Archery: Variable Range Increments

Following up from yesterday's post. A reminder on methodology.

I've taken men's longbow classifications from the Braintree Bowmen in the UK, ranging from 3rd class to Grandmaster Bowman; analyzed them with a tool I made to convert archery scores into to-hit rates on a d20; and applied those results to a variety of ranges for a 65cm target, which I reckon to be comparable to shooting at a human torso.

Each line on the chart represents a score in a "720 round" of archery, converted to be hit/miss against a 65cm target at the stated range.

Analyzing this chart, a thought occurred to me: instead of fixed range increments and a rising attack bonus, what if we had fixed attack bonuses/penalties and range increments that vary with level?

What we get is a system that seems (to me) much more verisimilitudinous. At short range, there's little to no difference in skill. At long range, shots that are essentially impossible for an unskilled bowmen will be easy for a skilled shooter.

What we give up is some granularity in progression, as we probably don't want the range increments to change in such small steps between levels that it makes no real difference.

65cm target	0	-5	-10	-15	-20
3rd Class	5m	10m	15m	20m	25m
2nd Class	10m	20m	30m	40m	50m
Bowman	15m	30m	45m	50m	65m
Master Bowman	20m	40m	60m	80m	100m
Grandmaster Bowman	25m	50m	75m	100m	125m
World-Class Bowman	30m	60m	90m	120m	150m

Now, how about changing target size? The following charts show the effects of changing the target size by doubles and halves.

 

What we can notice is that for each doubling of  target size, it's as if the lowest-skilled (31 score) bowman is shooting as if they were a middle-skill bowman (157 score). For the "Bowman", it's like shooting as a "Grandmaster Bowman", and so on.

So, changing target sizes can be fairly easily modeled by shifting the effective skill of the archer - double the target size, increase the effective skill two increments. So a "3rd-class" bowman shooting at a target 1.3m across would use the "Bowman" row on the chart.

This is for considered shots in good conditions. Later we will examine more adverse conditions.

The 0-Level Man-at-arms

For some reason, D&D has gotten it into its head that men-at-arms would be 0-level. This trope dates back pretty far, and is taken as canon by many.

Let's examine this for a minute, though.

The historical term "man-at-arms" was used to denote a professional cavalryman in full armour. Knights would be an example of a man-at-arms, but many men-at-arms were not knights. In D&D, however, the term tends to be used to refer to any professional soldier, regardless of equipment.

In either case, though, the term refers to a professional.

The idea that a professional solder has the same odds of hitting in combat as an untrained peasant is, frankly, laughable. This professional, in fact, has lower odds of hitting in combat than your fresh-faced 1st-Level Fighter with 0 XP.

In an older edition like BECMI (my old stand-by), a professional soldier with training and experience should probably be around level 3 - greater odds of hitting, and much more survivable than an untrained peasant.

On average, a peasant (AC 9, 1-6 HP, Attack +0) will take around 5 rounds to kill a Level 3 fighter (AC 9, 3-18 HP, Attack +3). The Level 3 fighter will only take around 1 or 2 rounds to kill the peasant. The difference swells, obviously, if you give the man-at-arms armour.

Conclusions? City watchmen, mook guards, anyone with no real training - 0-level or Fighter 1.

Serious men-at-arms, with training and experience? Probably Fighter 3-5.

Training vs. Practice

In reading through Alexis' archives over at Tao of D&D, I read an interesting article and ensuing discussion on training, and the difference between training and practice.

Now, I believe a starting character should be a pretty highly-trained individual: someone at the level of a journeyman, a member of a professional association, or a Bachelor of a University. In 99% of cases, the character got there through training: there was a master, and the character was a student. This could have been the Master-at-Arms on their father's estate, a scholar at a University, some weirdo who takes in orphans and teaches them to be pickpockets and sneak-thieves, or what-have-you.

Something I've never been able to reconcile with D&D, though, is stories like Charlie Parker. With a basic education in music under his belt, and some informal instruction from acquaintances and listening to records (let's say he was a 1st level jazz musician at this point), Parker set out to practice. He spent his late teens practicing 15 hours a day, and emerged as a master - one of the best in the world (by old D&D standards, probably level 9 - name level).

So, in 3 years, practicing 15 hours a day, Parker went up 8 levels. That's an average of 1755 hours of individual practice per level, or about 220 8-hour days.

How to handle a player who wants their character to "woodshed" (as in practice non-stop out behind the woodshed) for a year to gain a level or two?

I don't know, but this is something that bothers me. In an ideal world, XP should probably be awarded for practicing a great deal and revoked for failure to practice. This may be too fiddly, and would almost certainly lead to the first act of a campaign being the, "We train for two years, what now?" phase.

Don't have a solution, but it's something that bugs me.

Passing Thought - Skills and the Expected Outcome

What are the possible outcomes of a skill check? Most systems have a pass or fail, some have some kind of critical pass or fail, and some have an auto pass mechanic for certain checks (Take 10 or Take 20), and some notion of a difficulty rating.

The way I see it, when looking at a skill check and assigning a difficulty, I have in mind an expected outcome. I then assign the probabilities to likely produce the expected outcome. The expected outcome could be success, failure, partial success, etc.

It recently occurred to me that there's a needless step here - really, all we should be rolling for is whether we got the expected outcome, something worse, or something better.

Here's what I propose: roll 2d6. On 5-9, the expected outcome occurs. On 10-12, a better than expected outcome occurs. On 2-4, a worse than expected outcome occurs.

I think that this, combined with a page of guidelines for the GM, would be a pretty elegant resolution mechanic.

Just a passing thought, but I think I'll develop this more.