Phillip Hipps wrote:
> My rule suggestion for missile combat is to give arrows a large edge (or
> rank), maybe 10, or 15 for a longbow (not that anyone uses them much in
> Glorantha).
If you hit at an unarmoured person (armour ranking 0) with an arrow, you should at lest inflict a wound (penalty of -1), meaning at least a transfer of 7AP. To reflect the low danger of this action for the shooting person, he shouldn't have to bid more than 1AP for this. This results in a minimum weapon ranking of 6 for an arrow. Therefore a bolt should have a ranking of about 8.
If you count this against a leather armour and shield (armour rating 3), it renders an edge of 4 and 6 respectively, which still seem reasonable to me. Against all metall and shield (armour rating 5) it renders an edge of 1 and 3 meaning that a bid of 1 AP leaves not even a wound (again reasonable IMO). For the attacker to make a wound, he would have to wait for the right spot, lean over a little bit more, or use greater force on the bow. This is reflected in his needing to bid more than the minimum 1AP. When he looses or has to transfer AP, he just had these kind of problems and the attacked person gained a better spot for protection or something like this.
The starting of the contest with one person shooting and one trying to avoid this seems not to be well covered by the basic rules, either. I will try out to let the players either choose a weapon skill (with heavy modifiers) or a dodge skill for defending. Then the narrator should also take the available cover in account. If there are lots of trees or huge stones, the attacked person should get some AP on top of his own. If there is nothing to hide around at all, he gets some minus AP. This reflects the ability of him covering during the fight. Therefore a transfer of AP from the attacker to the attacked should result in a narrator description like "you were able to throw yourself behind a tree just when you heard another arrow missing your left ear only by an inch."
The last point is the outcome of this contest. If the attacker wins, this means he was able to pin his target to a bad spot and can go to him with bow/crossbow/knive etc. ready to kill him if he moves. If the attacked wins, this does not mean that the attacker is pinned in the same way, though (except when the attacked tried to sneak up to the attacker (with his "moving under bowfire like a cat" ability) and then won the contest in close combat). This only results in the bow-/knive-/whatever-man to have used up his amunition, broken his bowstring etc. and therefore having to give up his attack. He still is able to flee or start another action/contest.
Using these ideas, I hope to give the players a good feeling of the situation and still use the HW rules in its basic form (without new complicated hit locations etc. but with a changed weapon ranking of missile weapons).
What do you think about this? Or has all this already been discussed on
this digest?
Tim Tempest Tender.
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