(TFT) Penetration of armor by Longbows --> Rick has a study!

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 19:40, Craig W. Barber wrote:
> Longbow versus armor or not?:  I'm surprised there are no contemporary
> accounts!  ...

  My wife is a VIP in the SCA and was running a 
Arts and Science competition.  One paper (over 50
pages) was talking about firing a bow into various
types of armor and seeing if the arrow could
penetrate.

  It is called:  "English Longbow Testing against
various armor circa 1400" by Matheus Bane (c)
January 2006.

  It is an impressive scholarly work with physical
experiments and over 18 references.

  The arrows went thru anything less than full plate
tho several types of armor slowed the arrows 
significantly.

  He found that full plate stopped most arrows.  Those
with armor piercing points (needle bodkins) could 
achieve partial penetration against even heavy plate 
armor. (Call it a minor wound but not major damage.)  
Of course if the arrow struck a joint or an area 
thinner than the breast plate it would penetrate.  
Also arrows slow down as they travel and this would 
further reduce their impact some.

  After the 16 hundreds improvements in armor would
make Longbows less useful. 


  I have suggested in earlier posts that penetrating
type weapons do damage like Xd-Y, where as cutting
weapons do damage like Xd+Y.  If X is 2 or more,
this means that the damage of penetrating weapons
is highly variable.

  So if we make a long bow a 2d-3 weapon and say
that full plate stops 7 (I think 5 is too low) then
the average damage of a long bow arrow is 4 and the
range of damage would be 0 to 9.  This would allow
Longbows to occasionally damage those in full 
plate but all most all shots would bounce off.  
Also being at some risk is more interesting than
being at no risk from a strictly game design 
position.

  However, people with plate and a large shield (or 
Veteran talent or magical armor) could basically 
ignore longbows.


  But this is trying to punch thru the breast plate.
If we take into account that the arrow might hit
a less well armored place, then a long bow damage
of 3d-5 (average damage 5 with a range from 0 to
13 with most damage falling in the range of 1 to 
10) would do the job.  

  This would make the longbow scary dangerous to
have it shoot at you even if you are in plate with
shield.  Assume you can stop 9 hits....  Most of 
the time it bounces off your armor.  You can ALMOST 
laugh at it.  However on rare occasions it goes 
thru your face plate or sinks into your groin for 
a serious wound.

  People who like to shoot bows may become 
frustrated by the damage variance.  (I've been 
experimenting with such damages in my campaign
and some players yearn for the days when a longbow
always did at least 3 points of damage...)


  Anyways, I think that Xd-Y for penetrating 
weapons is the way to go for anyone who cares 
enough to modify the basic system.  It is very
simple, fast and gives me the results I like.

  Warm regards, Rick Smith.
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"