| Hi everyone. I've been working on rules for Slings in TFT and have been struggling to describe the accuracy of the weapon at long range. The ranges are quite significant, (some sources say 350 m). But from my readings, people firing at this range are aiming not at individual people, but at FORMATIONS of people. In other words, a hit is not if you hit the guy you are aiming for, but ANYONE in a company of people. (In those days, people were crowded closer than in today’s open formations.) In TFT, an arrow moving randomly thru someone’s hex only hits on an automatic hit. This is a 4.5% chance of hitting. Let us say that a sling is fired at very long range at a company of men standing 4 deep. You hit the formation and the GM says that the bullet moves thru 4 men’s hexes. The chance of a hit is: 4.5% ^ 4 = 1 – (0.955 ^4 ) ~= 0.1682 = 16.82% Hmmm… About a 1/6 chance. 30 slingers firing a military pole sling every 2 turns would get about 3 hits each turn on a formation. That seems militarily significant. However, this system gets a double and triple damage 40% of the time, rather than the more usual 1.8% chance. This is far too high. (In my rules below, an extra roll will be required to account for this.) *** What about long bows? King Henry VIII ordered that no long bow practice range should be less than 220 yards long. Sources suggest 350 or even 400 yards as the absolute maximum range, but the penetrating power of the arrows would be less at such ranges. I expect that the reasonable, practical maximum range would be 200 to 225 meters. Some longbow enthusiasts fire at targets at targets from 200 to 300 meters. They have to estimate the range by eye. They are able to get a hit 2/3 of the time. (Where a ‘hit’ is if the arrow is within 10 meters of the target.) This is considered good enough to hit people in a formation. *** For long ranged missile fire, TFT has VERY generous rules where the DX penalties drop quite slowly. This results in high DX figures picking off individuals at extreme range. For example, using the Long Range Missile Fire table you can fire at some- one at 200 meters at only a –8 DX penalty. EXAMPLE: Larry Longbowman has a DX 17 with +3 DX for the Missile Weapons talent. He can hit an individual at 200m range with a 12 adj DX, or about 75% of the time! What about less penetrating power at long range? How about –1 damage for every 50 meters range? NOTE: that if you use my new weapon tables where impaling weapons do damage in the style of Xd–Y damage. Thus they have high variance in damage. So, even at very long range there is a chance that the weapon might do enough damage to get thru fairly heavy armor. My Longbow are ST 15 and do 3d–4 damage. So my war bow requires someone who is strong enough to use a weapon with a 100 lb draw. When firing at some one 200 meters away, it would do 3d–8 damage which is usually insignificant, but maybe 12% of the time it could do enough damage to get thru fairly heavy armor. *** SUGGESTED RULES: I’m thinking that if you use the Long Range Missile Fire rules, that you stop firing at individuals, and instead are firing on formation sized targets. If you want to fire at an individual then you can’t use the Long Range Missile Fire range adjustments. If you hit the formation, the GM decides on the chance of a hit of anyone in that formation. If the thickness is 1 or 2 people, a 3, 4, or 5 is a hit. If the arrow would go thru 3 or 4 people a hit is generated on a 6 or less. If the arrow is going thru 5 or more people a hit is generated on an 8 or less. If a hit is made, then the GM randomly determines which one of those people the arrow went past is hit. Finally, 3 dice are rolled one more time, to see if a double or triple damage is generated. *** COMMENTS: The advantage of this system is that I think it is more accurate than the current TFT rules. In particular sniping people accurately at absurd range is much more difficult. A second advantage is that if you decide to use the Long Range Missile Fire rules, then you are effectively saying, “I’m doing area fire, and I don’t expect to always hit the officers." The disadvantage is that it takes 2 rolls rather than 1 to decide if there is a hit and to find out if their is a double or triple damage hit. If the arrow goes thru several people’s hexes, you have to roll to randomly pick one. ALTERNATE RULE: If you are firing at 50 meters to 99 meters, there are not triple damage hits. Treat any such as double damage hits. If you are firing at 100+ meters, then ignore all double and triple damage hits. This trades off an extra roll for no chance of doubles or triples. *** Comments on these rules are welcome. Warm regards, Rick. |