And it strikes me that I perhaps just don’t know how to read the “Weapon Ranges and Dice” table on pp. 556–57. I originally thought that if the maneuver winner had, say, a hunting bow, I would go down along the left-hand side to “Hunting Bow at” and then go across to find the opponent’s weapon. Looking at the answers from Thor in the threads linked above, though, it seems like I’m supposed to go across the top to “Hunting Bow is” and then down to find the opponent’s weapon? But I don’t understand how that would work?
So essentially my question is, how do I read that table correctly?
Thanks for the response, but I still don’t quite understand. So the crossbow wielder withdrawing make sense to me. It’s the next sentence that has me confused:
“If the Crossbow then successfully closes again, it will move from extreme range to optimal range and the Hunting bow will be at extreme range.”
If I look at “Crossbow at…Optimal (1D),” and then go over to “Hunting Bow is,” I see “Opt,” not “Extr.” How do you read the table such that the crossbow wielder moving from Extreme to Optimal results in the hunting bow wielder being at Extreme?
The more I look at the table and ponder this, the more I’m convinced this is a typo. There’s a clear pattern in the table, but the entry for “Crossbow at Optimal (1D)…Hunting Bow is” breaks it.
Assuming it’s a typo, though, I’m still not square on the meaning of this answer:
Like, I makes sense to me that if I have a Hunting Bow and am at “Out of Range” (putting a Great Bow at “Extreme”), winning one more withdrawal maneuver would bring the Great Bow out of range. But what about a Pistol vs. a Great Bow? Or an Arquebus vs. an Elf Bow? Going to “Out of Range” with the Pistol puts a Great Bow at “Optimal,” as does going “Out of Range” with an Arquebus put an Elf Bow at “Optimal.” Does the Pistol or Arquebus wielder need two more withdrawal successes to push his or her opponent from “Optimal” to “Extreme” and then to “Out of Range”?
This makes some sense, but also would have the strange result of making an escape with a Pistol against a Heavy Crossbow require the same amount of withdrawals as against a Hunting Bow, despite the clear range advantage of the Heavy Crossbow (3.5x). EDIT: Or is it simply impossible for the Pistol-wielder to escape against Hunting Bows, Crossbows, Elf Bows, Great Bows, and Heavy Crossbows?
You were correct going down the left side for the winner’s weapon. “Read from left to right, winner to loser” (pg. 411). This is reinforced by looking at the pistol column. If you read top to left instead, pistols at optimal range are basically uncounterable, which is not true.
I think moving into optimal range with a crossbow putting a hunting bow at optimal range is a mistake in the book. It should put the hunting bow in extreme, since the optimal range of a crossbow covers the [optimal + extreme] range of a hunting bow (looking at the hunting bow -> crossbow table). It’s also the only column on the table to skip from Opt to Out. Every other weapon follows the optimal->extreme->out of range gradient.