The Sling range 200m???

[Khamulcalle]

Is this not wrong? is the sling's range really 200m and the recurved Bow only 175m?

How on earth (Glorantha) would you hit anything at 200 yards with a sling?

:shock:

I could see a range of 100m. Maybe I am way off, but please enlight me



/K

 

[The Dan]

Ranged weapons, bugbear of every game system and the fulcrum of realistic vs useable/balanced debates for designers everywhere.

Not claiming that its infallible of course, but Thus Sayeth Wikipedia:

A sling bullet lobbed in a high trajectory can achieve ranges approaching 400 m; the current Guinness World Record distance of an object thrown with a sling stands at 477.0 m, set by David Engvall in 1992 using a metal dart. Larry Bray held the previous world record (1982), in which a 52 g stone was thrown 437.1 m. Modern authorities vary widely in their estimates of the effective range of ancient weapons and of course bows and arrows could also have been used to produce a long-range arcing trajectory, but ancient writers repeatedly stress the sling's advantage of range... The ranges the sling could generate with molded lead glandes was only topped by the heavy English longbows (with draw weights exceeding 150+ pounds) centuries later, and then at massively greater cost.

 

[Vile]

Oho, the slings vs. bows flamewar! Er, civilised discussion, I mean. :twisted:

Remember those ranges given in that Wikipedia article are where the stone hit the ground in a distance throwing attempt. I can well imagine that slings used in warfare (stones shot in parabolic arcs at massed opponents) would have a range in the region of 200m.

But trying to hit a human-sized target, even if not moving, I would be surprised if anyone could manage more than 50m. Bows are probably better, but they're still difficult to aim.

 

[DramaticExit]

That's exactly it Vile. There's a question of 'maximum range' which might be useful for large battles with hundreds of troops, and 'effective range' that you can hit a discrete/individual target at. The effective range is much shorter.

We reworked a fair few of the ranges to be 'effective' ranges, including slings, in our campaign.

Example, for longbows:

English archers use a 48-inch-diameter target in tournament competition. Since a 48-inch target is about the same target area as a man’s body, these archers’ scores can be examined and compared for use in game terms. A compilation of the twelve highest tournament results during a one-year period shows that the "hit" percentages of England’s finest archers at three ranges were: 92% hits at 60 yards, 81% at 80 yards, and 54% hits at 100 yards distance. The best archers for an entire year of tournament competition still scored complete misses 46% of the time when firing at a target the size of a man at 100 yards range (Archery, p. 240). And these scores were achieved using slow, deliberate fire at a stationary target.

 

[Mixster]

If you are at least partway trained with a sling, you can hit almost any target a bowman (of equal skill) can at the same range.

Slingers were used in ancient times to counter archer since they outranged them.

I agree that hitting anything at more than 100 meters away with something that doesn't have a scope is hard. But this is the kind of heroics our heroes should be doing.

I do believe learning to sling properly is harder. But learning to use a crossbow correctly is also easier than using a longbow, so if we wanted to mimic ease of learning we would have to take that into account. And once we start there, there's no reason to stop at ranged weapons, using a Longsword correctly is harder than using an Axe correctly, but a halberd is even harder.

 

[Dan True]

I do believe learning to sling properly is harder. But learning to use a crossbow correctly is also easier than using a longbow, so if we wanted to mimic ease of learning we would have to take that into account. And once we start there, there's no reason to stop at ranged weapons, using a Longsword correctly is harder than using an Axe correctly, but a halberd is even harder.

If we wished to complicate the system by modelling this, then it could be done in a rather simply way by giving each weapon a "skill rating", which is a minimum level of skill, say 40% for a crossbow, 60% for a bow and 70% for a sling.

You then have to have this level of skill with the weapon, to be able to [something].
Perhaps you need it to be able to choose a CM (if you don't have the skill, you either lose the combat action, roll one randomly or can only choose the standard actions, not the weapon-specific ones (so a guy without sufficient skill in Javelin cannot use the Pin Weapon CM) ).
Or you gain an additional CA when using a weapon which skill rating you have...
Perhaps both...

- Dan

 

[Mixster]

Yeah but most adventurers start with str+dex+40 in their favored weapon, so having those skill rating be less than 50 or 60 would not really be appropriate unless you want to mimic nonprofiency from other systems.

 

[Dan True]

Yeah but most adventurers start with str+dex+40 in their favored weapon, so having those skill rating be less than 50 or 60 would not really be appropriate unless you want to mimic nonprofiency from other systems.

Sure, precisely what they should be would require some testing.

 

[Mixster]

Yeah but most adventurers start with str+dex+40 in their favored weapon, so having those skill rating be less than 50 or 60 would not really be appropriate unless you want to mimic nonprofiency from other systems.

Sure, precisely what they should be would require some testing.

I don't really like it, I quite like that in Runequest you can pick anything up and fight with it, you just aren't particularly good at it unless you are buffed crazily with magic. Even the most dextrous person only has 36% chance of hitting somebody with a longbow if he just picked it up and has never seen it before. But he still has a chance.

I quite like that. But your idea has merit in that it could reflect the specific training you need to master your craft.

 

[Dan True]

I quite like that. But your idea has merit in that it could reflect the specific training you need to master your craft.

I don't either. I think I would leave it be as it is, with various weapon usage only depending on strength and dex, not skill.
But through time, a few people have expressed desire for such rules.

- Dan

 

[Khamulcalle]

Tip hat! I did not think that... Impressive with more than 400 m.
But as you guys also says hitting something beyond 100 m would be very tough, if there is not 2000 ppl standing there.

/K

 

[Mithras]

I do alot of slinging.

100m is achievable with smooth pebbles, more than that with a lead bullet (I achieved 180m). Hitting a person at that distance? Hard. Very hard indeed.

200m+? As already referenced, it has been done in a sporting, competitive context, but is in not that useful as a reference to the sling in combat.

See my article on the ancient sling in Ancient Warfare magazine:
https://www.ancient-warfare.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=102

 

[Mithras]

If we wished to complicate the system by modelling this, then it could be done in a rather simply way by giving each weapon a "skill rating", which is a minimum level of skill, say 40% for a crossbow, 60% for a bow and 70% for a sling.

The lovely RuneQuest II (Chaosium version) achieved this by making some skills very expensive to purchase, sometimes at the lower levels, sometimes at the higher levels, which I really really miss. Unfortunately they made the sling cost less than the bow to train!?! Which I thing is not right (since I practiced a bit of archery a few years ago as well...)

 

[Mixster]

I do alot of slinging.

Out of interest and for wanting of learning, how do you sling? Do you sling overhand, underhand or sideways?

I'd assume ancient slingers wouldn't have been able to do the sideways slinging technique in formations, so they would probably have done an underhand throw to lob the bullet away. But which one did you use?

 

[Mithras]

I've practiced the 'helicopter' technique, and the underhand technique, but then developed my own style which involves combining the two, warming up with the 'underhand' then slanting across to finish with a more of a sideways throw. I'll see if I have a video somewhere ....

 

[Mithras]

This is my son, who uses the same technique: http://youtu.be/cclqw-T_C6o

and myself (trying to speed sling!): http://youtu.be/oFoh48JAztI

The final sling at the end is the traditional 'helicopter' best used at close range...

Looking at the sling stats, I see it does 1D8, I'd set that for lead bullets, having pebbles at 1D6. I'd set the range at 100m though, maybe 180 or 160 for lead.

 

[DramaticExit]

I'd set the range at 100m though, maybe 180 or 160 for lead.

In my humble opinion, ranges in RQ2 - and RPGs in general - should be 'effective' ranges - the size you can reasonably expect to hit a man-sized target at. That situation occurs far more commonly than massed army battles.

With that in mind, consider:

The best archers for an entire year of tournament competition still scored complete misses 46% of the time when firing at a target the size of a man at 100 yards range.

and that's against a roughly man-sized (4' diameter) target with time to aim and a stationary target.

For slings, looking at this site, slinging.org and a discussion on rpg.net it seems similarish? 50 yards for an expert slinger to have a good chance of hitting a man-sized target and so on.

edit: Regarding damage, my main issue - which I've mentioned in the past - is that the Staff Sling does more damage than, well, anything. Including the Arbalest.

 

[Mithras]

In my humble opinion, ranges in RQ2 - and RPGs in general - should be 'effective' ranges - the size you can reasonably expect to hit a man-sized target at. That situation occurs far more commonly than massed army battles.

Then I agree with you, and the ranges in general should come right down.

edit: Regarding damage, my main issue - which I've mentioned in the past - is that the Staff Sling does more damage than, well, anything. Including the Arbalest.

I've made and used staff slings too, same range, but you can really throw some nice, big, fist sized stones. Don't think damage is equal to an Arbalest, though. I've seen what a (Roman) Arbalest can do to wooden shields. Nasty!

 

[PhilHibbs]

The lovely RuneQuest II (Chaosium version) achieved this by making some skills very expensive to purchase, sometimes at the lower levels, sometimes at the higher levels, which I really really miss. Unfortunately they made the sling cost less than the bow to train!?! Which I thing is not right (since I practiced a bit of archery a few years ago as well...)

RuneQuest IV (never published) did this by assigning each skill a rating of Easy, Medium, Hard, and Very hard (E,M,H,V) and applied a multiplier to the training time.

I did a Corel Draw character sheet for RuneQuest IV but I lost it. Does anyone know of a copy?