Re: Dodging arrows (was: Re: (TFT) Targeting Horses and their Riders)

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

I have fairly fast arrow speeds at about 200 feet per second, maybe 300 feet per second as a maximum probably not achieved by low-tech bows.

50 yards is 150 feet, meaning at least a half-second of flight time, which is enough to move your entire body left or right, completely out of the space it was in when the firer loosed the arrow... assuming you were watching the single archer aiming at you, and managed to perceive and move in time. If you were just jinking randomly though, it would be entirely possible to not be where any arrow was aimed, unless luck or intuition allowed the archer to predict where you would jink to. I.e., I would say there is a certain range where, mind games and reaction times and luck and such realities aside, it is theoretically not possible to use aim accuracy to overcome the target's ability to not be where you aimed by the time the arrow arrived. In other words, the max chance to hit a jinking target would go significantly down with range, based on arrow speed and jinker's speed and reaction times.

With a certain amount of flight time, hitting is not just about accuracy, but about predicting where the target is likely to be, and the target's ability to notice and predict both the attacker's movement, and to see and predict the motion of the missile. While it is entirely possible to move completely out of the way, I don't think it's terribly easy to tell where a missile is heading and make sure you are not there. In fact, I think there is a tendency for the brain to make a person move to intercept rather than to dodge.

Personal experience: In 8th grade, a guy in my class was about 40 yards away and maybe 40 feet up on a hill and threw an orange at me as a joke. I saw it coming but had no real idea whether it was accurate, but it hit me literally on my nose, which split the orange in half. But I had plenty of time to move my head the width of my head to the side, or even to run several meters to either side, if I had had any idea it was actually right on target.

FWIW, in GURPS they let you dodge bullets and lasers, and it is partly based on DX, but usually not a very high chance, and the idea is not that you see it coming and deliberately move out of the path you know about, but that you react to an attack you see coming even before the trigger gets pulled, and your ability to get out of the way of that has something to do with your agility and encumbrance (and possibly the size of your shield, if any).

--- ekroeten@farmersagent.com wrote:

...

The pull on an English Longbow was certainly greater than 45 lbs, there are
numerous accounts of arrows not just penetrating the front of the heavy plate
armor but coming out through the back as well.  There is no way to dodge that
even at 50 yards plus the arrow would as you say just appear in the target.

 Dodging in TFT is as you describe jukes, ducking and erratic movements not
jumping out of the way once the arrow is in flight.
...

     At 2:15 -0400 8/24/13, Neil wrote:
...

       I think of TFT "dodge" not as "figure out trajectory,
       estimate where it'll arrive, and move out of the way" but as "twitch
       randomly back and forth, get behind stuff, and generally add some
       random factor to where the archer is aiming". Otherwise, I assume it
       would rely on the target's adjDX to some degree, which in the base
       rules it does not.
=====
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