More about "Fast Archery"

Split from this thread: https://www.burningwheel.com/forum/showthread.php?15115-Fast-Archery - stormy

New poster here, but longtime lurker and RPG afficionado. I own BWG and have read it cover-to-cover, but am still looking for a game to join.

I’d second the earlier notion that current BWG rules already allow fast shooting. The load cycle for a hunting or elven bow is 5 actions. The first 2 are to draw the arrow from the quiver. That isn’t stated explicitly on BWG p. 451, but p. 447 says it takes 2 actions to draw a weapon, and 1 to grab one previously prepared. I’d posit that placing arrows in the ground in front of you, as medieval archers often did prior to battle, is an example of that. So, doing both that and snapshot eliminated steps 2&5 from load cycle (1) grab arrow, (2) draw from quiver, (3) nock, (4) draw, (5) acquire target, and (6) fire, though at the cost of accuracy. (NB: BWG p. 452 says snapshot is Ob 4, not Ob 2.)

What Lars Andersen does is hold 3 arrows in his hand at the same time, which eliminates another action for the first 3 shots and means you can potentially fire every 3 actions: nook, draw, snapshot fire. Adding the Practiced Precision trait reduces this to 2 actions, and The Killer reduces it to 1! (A generous GM could allow Chow Yun Fat to be added on top of that, so that the archer could fire every round without the snapshot penalty.)

Luke has said that a Volley in Fight! is a heartbeat long (about a second), so how do you get to the rate of 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds that Mongol archers were required to achieve? Reflexes, baby!

Reflexes = 6 means you get 2 actions per volley, so you get those first 3 shots off in 1.5 volleys (~1.5 seconds). Reflexes of 7-9 means this super-archer could get those first 3 arrows off in just 1 volley, before the average Archer can even fire 1!

How’s that, Kublai?

(NB: Lars Andersen does use extra large nooks in order to use this technique. The way to reflect that in game is to require custom-made arrows.)

I agree that it makes more sense for them to be regular skills, and then just use the FORK mechanism. Otherwise, style/maneuver skills are UNDER-powered compared to other FORKed skills, which: (1) give +1D to all actions, not just the last one, (2) give +2 at exponent 7+, (3) don’t require a restrictive attack pattern, (4) only require 1 skill point to open, and (5) usually open at exponent > 1.

I would also apply the +1D to all parts of the maneuver sequence, and dissuade cheating by (1) adding Ob 1, (2) forfeiting an extra action, or (3) both if the full sequence isn’t carried out.