i dispute that it can be a more deadly weapon than a 2-3 foot shaft of wood with a metal tip.

Tanthalas

@sandorclegane

Its can be more deadly if the target is far away.

LadyRhian

At least in AD&D, bows as is didn't give a strength bonus. Only Composite Bows gave a strength bonus to the arrows. Slings had two forms of ammunition- Sling stones (do 1-4 damage) and sling bullets (more shaped versions made of either stone or metal- do 1-4+1 damage). Arrows were also two types- flight arrows were lighter and did 1-6 damage, and sheaf arrows were more like arrows used in war, and did 1d8 damage. Flight arrows had a much longer range, and were actually longer themselves. In modern day, they would be like birding arrows. Sheaf arrows are shorter and thicker, with a larger head.

In many versions of AD&D, you had to pay higher prices if you wanted a bow that would give you more of a strength bonus. For every + you got in combat, you had to pay the price again to get a bow that would compensate. For example, a normal composite long bow cost 100gp. If your character had an 18/00 strength and wanted a composite Long bow that would allow him to get his full +6 to damage in combat, it would cost 600gp.

caruga

LadyRhian said:

Only Composite Bows gave a strength bonus to the arrows.

There BG goes again, bucking the trend. I don't know why the devs don't just say that BG can do what it wants, instead of creating all that red-tape to stay within during the development of EE, since the original was already following its own take on the D&D rules...

LadyRhian

@caruga- Well, actually, it seems to depend. Some say they do, some say that they don't, because you can buy bows with different levels of "pull". I am not sure why it would suddenly cost more to buy a bow with a really high poundage of Pull, and not get a rebate to buy one with a lesser pull, or that it suddenly cuts off at strength 17 or so (when you get +1 to damage), and then will double the cost of the bow at that point.

Oxford_Guy

jaysl659 said:

This is what I found in my 2nd Ed AD&D Player's Handbook:

Ability Modifiers in Missile Combat
Attack roll and damage modifiers for Strength are always used when an attack is made with a hurled weapon. Here the power of the character's arm is a significant factor in the effectiveness of the attack.

In Baldur's gate I think its only thrown axes that get the strength bonus (maybe the Dwarven Thrower hammer too?), daggers and darts don't, so there is precedence for other "thrown" weapons not to get a strength bonus...

HexHammer

jaysl659 said:

This is what I found in my 2nd Ed AD&D Player's Handbook:

Ability Modifiers in Missile Combat
Attack roll and damage modifiers for Strength are always used when an attack is made with a hurled weapon. Here the power of the character's arm is a significant factor in the effectiveness of the attack.
When using a bow, the attack roll and damage Strength modifiers apply only if the character has a properly prepared bow (see Chapter 6: Money and Equipment). Characters never receive Strength bonuses when using crossbows or similar mechanical devices.
Dexterity modifiers to the attack roll are applied when making a missile attack with a hand-held weapon. Thus, a character adds his Dexterity modifier when using a bow, crossbow, or axe but not when firing a trebuchet or other siege engine.

I have to disagree with these rules, seems very devoid of real life knowledge, only a few bows does indeed have a bonus of strength applied to them, if they'r huge or thick, else most bows can't be fully drawn back as they would simply break, or are very thin and can easily be drawn fully back, even by a weakling.

There has been found "artellery bows" in latin america and china where the archer would lie down and use the feets and both hands to fire the bow, it required immense stregth to use it.

LadyRhian

This is why I wanted the bows that give Strength Bonuses. The only thing in the Pen and Paper game is that they cost more- Every +1 the bow gives to damage adds the bonus times the original Price of the bow to the price. So a Composite Longbow that adds a strength bonus of +1 to the Arrow is 200 gp rather than 100gp. One that gives a +3 would cost 400gp and so on.