Your vision of an ideal ranged weapons system.

[Vengeance]

Ranged weapons will not be in CB but we will have a full set of them and I really think they will be cool.

(How can you not watch the elves fighting at Helm\'s Deep in TTT and not want cool range weapons?  :-) ).

- Venge

[Luap]

Just a couple of miscellaneous points. First, an arrow wound is generally less deadly than, say, a sword wound in terms of killing you instantly, I think.  Even if its arguable which is deadlier, they both can do it. A sword and an arrow can both kill you in one hit.  That doesn\'t mean it\'s fun to have in the game. Dieing in one hit generally isn\'t fun for the players.
  Just a little clarification, when the arrow leaves the bow its moving at its maximum speed in almost any case. The exceptions are if air friction is somehow negative or if the arrow has some sort of mechanism propelling it forward, such as a rocket engine tied to the back of it.
  Another point, the major drawback of the bow is that it\'s totally ineffective in melee. Readying the arrow, pulling back the string, aiming the bow, and releasing all takes a little time, and its made much more difficult by an axe swinging at your head. Extensive dodging of attacks would probably knock the arrow out of the bow and you\'d need to start all over again. Additionally, using a bow leaves you almost totally vulnerable to attacks since you can\'t hold a shield and you can\'t deflect attacks with the bow (at least not without moving your grip and losing any ability to fire the weapon). While dodging attacks is certainly possible, its not easy and if you have no way of defending yourself your foe will be able to throw themselves at you.  In olden days, archers generally carried at least a short sword of some sort so that when the enemy got close they could throw down their bow and have some sort of effective method of continuing to fight. An exception is the mongolian archers who, since they were riding on horseback were able to keep out of range of enemy attacks in most situations.

[Quwaar]

No, its not smart to use a bow in melee combat. In combat you should use magic, a sword or an axe. But the ranged weapons are very usefull if you want to schoot a wild animal which is a long distance away.

[Lickquid]

You could implement the option that the character selects where they want the hit to go and have penatlies/advantages...

e.g. character chooses to hit
(NB: CTH = Chance To Hit)
Torso:  Norm. Dmg, Norm CTH
Legs:  Lower Dmg, Slows Character, Higher CTH
Arms:  Lower Dmg, Degraded Enemy CTH, Higher CTH
Head:  High Dmg, Extreme CTH

These are just examples of what you could do.

[Junilia]

what do you mean extreme chance to hit? Do you mean its the easiest to hit the head and the hardest to hit the torso?

I dont think so, I think you should say it more clear but we get the point.

The explaining is a bit clearer and ive added a few ideas

eg. Character chooses to hit:
(NB: CTH = Chance to Hit)
Torso: Average Damage, High CTH
Legs: Less Damage, Slows Enemy down (or chance to immobilise?), low CTH
Arms: Less Damage, Enemy has Less CTH you, low CTH
Head: High Damage, less time for them to react(maybe worse AI), Very Low CTH

[Lickquid]

Yes you wrote it better...even i understand it now

[SnowWolf]

It\'s true that you can\'t use a bow effectively in melee combat (unless you have ub3r l33t skilz) but you have to remember that melee combat DOES NOT mean combat in general.

Most magic isn\'t used for melee combat either - magic and bows are ranged weapons and are therefore meant for ranged combat. The reason why archers and mages have higher attack powers is because they have to avoid melee combat (unless they\'ve trained to handle themselves otherwise as with the short sword example.)

Most (all?) of the examples here have been of one on one fights but archers and mages are most useful against a group and are safest when they are in one themselves.

Now I realize that most of this has been gone over but I just thought I\'d mention it because we\'re pointing out all the weakness of ranged weapons w/o giving them credit for there strengths. Yes using a bow versus a sword in close ranged melee combat is a bad idea, but what are you going to do with a sword when you\'re 200m away and a yeoman\'s aiming his long bow at you? Will he hit you? Probably not, but if your entire guild is trying to raid his guild house then somebody\'s not going home happy. The same thing with mages - what\'s an axe going to do versus a mage throwing fireballs from the top of a tower?

The question is not, \"Which weapon is most effective?\" but, \"When is each weapon most effective?\"

[Keitac2000]

my thoughts on bows

they should be useful.  if it takes 20 arrows which all hit to bring down a lvl 1 mob, well then i might as well use a toothpick.  bows should have a long as hell range, as far as you can see.  in medievil times, most bows were compairable to a 100 pound pull.  the arrows also typically went through most varriants of chain armor.  also i think one should beable to use bows at close range only if they are not engaged.  i do not want to have to move 40 yards back to engage a guy who is attacking my friend 5 feet away.  Most importantally i think, one should beable to change weapons easily and beable to change weapons.  i\'d like to use a variety of weapons, maybe not all of them but i\'d like to beable to use a bow and a dagger (not at the same time of course)

[zinder]

I think for every missile weapon, you need to equique a quiver(?word, i mean a missle sheath). This quiver should have a limited capacity and to refill it takes time. You can only fire, if you have a missile in your quiver.
 For example for arrows there are 20, 40, 60 arrow quivers. The higher the capacity, the higher the requirements/mali.
You should be able to recollect most shoot missles from the ground/target.

[Snut]

Just to toss a small but maybe interesting point in, that very few games or films make use of.

You don\'t run around with your bow/crossbow strung constantly. If you do, you end up with a bit of bent wood and some expensive limp string, especially if you\'re bounding through humid or damp places, or extremes of heat.

In order to avoid constantly replacing weapons, archers would leave their bows unstrung until they need them. This, combined with their general uselessness in melee, means that mages, fighters and archers occupy distinct and useful positions if mages can throw out a spell quickly. Mages are faster, but archers aren\'t limited by mana (only arrows, which should be cheap), and both are pretty useless when something is eating their face.

Also means that throw weapons become attractive again, despite their generally lower damage.

[Jessyn]

excellentpoints snut.  It takes me a good 15 seconds to get my bow off my back, bent, and strung.  A skilled archer(not me)  could probably perform the same feat in about 7 seconds.  7 seconds may not seem like a lot,but when there is a large, bad smelling, furry thing charging you, it\'s a long time.

An archer should operate as an archer, not as warrior witha  different weapon.  eg, he should shoot at his target until it gets close, then either run away, or pull out a sword.  Well, a single archer shouldn\'t be shooting at anything he can\'t kill before it gets to him.

The archer is a SUPPORT fighter, his purpose is to deal additional damage without getting chewed on.  Like a mage, he is fragile, and easily digested, and like a mage, he should be able to deal more damage than a fighter, as long as he has the advantage of range.

There\'s my ramble,

Jessyn

[fken]

personnally my favorite ranged weapons are crossbow that we are able to use with only one hand (the other is for the shield... off course!)

Not powerful... but very useful against slow but powerful creatures... ;-) EH !!! let me them they are mine !

[Zellgadess]

The Battle Mage and Battle Archer(lol) are adept at 1 on one or 1 on many combat. The mage, who can hit you hit you from range, then if so go into melee and cast magic, parry and slash. I beleve no mage would only be trained in standing there and just casting spells. The Archer, able to shoot screaming arrows into the enemy, then use his agility in CCB. He can  also \"advance to the rear\" do increase shooting time.

There is no point in training in these arts, if you can use them once, then get your but kicked in combat.

[Snut]

I agree - in systems which allow it (annoyingly few) I like playing agile mages with a few dirty close combat tricks up their sleeves. That\'s mainly because I like lone adventuring as well as trailing after big guys in chainmail, and also because it\'s nice to be able to back up my magic with a bit of eye-poking.

Flipside, the \'full support\' archer or mage usually has a place. Purists or specialists and so forth, the less combat focused or the group-combat-centric... specialist healers, for instance, rarely seem to want for lack of a group willing to adventure with them.

Besides, there\'s always the wizards battlecry: \"Expiditious Retreeeeeat!\"

[Jaakon]

Originally posted by fken
personnally my favorite ranged weapons are crossbow that we are able to use with only one hand (the other is for the shield... off course!)

lol, you get one shot then...

And I wouldnt say an archer deals mor damage than a melee fighter with one shot/blow.

This whole discussion comes from standard rpg setting that every class should be able to do 1on1 PvP. This is stupid I think.