Composite Longbows
dockaboomski
Member Posts: 440
I was just wondering if the fact that 14 or 15 (unsure) STR characters can use composite longbows in Icewind Dale is going to carry over into the EE, or not.
I think it was the same deal in vanilla Baldur's Gate, but it changed for BGII.
I think it was the same deal in vanilla Baldur's Gate, but it changed for BGII.
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It would be like comparing Odysseus' bow to Robin Hood's.
Its possible I'm missing something, I'm not exactly an expert on this. But I've just always assumed the "composite" bow was ancient, while the long bow is medieval.
I pretty much just think of the composite bows as the dnd equivalent of the English longbow, which was extreme lay powerful and could reach draw weights of 200lbs(a lot) and pierce plate armor.
It wouldn't be the first misnamed/misrepresented weapon in 2e(hello, longsword)
The Composite Bow is primarily an ancient weapon, used heavily in eastern Europe and the Orient. It is laminated horn and wood. The horn is used to increase draw weight in relation to the size of the bow. This makes it most popular with horse archers.
Non-composite bows, also called "self bows", are made from a single piece of wood. As a group, they are far more common and wide spread than composite bows. Their main strengths are that they are simple and easy to produce.
The Long Bow is a specific type of self bow. It's draw weight can be increased by the thickness of the wood (yew being the preferred variety), but it commonly has a very high draw weight and requires a well trained and condition archer to get the most out of it. Those last two are its biggest weakness. Only the English and Welsh invested the time and money on a national level to produce significant numbers of longbowman.
The Long Bow was superior to any composite bow in terms of range and hitting power. By comparison, the main advantage of the composite bow being its suitability for mounted use.
The best source I could find is the Osprey book "The Longbow" by Mike Loades.
It wouldn't be the first time the game designers took liberties with reality. My favorite is always Banded Mail armor; which sounds to me like a Lorica Segmentata with extra arm and leg protection.
In reality, there's an almost unlimited range of sizes and shapes, and combinations of hilts and blade shapes and sizes. The game makes definitions for pure playability.
Which of course is fine. But if you ever see an exhibit of ancient and medieval weapons, well, I often find myself scratching my head. I remember one time confidently telling my wife how a museum's description of a Greek sword was all messed up because "acording to Peter Connelly..." when I realized I was about cite Gary Gygax. I had to bite down hard on my tongue...
HOWEVER! The Daikyu is a Japanese composite bow of size comparable to a longbow, but with an offset grip that made it possible to use mounted, or in an area with brush underfoot. This was a very effective bow iirc. @bengoshi anything to add about Japanese archery?
If folks are curious, the power of a bow-fired projectile is a function of the following factors: tension used to fire the bow (ie the pull), multiplied by a function of the total length of the bow (crossbows have crazy high pulls, but lower multiplier, and as such the difference in pull mattered less), and negatively affected by the air resistance on the projectile. Bulky, light projectiles lose force VERY quickly, and these were thus classified as non-lethal arrows. This is old memories mostly though. The sheer springiness is also key; if a spring reacts quicker, you're gonna hit harder. Like a trained fighter vs untrained.
The length of the bow has a huge impact on the force of impact from the projectile, and longbows typically required less pull than composite bows to do equal damage.
The important stats hovering around 15-18 for practically all characters in BG/BG2/IWD seems to screw up people's senses about regular stats.
In 3e, the average peasant has 13/12/11/10/9/8 for his stats, while the average elite has 15/14/13/12/10/8. Not exactly fitting as that's 3e, and 3e handles ability scores slightly different, but it should be a giveaway that 17 is an absurd requirement if you want it to be anywhere realistic.
A natural strength of, say, 14, should be plenty, if you then spend a good amount of your youth in training with such weapons, which would reflect the training that those longbowmen underwent.
Technically, it should be even lower, but you can't specialize your character as much as those longbowmen did.
When considering the bows of other countries and comparing them with the Japanese yumi*, non-Japanese bows are uniformly shorter and therefore stronger.
As bows are implements for shooting; naturally the intended purpose of a powerful bow was for hitting a target. The development of the Japanese yumi was also in line with this objective.
From the International Kyudo Federation (IKYF) site:
When comparing a Japanese yumi to a Western bow, the Western bow is shorter and stronger, but the yajaku* is not measured. As a result there is no difference in the physical strength of those who use it. (it's a direct quote from the site)
The yajaku for the yumi in Kyudo is taken from the chokyu* and this explains why the form of the Hassha* and its intrinsic artistic beauty exist together.
Athough Western archery may be practical, the yumi possess beauty and artistry, its distinguishing features. As it comprises a large sphere in the world of the spirit and mind, yumi was also used in religious rituals.
*Yumi - a Japanese bow
*Yajaku -the length of an arrow as determined by the length of an individual's draw
*Chokyu - a long bow
*Hassha - releasing of the arrow
If comparing a Japanese yumi to a Western (English) bow, I should say that the main difference is draw weight. Japanese bows had a little pull, so often couldn't penetrate armour. This didn't stop them being the primary battlefield weapon of the samurai though. Japanese horses were unarmoured and most troops lightly armoured on the field. They were very effective for the warfare the way it was fought there.
English longbow had enourmous pull weights and were designed to engage heavily armoured troops, so designed for a different job. They were desgined for the European warfare conditions.
That said, some yumi have a specific shape that is better suited for precision long distance shooting. The Kyoto bows made by Shibata XXI are a good example of this specialization. His bows are crafted with the Sanjūsangen-dō temple shooting in mind. (120 meters, 394 feet.) The balance between the specific asymetrical curves (and a lot of other factors like choice of bamboo and other woods) can lead to different flight patterns.
Arrow weight would be another factor, English archers used extremely heavy bodkins because they had to penetrate steel, so only had a quite short range of a few hundred metres. Japanese used lightweight arrows that could fly great distances but had little penetrating power.
By the way, accuracy is more to do with the training of the archer than the bow. You can construct any bow as strong as you want simply by increasing size/thickens of material. Question is if you will find archer strong enough to draw it. There is of course structural limit of some materials but those by far exceed physical limits of human body so we can disregard them (I mean material commonly used in construction of bows not say paper). Also due to laws of physic, when you cross certain draw weight, gains in force such bow can project on to arrow are greatly diminishing.
It sounds like the Yumi would not be a good fit for the Composite Long Bow of AD&D either! Although in an Eastern setting it might be fun to work with, maybe giving it innate plusses to hit instead of damage.
One detail you bring up that often gets left out of the discussion, in part because BG ignores it. But in PNP 2E arrows come in light or heavy varieties. The light arrows have longer range and do 1d6, while the heavy, armor piercing arrows are shorter range but do 1d8.
*wrings hands with joy before beginning lecture*
Ok. I believe the naming is accurate in the game, but we are viewing the weapons with knowledge of the medieval world developing into our present industrial age.
Faerun has been stuck at a level of medieval technology for millennia. Only Gnomes have developed further with guns and smokepowder but lets not derail the thread with more moaning about the Gnomes being overpowered again.
Now wiki is awful on this. I believe the most useful wiki entry is actually under bow and arrow.
Anyway my insights:
Shortbows do not exist as a weapon. The smallest bows used for war are composite bows. The composite bow, as already mentioned, was used from horseback as it was small, but due to its design gave considerable more power than a small bow of similar size. Small bows would also suffer from snapping as the materials available at the time simply would not be able to flex far enough.
So.
DnD Shortbows = Real World Composite Bows.
Longbows. England still has the ol' tourney in the rural villages where the hay bales are still pulled out, and fire a few arra's. The King would pay the prizes, but it didn't need anymore promotion for the peasants to play, who got so addicted they took to throwing broken arra's at targets painted on the pub wall, thus creating the game of darts. @meagloth DnD strength does not equate well to real world, when most of the yeomen in Britain had to row boats up and down rivers or the coast. Pulling a longbow is easy in comparison... Anyway easy.
DnD Longbows = Real World longbows.
So... DnD Composite Longbows, how do they fit in? This is my thinking. They equate to modern compound bows. Compound Bows are made out of metal, have weights and other enhancements to reduce draw weight and increase power delivery. Now apply medieval thinking. Reduce draw weight? Nah! Increase the powa! Or perhaps medieval materials cannot reduce the draw weight... Whatever. DnD Composite bows I believe are what bows would have become if industrialisation, or gunpowder, did not occur.
DnD Composite Bow = Real World Compound bow.
@Anduin strength 10 in dnd is supposed to be medieval average, which today would be well above average. I would hazard a guesd that drawing a bow would use muscles differently from rowing, or use additional ones. But then, weapons are all like this. Swinging an axe to split wood or fell trees is different from fighting. Unless you're facing Treants, then its very similar to felling a tree. Except the tree hits back, and screams ehen chopped.
The official technologically advanced bow is the gnome steam bow! Yes, its a thing. Slower than a crosdbow to fire though.