Re: Re: Questions

From: Nick Eden <nick_at_...>
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:42:06 +0000


On Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:21:44 -0000, you wrote:

>
>>
>> How do people in general handle missile fire?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Rob
>
>They dont. HQ and HW do not handle missile fire well at all.
>
>To be specific, my character (follower of Odalya) wants to fire his
>bow at another and inflict damage. We are using an extended contest,
>so he will make an AP bid. If he goes for a kill he uses a large
>bid.
>
>My biggest problem is - what is it resisted by? Close Combat seems
>inappropriate to defending vs distance combat, but actually probably
>isnt. Close Combat would surely include training in handling attacks
>from arrows. Dodge might appear to be better but not all players
>would have a Dodge skill, and often it isnt improved and would be
>weak against a trained archer.

Not that there is a Close Combat under HQ. And Sword + Shield Fighting is obviously appropriate when it comes to defend against arrows.

>My next problem was the overly nasty effects of fumbling a bow shot.
>A bad roll or a clearly superior enemy results in the archer
>suffering unusual results, well what I considered unusual. Working
>on the assumption that a trained archer knows how to use his weapon,
>isnt in imminent danger of being clobbered, then an archer should be
>resonably safe from repercussions. That is after all one of the
>reasons for doing an attack at distance. This gets complicated
>however when shooting into a melee.

It all depends on what you mean from 'reasonably'.

>Eg archer behind a wall shoots at advancing enemy - little risk of
>soemthing bad happening, so in our game we ruled that they didnt
>suffer any negative effect results. A negative was simply a miss
>(short of a fumble).

Probably obviously, seriously negative results could be things like the string breaking. Somewhat negative results would to be suggest that the advancing enemy has advanced to the point where he can threaten the archer despite his wall. Petty losses would just mean energy and arrows expended without result.

>eg archer behind wall shooting into a melee (which actually is a
>really BAD idea unless your target can be clearly differentiated).
>The strange result of this is that the archer can eliminate himself
>from the fight by the presence of a superior enemy. If the archer
>shoots a superior enemy he will probably lose the contest and lose
>AP, which is a bit wierd (and most of the narrative explanations for
>this are lame - no right minded hero would every run out of arrows
>or break his bow).

Well we did in RQ all the time...
Actually a serious archer can burn through a lot of arrows in a very short time.

>And if you say he missed and shot a friend, well
>why does the archer loose AP? Embarrassed yes, but a proffessional
>archer would just mark it up to bad luck and notch the next arrow
>(and now has a clearer shot)... it is the poor target who should be
>losing APs.
>
>What it resulted in was that none of my players would use a bow. As
>far as I have seen HQ and this list still has yet to come to terms
>with this (or if they did I missed the post and would LOVE to be
>corrected).
>
>So in most cases we simply all agreed that a safe archer never took
>negatives unless there was a clear reason as to why he should. He
>simply misses.

I have a feeling that you're still thinking in terms of APs being Hit Points.
Sure there's no real way shooting your best mate is going to cause you to bleed (unless he's in a position to thump you, or his brother was just bringing another sheaf of arrows up and saw it) but you can quite reasonably be disadvantaged. I shoot my best mate and I'm probably immediately hesitant, worrying about him, more cautious as far as the next shot and so on.
Similarly, if I pepper Jar-Eel with some ineffective arrows, then all it'll take is her to look at me and I'm pissing myself.

>I do apply some modifiers: no shield -10. Not actively conscious of
>the archer -10. Soemthing like this, dont have my list with me.

Both somewhat reasonable.

>Dont extend this to magic at a distance however - magic is an
>exchange of magical powers and failing CAN result in bad effects on
>the caster.

Definitely.



York BSAC Web Page:
http://website.lineone.net/~york_bsac

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