I. Introduction

I’ve always wanted to introduce more details and realism into the archery in the rolemaster system. First, I’ll expose some new ideas for rules concerning bows and crossbows. Then, I’ll give more details about the different kind of arrows that can be used. Finally, I’ll give some ideas concerning the way of handling special woods for bows making in the shadow world setting.

II. New rules for Rolemaster

In the Rolemaster system, the range penalties are fixed depending on the type of missile weapon used and are not continuous. The new rule establishes more continuous range penalties. For this we define a range multiplier as well as a point blank shot range for each kind of missile weapon.

Under a specific range, we allow a point blank shot bonus of +30 OB. Under twice this range, there is no OB mod. Beyond this range, the range multiplier is used to obtain the range penalty (simply multiply the range multiplier by the distance in meters to obtain the OB penalty). The point blank shot range, the range multiplier and the maximum range are specific to each kind of bow. For each kind of bow there exists a maximum range.

Gareth Rees in « The physics of medieval archery »[1] states that the best long bows of the middle age were able to hit targets beyond 200 m. However such ranges are possible when dealing with 45° shots usually used in mass battles where there is no point for aiming. Relatively heavy arrows were used for this kind of shooting. As far as aimed shots are concerned, the archer aims with an angle that is slightly above the horizontal, for an easily predictable trajectory and a precise hit. In this case the range is far shorter but one can use lighter arrows.

The strength of the archer is to be taken into account to determine the maximum range. To be able to draw the bow efficiently, a minimum strength bonus is required (1 shows some impressive values for the medieval long bows: between 110 and 180 pounds!). If the strength bonus of the user is inferior, the maximum range and the range multiplier are modified accordingly (see tables at the end). If the strength bonus is too low, the bow can not even be drawn with enough energy to be efficient.

The quality of the material used for the bow also has a major influence on the range multiplier and the maximal range. Still according to 1, this factor is extremely important. One must use a low density wood that can be easily deformed without a permanent deformation, and of course with a large elastic coefficient. It seems the best wood is the one of the yew tree.

As far as arrows are concerned, several observations can be made. As the article « les flèches médiévales »[2] suggests, we can take into account three parameters: the nock, the stock and the tip.

« A large and deep nock is perfect for the war because it offers a nice handle for a fast reloading. However a narrow and small nock is better for an aimed shot since it offers a better release of the arrow. » A war nock provides a reloading bonus (-10% activity required for the reloading). A sharpshooter nock provides a +10 OB bonus.

« The ideal stock must be strong to handle the power of the bow but also flexible to resolve the archer paradox and avoid breakage on the arrival at the target. » Heavy and massive arrows are used for war (for a better inertia) and light ones are mostly used for hunting and precision shooting. When one uses an inadequate stock, he suffers a -10 OB penalty.

Tips can be classified into several categories: picks, blades and barbwires. There also exist some tips with very specific uses.

- Picks: « usually exclusively used for war, since their function is to perforate chain mails and plates Those are usually not fixed on the stock but simply forced into it. This way, when the arrow is extracted from the body, the tip stays inside, leading to difficult treatment on the battlefield and major infection risks. »

- Blades: « They are used for hunt as well as in war where their goal is to inflict large bleeding wounds on footmen with no or little protection. »

- Barbwires: « They are used in war against footmen but also for hunting large beasts like bears or boars. Thanks to their large slashing sides they inflict very large bleeding wounds, and their mass allows a deep penetration. The barbs are here to render the extraction of the tip very difficult, and only specialists using very specific chirurgical tools are able to extract them without additional damage to the target. They were however much more difficult to build, hence their greater cost. »

- Incendiary tip: « The four branches are used to maintain the combustible in place, and the tip allows penetration into the target. The four branches are then squeezed by the impact to allow the incendiary product to come in contact with the building or the target to destroy. It can also be used for bacteriological warfare during siege by shooting contaminated meat pieces that dogs will eat and then infect the people inside. »

- Cut-hock: « This axe-shaped blade is used to badly hurt horses in order to disrupt chivalry heavy charges.»


Picks	Blades	Barbwires	Incendiary	Coupe-jarret

Pictures taken from 2

The following table lists the arrows tips and their respective modifiers.

Picks

Between +10 and +15 OB against AT 11-20. Inflicted hits are halved against AT 1-10 (the power of the impact is reduced). If the arrows is inside the target (GM’s discretion with regards to the critical), a difficult first aid skill check is required to extract it without leaving the tip inside. In case of a failure the tip stays inside and a difficult second aid skill check is required. In case of a failure the infection risk is important.

Blades

Between +5 and +10 OB against AT 1-4 and 7-8. Add 2 to every bleeding wood and if there is no bleeding wound, create one of 2 hits / rd. The penetration is lowered against AT 5-6 and 9-20, hence a -10 to -15 OB penalty.

Barbwires

Between +10 and +15 OB against AT 1-4 and 7-8. Between +5 and +10 OB against AT 5-6 and 9-20, due to superior mass and penetration. If the arrows is inside the target (GM’s discretion with regards to the critical), a difficult surgery skill check is required to extract it. In case of a failure Add 1d10 to every bleeding wood and if there is no bleeding wound, create one of 1d10 hits / rd. These tips are rare and expensive.

The following tables list the various parameters and modifiers of the different kind of missile weapons. The values are given here for bows made of yew tree. For modifiers considering other material, see the last section.

The strength bonus * is the bonus required to draw the bow with the greatest result. An inferior bonus reduces the maximal range (-5 m per 1 in the bonus) and increases the range multiplier (+0.05 per 1 in the bonus). The strength bonus ** is the minimum bonus required to use the bow with efficiency. An inferior bonus forbids the use of the weapon.

Note that concerning crossbows, the * bonus is the one required to use the reloading mechanism. An inferior bonus does not change the maximum range or range multiplier but instead increases the reloading activity.

Missile weapon	Range multiplier	Point blank range (meters)	Maximum range Aimed / 45° (meters)	St bonus * (RMSS)
short bow	0.8	3	75 / 150	+5
composite bow	0.5	5	100 / 200	+7
long bow	0.4	5	120 / 240	+8
light crossbow	0.5	5	130 / -	+4
heavy crossbow	0.4	5	140 / -	+5

Examples: the penalty to shoot a target at 43 meters with a short bow is 43*0.8 = 34. With a long bow it is only 43*0.4 = 17. The penalty to hit a target at 110m with a heavy crossbow is 110*0.4 = 44.

This table lists the modifiers for each weapon and for each strength bonus variation.

Missile weapon	St min. * (RMSS)	St min. ** (RMSS)	St. bonus * - 1 Mult. - ranges	St. bonus * - 2 Mult. - ranges	St. bonus * - 3 Mult. - ranges	St. bonus * - 4 Mult. - ranges
short bow	+5	+1	0.85 - 70 / 145	0.9 - 65 / 140	0.95 - 60 / 135	1 - 55 / 130
composite bow	+7	+3	0.55 - 95 / 195	0.6 - 90 / 190	0.65 - 85 / 185	0.7 - 80 / 180
long bow	+8	+4	0.45 - 115 / 235	0.5 - 110 / 230	0.55 - 105 / 225	0.6 - 100 / 220
light crossbow	+4	+1	Reloading. +5%	Reloading. +10%	Reloading. +15%	-
heavy crossbow	+5	+2	Reloading. +5%	Reloading. +10%	Reloading. +15%	-

The following talent must be modified accordingly:

Natural archer: ranges are increased by 25%. Replaced by: range multiplier reduced by 25%.

For example the long bow is reduced from 0.4 to 0.3, the short bow from 0.8 to 0.6.

New talent :

Archer precision : as the talent precision but usable with missile weapons and the new skill directed ambush (see below). Same cost (20).

New skill :

Directed ambush : same category, cost and development as ambush.

- Is not usable with directed spells.

- It is required to be stealthy and the target must be unaware of the archer. The target must be still, or having a slow and predictable movement (like a sentinel).

- If the target stands still, the archer can apply all of his ranks.

- If the target is moving, the directed ambush maneuver is at -20 and only half the ranks may be used to modify the critical result.

- The skill can only be used at relatively short range (I suggest below a range penalty of 15).

III. Special Shadow World materials

In the Shadow World setting, on can use various woods to build bows: for example the dir or hoen woods. If we consider the hoen wood as the yew wood from our good old Earth, we could have the following modifiers:

Material	Range multiplier mod.	OB Bonus	Maximum range mod.
Standard wood	+0.1	-	-10%
Hoen wood	-	+5	-
Dir wood	-0.1	+10	+10%

[2] La confrérie de l’arc en main, « les flèches médiévales », http://perso.orange.fr/confrerie.arc/fleches.htm