Crazy Stuff with a Bow

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:18 am

Ok...so first before the part about the bow, you'll need to know my DMing habits.

I tend to throw a lot of powerful creatures/NPC's at my players, usually more powerful than they are. Recently I've begun to notice this and so I created a few house rules that will allow them to beef up their players. One of said house rules is that any numerical increment magical weapon property can be stacked with itself. In essence, this means that they can place flaming on it, and then flaming on it again for 2D6 fire damage. This could apply to most things, except Keen, Speed, Brilliant Energy and Vorpal obviously. Another thing I do is only require masterwork for weapon special abilities, rather than a required +1 enhancement. Meaning you could have a Masterwork Flaming Longsword with no enhancement bonus to attack.

Now, onto the craziness. One of the characters in the game got enough money to have Distance placed on his bow eight times (essentially a +8 weapon with my rules). So with Farshot in the calculation, this is a range increment of 1485 feet.

Then came the physics expert of the game (not to the game, he just knows a lot about math and physics and stuff). We determined that according to the rules, a single round being 6 seconds means that the arrow will not only be drawn, strung, and leave the bow but enter the destination within a single firing (standard action). We ruled a standard action was 3.5 seconds of time.

Now...with this calculation, the speed at which the arrow has to go became immense. If I remember correctly, it got up to Mach 71 speeds, which is beyond terminal velocity.

Yes, I know it disregards some pre-written rules to get something like that but still...it's pretty crazy to have Mach 71 speeds with an arrow fired out of a +8 weapon.

If stacking the same weapon special ability was a standard rule, this exploit would likely be right up there with Pun Pun and Locate city bomb.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 4:36 pm

Old news. You can get even crazier stuff without houserules. Place 2000 or 3000 people in adjacent squares in a line. Give one of them a small object, like a hammer or something. Let the second person in line ready an action to accept the item and pass it along. The third should do the same. The object now travels 2000/3000/... * 5 feet per 6 seconds. The more people you have, the better it gets. Lightspeed is all too easy to achieve this way.

Is your friend sure about those numbers, btw? Mach 71 is something along the order of 50 000 mph. I'm a historian, no mathematician, but 1485 ft/3.5 s seems a far cry from that. I'm used to the metric system, though, so it's possible I see this wrong.
Apart from that, why compare it to Punpun? Punpun is effectively a god with very real benefits in-game. (10000 in every stat is a bit of helpful.) This, however, would just be a faster arrow, which doesn't grant you a real benefit, houserules aside.

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:58 am

GawainBS wrote: Apart from that, why compare it to Punpun? Punpun is effectively a god with very real benefits in-game. (10000 in every stat is a bit of helpful.) This, however, would just be a faster arrow, which doesn't grant you a real benefit, houserules aside.

Yes, in game terms it's just faster arrow. But, imagine if the other real world physics would apply there: high speed arrow means it's momentum is much more, thus if it hits something between the target and shooter, it most probably would just pierce it and continue its fly. Now, if the same force is used in shorter distance, for example half the maximum range, the archer would just shoot behind the cover, the momentum force of the arrow would quarantine that the arrow gets through the obstacle and still harm the target. Now that's what I call stealth shot!

Or even better. Same distance, nothing between you and the target, but right behind the target there is others. The force of arrow would easily kill the first target, go through, most probably kill the second target and perhaps even the third target. I'm not that good with physics, but basing on highschool classes that should be more or less correct.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:59 am

Kipi wrote:Yes, in game terms it's just faster arrow. But, imagine if the other real world physics would apply there: high speed arrow means it's momentum is much more, thus if it hits something between the target and shooter, it most probably would just pierce it and continue its fly. Now, if the same force is used in shorter distance, for example half the maximum range, the archer would just shoot behind the cover, the momentum force of the arrow would quarantine that the arrow gets through the obstacle and still harm the target. Now that's what I call stealth shot!

Or even better. Same distance, nothing between you and the target, but right behind the target there is others. The force of arrow would easily kill the first target, go through, most probably kill the second target and perhaps even the third target. I'm not that good with physics, but basing on highschool classes that should be more or less correct.

Well, that still requires houserules. Even then, the arrow wouldn't do anything particularly devasting, since it travels slower than a bullet. You would have to devise a rule to simulate how wood & metal (the arrow) would behave under such velocities, since it is indeed faster than an arrow is designed to fly.

Kaessir Addaj · Post by **Kaessir Addaj** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 11:25 am

I'm not sure, but wouldn't such speeds break the arrow? i mean, the head is metal so it'll probably keep on track (much like a bullet) but, wouldn't friction with air break or burn the wood of the arrow? also, if it's just the head, then the air would probably make it change direction, thus missing the target...
... I don't really know how wood would react at such speeds at a normal atmosphere so I'm just saying...

Soontir Fel · Post by **Soontir Fel** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:42 pm

Since the weapon is magically enhanced, the ammunition would be magical too and endure the flight. If you think in real world physics, the string of the bow to produce such momentum must have unimaginable tension, and the wood of the bow must be as hard to maintain the tension, and the person who pulls the string must have hercules like strength. But its magic, so anything goes.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:14 pm

Soontir Fel wrote:Since the weapon is magically enhanced, the ammunition would be magical too and endure the flight. If you think in real world physics, the string of the bow to produce such momentum must have unimaginable tension, and the wood of the bow must be as hard to maintain the tension, and the person who pulls the string must have hercules like strength. But its magic, so anything goes.

Well it was a fire giant barbarian who fired the shot. Not the character who owns the bow, just an NPC who was suckered into this event.

Demortis · Post by **Demortis** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:44 pm

GawainBS wrote:Well, that still requires houserules. Even then, the arrow wouldn't do anything particularly devasting, since it travels slower than a bullet. You would have to devise a rule to simulate how wood & metal (the arrow) would behave under such velocities, since it is indeed faster than an arrow is designed to fly.

Depending on the round, its only half as slow as the average 9mm round.

9mm= 850ft/sec.
arrow= 1485/3.5sec
9mm= 2975/3.5sec

It's only about half as fast.