>The ability to strike at range is one of the most combat-defining abilities throughout history
>But Human warriors are almost always depicted as being some knight with a sword instead of an archer, crossbowmen, or cannoneer
I know elves get the archer stereotype but it feels like that really ought to belong to humans instead. Or at least the crossbowmen stereotype since those were cheap enough to be spammed.
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>but it feels like that really ought to belong to humans instead
So do that next you play or write.
All weapons are historically human weapons except those made up for fantasy stories like the Klingon Bat’leth or the night elves umbra crescent. In short, this thread is dumb conceptually.
Because its a bot thread spamming the catalogue with dogshit waifus
That's not a nice way to talk about autistic people
Thread really should have ended here
Striking from a distance loses a lot of it's advantage in a deep dark dank dungeon when you can't see around corners, enemies can be hiding anywhere and if you get bumrushed there's no line of defense. Even in modern times there's something called the 25 (number?) foot rule where basically if the enemy is close enough you're fricked before you can even take aim.
It's 21 feet and that's assuming that someone wielding a knife when your firearm is in its holster and you're not expecting to be attacked, it doesn't apply to combat where you have your weapon equipped in which case it's pretty much always better to have a gun even at zero feet.
Sure, but all the same, you're not gonna have your bow drawn the entire dungeon and if multiple enemies burst out at you one of them is gonna get you.
So use a crossbow. It's a bow that can be drawn all the time. Also pretty much anyone loses to multiple assailants regardless of the weapon.
>there's something called the 25 (number?) foot rule
>It's 21 feet
It's fake. That number is arbitrary, not based on actual evidence from incidents.
>assuming that someone wielding a knife when your firearm is in its holster and you're not expecting to be attacked
If your sidearm is holstered and you're not expecting it 21 feet is way too close. Even if you are expecting it 21 feet is way too close. The "rule" as invented 40 years ago assumed that you already knew the suspect was armed with a blunt or edge weapon, in which case you should be anticipating an attack and the 21 feet cited by the "rule" included advice to draw your sidearm, seek cover, withdraw or do something to protect yourself.
>it doesn't apply to combat where you have your weapon equipped in which case it's pretty
By your theory he shouldn't have wounded even one but years ago there was good footage on some mainstream streaming site, not one of those horrid gore sites, of a guy with a knife taking out multiple side-armed and rifle-armed police officers. I haven't seen it for years but maybe someone on /k/ knows it and saved it.
In Buchanan v. City of San Jose the guy in question had a knife
>When the athletic suspect reached approximately 55 feet from the officers, they opened fire. The suspect travelled another 37 feet toward the officers before falling.
37 feet is a nearly double 21 feet. So 21 feet doesn't count for anything.
Look up the Tueller Drill if you want, but it's a truckload of stupid. It's leading to trouble for police and civilians, not like civilians being shot in burgerland by trigger happy police, but civilians shooting other civilians and being convicted when, if not for it being misrepresented, they might be found not guilty and it encourages police who probably should be shooting to protect themselves or others being reluctant to shoot until a suspect is too close to stop.
When it comes down to it, humans are shit. Elves are better archers, goblins are better and cheaper fodder, orcs are better warriors, dwarves are better craftsman, and the list goes on and on. Any setting where humanity hasn't been stomped down hard by the other races is wishful thinking.
Human warriors should be depicted as cavalrymen. Wars were won and lost based on the skill and number of your horsemen. Even now, pilots, the modern knights, dominate the battlefield.
Human on a horse is Centaur+
>Human warriors should be depicted as cavalrymen. Wars were won and lost based on the skill and number of your horsemen. Even now, pilots, the modern knights, dominate the battlefield.
This was only true between the fall of Rome and the Burgundy Wars.
>only humans can use cavalry
Okay what are you going to do when orcs on a horse are cavalry++ dumbass
Orcs are too heavy, they’d break the horse’s backs.
Only humans can reach level 20 tho
other races should mog humans way before level 20
>be number 2 at everything without crippling min max penalties
>this is bad
>I feel like [thing] should be like [this] in a hobby about doing what you want
So do it that way you fricking scumsucker.
Crossbowmen were the opposite of heroic, so much so that the Pope attempted to ban them.
Closest you get to what you describe are the Musketeers, who were noted to be both good with the musket and the saber.
Stop this pop history nonsense, the pope tried to ban all kinds of missile weapons, not specifically the crossbow.
Only malding knights hiding behind their platemail equivalent to a year of peasant's wages perpetuated this.
>platemail
>only a year's wages
>>But Human warriors are almost always depicted as being some knight with a sword instead of an archer, crossbowmen, or cannoneer
>crossbow
>cheap
>humans ought to be flying since planes are cheap enough to be spammed
this is what you sound like
also the stories youve been reading and seeing are the cheap slop kind where each person is defined simply, and the male human fighter lead needs to be seen swinging a sword in melee cos thats just how cheap slop is.
You can get a crossbow for like 300 bucks.
yeah, today, 800 years after it was invented.
I got an 80-lb pistol grip crossbow at a website called Wild Bill's Wholesale for like $30. Still strong enough to pierce a skull.
Wild Bill went out of business since, though. It's a shame, I used to love linking all the moronic Hot Topic knives shaped like snake heads and shit they had to my friends.
>>The ability to strike at range is one of the most combat-defining abilities
Get wrecked bowgays
The entire point of a spear is to be able to poke someone while outside of their range
A bow is just a more skill-intensive spear
yes but
>A bow is just a more skill-intensive spear
not sure I would call it inherently more skillful
A bow is just a contraption to shoot spears. It all boils down to spears.
>yet another mindbroken meleecuck seething and coping
lol
Dedicated skirmishers were absolutely essential to armies, and even the Greeks filled their ranks with archers and slingers. They just aren't the end-all, be-all, but that's because there's no universally transcendent tactic.
Except for nuke
Considering that we've only used nukes in one war, they might not be all that useful of a weapon.
Hell, they were only used because the president at the time REALLY wanted to play with nukes. There really was no point on using them.
The bombs arguably prevented a whole lot more death and destruction than they caused, so in hindsight it was probably a good thing that they were dropped.
Nah, they were already ready to surrender by may.
Actually, most of the generals wanted to go down in a blaze of suicidal glory, fighting for every inch of Japanese soil. They basically ignored the Potsdam Declaration and were even willing to quibble over the term "Unconditional Surrender" even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was only after Marcus McDilda claimed that the US had 100 nuclear bombs(Under torture, go figure) that the Emperor himself ordered the surrender (The cabinent was deadlocked).
That is bullshit revisionist propaganda.
The problem with nuke is that it's only good for mass destruction. In a situation where your goal isn't total destruction of populace, infrastructure, and the land both are on a nuke is a horrible option. It not only kills everyone in the area wantonly, combatant or no, but also destroys everything for miles and essentially salts the earth for years to come. If your goal is to successfully take a location for yourself or you want a relatively clean victory, nukes are literally the worst thing you can use.
>salts the earth for years to come
This isn't true for most nuclear warheads which are burst in the air above their target. The vast majority of radioactive fallout is vaporized or dispersed too widely to cause long-term issues. A "dirty bomb" detonated at ground level would cause significantly more fallout.
The proof of this is in the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki themselves. Only the people exposed to the bomb's detonation suffered long term health effects. Now they are as healthy as anywhere else.
>Nukes don't work if you actually want to use the place you're nuking afterwards
It's estimated that after 60 days any residual fallout from Hiroshima or Nagasaki was negligible. So as long as you can wait that long your people should be fine.
Nukes don't work if you actually want to use the place you're nuking afterwards. Most wars were raged for resources of some kind or another so rendering the land completely inhospitable and destroying everything in it would be counterproductive.
>Most wars were raged for resources of some kind or another
moron alert.
If you count land as a resource this is correct.
It would be slightly less incorrect but still very incorrect since almost every conflict in history has had nothing to do with taking land. War is just a method of solving disputes over authority.
Disputes over what?
No, he's right. When you dig down you realize every war has an economic motive. Most of the time it was land because 80-90% of the population was farming. Other times it was trade routes in the case of the Crusades.
No, when you dig down you realize economic motives are tertiary at best, and most wars do nothing for either side's economic prosperity.
>most wars do nothing for either side's economic prosperity.
This is true in the modern era but before that you could expect mountains of treasure in the form of loot, tribute, ransoms, and slaves in addition to the disputed territory. Julius Caesar made his fortune selling slaves captured in his campaigns.
No, it's actually doubly true in the pre-modern era.
In the modern era you have a system for siphoning wealth towards various pockets through contracts and procurements, and war that isn't total can be combined with propaganda to increase amount of wealth extracted from a country's populace. e.g. EU politicians telling people to cope with the rising energy prices by literally telling them to think "Take that, Putin!" whenever they have a cold shower.
Total war still fricks everyone up though.
But in pre-modern warfare, almost every war is still costing everyone and not making any fiscal returns.
Caesar is actually a good example of this since he had to sack Rome's treasury and loot over half of Rome's previous just to pay off a portion of the debts he incurred with his military and political endeavors. He never actually did manage to pay off his debts, either.
Most of Caesar's expenses were because of the massive bribes needed to keep his office. While he was popular, he wasn't popular enough to fly in the face of Roman traditions and ethics and be elected Dictator for Life. That was a King by another name and Romans KILLED Kings.
But war was most definitely profitable and the history books tell of it. How else can we explain Europe having a new war every other year for centuries? The Kingdoms of Europe would be penniless if they couldn't turn a profit from a successful campaign.
Are you kidding? Nukes can be shot down.
in theory, with zero shot downs actually happening ever
The meme mostly comes from Elves being a reflection of Humanity (blame Tolkien) and archery taking a long time to master.
But allow me to propose a solution.
Every race has it's own habits and traditions of archery. For the elves, it's singular accuracy of few individual shots. Humans, by contrast, favor rapid fire. This is less effective for hunting but far more relevant for combat. Dwarves enjoy the consistency and reliability of their crossbows while Orcs prefer shooting the heaviest arrows from the strongest bows for maximum damage.
I would imagine elves would have fast enough reflexes to make quicker shots especially at nearby targets. Could switch between precision for long range and sneak attacks and go for rapid fire as the situation demands.
Dwarves would, with steady hands, spend more time aiming.
Whatever the case, I would hope a system mechanically supports elves using bows and dwarves using crossbows instead of only picking them for aesthetic purposes. Would certainly suck if a high skill dwarf crossbowmen would actually be better off with a longbow.
That goes for peasants as well. An experienced huntsman might be fine with a bow, at least against unarmored targets, but a crossbow should be the better choice for those just learning but still be useful for professional mercs.
>Would certainly suck if a high skill dwarf crossbowmen would actually be better off with a longbow.
Dwarves are honestly going to lack the arm length to make good use of bows. Shorter arms will limit the draw length regardless of strength, leading to less power. So unless you're introducing compound bows, crossbows, guns and throwing weapons are going to be the thing for stunties. Mechanically you could probably do it by putting dwarves into a different size category from humans and elves, and then putting size restrictions on longbows.
I dunno about that. Many (not all) fantasy settings give dwarves proportionally longer arms with their hands hanging at knee height or even lower.
As for being a size category smaller, I feel that causes a lot of other problems depending on the system from not using great axes, lowering carry capacity, making them less resistant to being shoved, etc. That's fine for gnomes but I wouldn't want to impede dwarf warriors just to get in the way of dwarf longbowmen.
AD&D 2e splatbook of Dwarves has a kit called sharpshooter. This kit requires specialization in light or heavy crossbow or arquebus. The weapon and its ammunition are custom and high end. The player can do extra damage on shits but only with his personalized weapon and bolts.
>I would imagine elves would have fast enough reflexes to make quicker shots especially at nearby targets.
Reflexes wouldn't help rate of fire. Better snapshots, yes, but rate of fire for bows is a measure of endurance and consistently getting arrow-butt to bowstring.
it's why I gave them better rate of fire.
I'd honestly give the advantage of being good shootas to humans. They need something after all.
Humans have numbers and a high Exceptional/Heroic individual output compared to other numbers races.
Humans are basically orcs but with nicer skill. They still use the same mass waves of low level troops tactics, but are slightly better trained with slightly better stuff.
I mean that's just human averageism
Humans are more numerous than elves and dwarfs, but less than orcs
Humans are more skilled than orcs, but less than elves
Humans have better magic than orcs and dwarfs, but worse than elves
Humans have better tech than orcs and elves, but worse than dwarfs
It's rare for a setting to depict Humans as the best at anything (other than adaptability), but it's really common for settings to make humans the 2nd or 3rd best at everything
good post
Elves should favor guerilla tactics and individual excellence with the bow. Humans should favor giant masses volleys of a hundred archers firing in a general direction.
Pretty much what I was going for. Elves would favor duals and assassinations rather than large scale armies so they're not used to massed warfare and set piece battles.
Thank you.
I feel orcs shouldn't use bows at all. Their strength would mean orcish bows would need to be massive with incredible draw weights, which would require more precise construction. A much better weapon for incredibly strong savages is the ranged weapon of choice before the bow existed, the atlatl. The atlatl spear thrower was used throughout human history for longer than the bow has even existed. This is the weapon used to hunt mammoths into extinction.
I figured they'd use the horns of some obscure and dangerous animal. Still, those bows would be rare and Atlatls would be cheap.
>But Human warriors are almost always depicted as being some knight with a sword
Blame romantic ideas if chivalry. For most of history they were seen as 'Murican cops are seen today but with actual power. Anyways, the bonk precedes the rock hurl.
>Anyways, the bonk precedes the rock hurl.
Ok and? Do you still prefer to crawl on all fours just because it preceded walking?
Large number of ttrps encounters happen at distance which melee fighter can close in such a short time it only allows ranged opponent to loose one or two shots.
Furthermore most ttrpgs make combat less lethal than it was at any point in history, making the ability to land those first one or two shots less decisive.
If Boromir was depicted as an archer, then all humans in all games would have been archers. But Legolas was so it's an elf thing.
that's it
If you think it all goes back to Tolkien, could you remind me, who killed Smaug and how?
Weren't Boromir and Faramir part of the Rangers too?
No, you're thinking of Elros and Elrohir
LOTR was one of the greatest literary achievements of the last century, maybe last several centuries. In LOTR Legolas was an archer, so archery is for elves. Welcome to /tg/ and fantasy culture I guess?
>The virgin romantic fantasy hero with his cruciform sword
VS
>The CHAD pulp fantasy hero with pistol and saber
Admittedly Conan never used a bow that I know of, but he was friends with Hyrkanians and had plenty of archers in his Free Company. Pretty sure he killed a wizard or two by throwing a blade as well.
More heroes need to modeled on John Carter.
>inexplicably strong with no shonen training arc or hero's journey
>earned the respect of the planet's race of noble savages
>happily used blasters and disintegrators in warfare
>however, if an enemy challenged him with a blade, he would use his to make it a "fair" fight (it never was, see:inexplicable strength)
>adopted cultural norm of fighting in the nude
>knocked up the princess despite being a different species
>defeated racism and slavery because they slightly annoyed his wife
The actual combat defining ability is fighting while under ranged firepower. That doesn't need elven trickery or dwarven stubbornness, that requires tremendous human BALLS.
>Admittedly Conan never used a bow that I know of
>Give me a bow," requested Conan. "It's not my idea of a manly weapon, but I learned archery among the Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if I can't feather a man or so on yonder deck." - Queen of the Black Coast
Makes sense. Conan was the epitome of self-reliance and well roundedness.
strong with no shonen training arc or hero's journey
It was explained with the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars. John Carter had basically spent his whole life in war or training for war with weights on, and when he got sent to Mars the weights came off. He's the original good Saiyan.
It's a game, my fun is more important than your autism.
>Helmet
Thats Chivalry 2, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_helmet_of_Henry_VIII
Dark souls reference
Yeah, Austrian royal armorer referenced computer game that came out 500 years after his death. He must have been distant cousin of Nostradamus.
Dark souls reference
Fantasy is all about aesthetics and swords look cool.
>bumpgay strikes after 14 hours
this board really is dead
Not my fault OP is still moronic. If I can stop him from creating this shit thread again than I will.
>Fantasy is all about aesthetics and swords look cool.
kys swordcuck
Not many battles were fought in a plain, clean surface, of two main forces deployed on a line. Ancient historians claim ranged weapons were used mostly for demoralize enemies rather than killing them. Good armor and shields usually made regular ranged weapons less effective overall. A mix of close combat weapons supported by ranged weapons was the most effective combination untill gunpowder. And even then, it took gunpowder about 400 years to get rid of swords.
Shields were also effective against melee weapons. In fact, shields were so effective that it wasn't until a formation breaks that you saw armies take massive casualties.
>And even then, it took gunpowder about 400 years to get rid of swords.
And even after that people turned their guns into spears and spent centuries stabbing each other with them, and that's an idea that still hasn't entirely gone away even in today's warfare (though admittedly the last time I heard about someone doing a successful bayonet charge was in 2011 when some British troops in Afghanistan defeated a Taliban ambush by dismounting their convoy and charging, and IIRC that was mostly down to the Taliban in question being used to taking pot-shots at Germans who tended to react by hiding inside their vehicles).
Before the arrival of gunpowder, and more properly the more formal early modern line formations and organization, ranged weapons where almost never the decisive arm in combat (And even napoleon commented on the necessity of cavalry to "clean up" routed units to make victories actually decisive in linear warfare), but were used for harassing and screening so that heavier melee units, infantry or cavalry, could break the opponent easier./ not get outflanked.
Even mongols finished enemies with heavier cavalry charges despite their notoriety for the bow. Other iconic missile troops like English archers also relied on a complement of heavy foot knights, and baliarc slingers where used alongside ancient heavy infantry.
Missile units tend not to be able to take and hold ground, but tend to be complimentary forces to hammers and anvils.
Asking the wrong questions OP
The question should be more
>why isn't massed archery in wargames more disruptive to cohesionnat long range than deadly?
>why don't most archers melt away in wargames when in contact with the enemy?
>OP doesn't know that Knights loved the shit out of guns.
Reminder that England lost the hundred years war and that longbows are overhyped anglotrash.
Because it's medieval Europe, and knights could tank most arrows.
For having legendary archers, you either need to look at the classical period or other cultures where heavy plate armor wasn't a thing.
>and knights could tank most arrows
Knights from Crecy and Agincourt would disagree.
The knights were able to walk across the field basically unharmed, it was only when being shot at point-blank range in the thinnest part of the armour that they were getting harmed by arrows, and at Crecy a lot of the less well off knights were wearing iron or poor quality steel.
>a lot of the less well off knights were wearing iron or poor quality steel
What about all those counts and the motherfricking king of Bohemia? I'm sure those could afford top best armor money can buy.
Well for starters the accounts of the battle say the king of Bohemia was killed in hand to hand combat, so evidently his armour was good enough to get him to the English lines unharmed. It's likely that the same thing happened to all the other wealthy noblemen who died that day as well, the melee was extremely vicious and one-sided as the French cavalry charges lost basically all of their momentum and cohesion crossing the field which is the absolute worst position to be in as a cavalryman squaring off against disciplined ranks of heavy infantry.
Many of the casualties from arrow fire during the charges were also caused by riders being thrown from their (unarmoured) horses and being trampled/suffocating in the mud rather than being directly hit by arrows themselves.
>ranger weapons
>right, twisty corridors and tunnels
Gee. Let’s think.
That's precisely the point. The better a weapon is, the harder it is to say that the person carrying it demonstrates any particular virtue other than pragmatism during battle.