Respecting the Longbow

 

On the 26th of August, 1346, the forces of Edward III, king of England, stood in a series of columns between the villages of Crecy and Wadicourt, peering down the hills towards Fontaine, where a vast French army was massing to drive the English invaders back to the sea. 

The French army was enormous; even ignoring the improbable estimates of ancient chroniclers it is plausible the French outnumbered the English by more than two to one. And while many of the French soldiers were hastily-assembled levies of peasants, the core of their army were professionals: the armored men-at-arms that form the iconic centerpiece of modern medieval warfare. These knights were supported by thousands of professional crossbowmen from Genoa: highly trained experts who carried the iconic pavise shields in addition to their deadly mechanical weapons. 

It was, on paper, one of the finest medieval armies one could amass. It was led not only by King Philip, but his royal ally King John of Bohemia, supported by Prince Charles and a host of other notable dukes and counts. Transported into a fantasy realm, it would be an army well-suited to fighting a demon king or vampire tyrant.

But they did not face a demonic army. Instead, they faced the English, wielding something more lethal than hellfire: the English longbow. The French knights made numerous tactical errors, but nothing saw to their destruction more than the longbow. 

The Genoese crossbowmen could not compete; they were almost immediately outshot and forced to withdraw. The French men at arms charged repeatedly up the hill, each time leaving hundreds of bodies in the mud. Over and over again, they were repulsed, at extravagant cost.

King John of Bohemia was shot in the head and killed. Along with him "died 9 princes, 10 counts, a duke, an archbishop, and a bishop," according to Wikipedia. The battle was a slaughter; the English suffered few losses, while the French lost the greater bulk of their chivalry. And this was not a rare victory: nearly the same events would replay at Agincourt and repeatedly for the better part of the next two centuries. The longbow was the dominant weapon in the English arsenal and, well used, was the most weapon lethal in medieval Europe.

Now let's look at longbows in Dungeons and Dragons: 1d8, 150 foot range, Heavy. Slow with mastery.

It's not hard to see the problem. The longsword, carried in two hands, is a d10 weapon, a d8 with a shield. Both attack, presumably, once every six seconds. One has range while the other doesn't, though range rarely comes up in most D&D modules I've played or read.  

This is absurd. Not only because of some nebulous complaint about realism, though that's a valid point in this case--longbows are clearly not well portrayed here--but because as a game mechanic, longbows are boring. 

This is a problem. As written, a longbow is slightly less dangerous than a longsword; the only advantage is can fire at range, and quickly. This is not as helpful as it sounds, especially since ranges generally shrink rapidly in D&D combat. When the enemy has a longbow, you should probably just race towards them and deal with it. They present little to otherwise react to; they're just another weapon. 

Meanwhile, there is no good reason to use them as an archer!

Instead of the slow, expensive, heavy longbow you have the much lighter, cheaper shortbow, which also allows you Vex, which is objectively better in nearly all cases than Slow! And since most damage with ranged weapons comes from class abilities, a d6 and a d8 are essentially no different. (A massive EV change of 1 damage per hit, lol). If you're carrying a longbow in 5E, you're doing it for RP purposes, which I respect, but I don't think it's good game design when a longbow was such an incredible medieval weapon. 

At the moment, bows have a weak vibe. They're essentially just melee weapons, but with range, and suited almost exclusively for the Ranger class. They're comparable to cantrips; just a weak source of reliable distance damage. When you see them, they don't evoke any particular thought; they're just a generic thing to defeat using the same toolkit you use to defeat any generic threat. Boring. Lame.  

So what am I looking for? What's the vibe I'm going for?

Seeing a longbow should (like any weapon tbh) immediately provoke a weapon-specific reaction. This is a dangerous threat! It must be taken seriously! This isn't like a video game with health bars; it's a life-threatening weapon that could in a matter of seconds drive a 12-inch spike all the way through your skull. Players should look for cover, fetch their shields, fall prone! Racing towards longbows in an open field should be insane. You should get cut to pieces, like the knights at Crecy learned. Find another way! Take cover, withdraw--do anything other than barge forwards, convinced by video games you can just "tank the damage" and hit them with a sword.

(Honestly I can think of nothing more boring. When you start bringing MOBA/video game stuff into TTRPGs, I want to fight you. How dare you? "Tanking?" Are you unwell? King Philip was shot in the jaw! )

So what should be done?

1. Longbows should do much, much more damage.

Longbows should be terrifying. They were essentially as lethal as a firearm, able to pierce through most armor and firing faster than early gunpowder weapons. A direct hit was nearly always fatal because they fired with incredible force; draw weights of at least 80 pounds! These are not normal weapons; they should make players react as if seeing very light artillery--because that's what they are! 

2. Longbows should be hard to use.

These were highly-specialized weapons that required years of training. The reason they were replaced by firearms was not that early firearms were better weapons, but that they were easier to learn. A peasant could in a few days learn to use a firearm effectively; similar training for an archer required years. 

Similarly, these were fragile weapons that didn't travel well and wore down with use. They have great power, and great cost. 

3. They should be easier to counter.  

Cover is too weak in D&D, and shields are mostly pointless, granting a tiny generic AC bonus. Going prone and crawling puts attacks at disadvantage, though even that is probably too small a defense. I'm not sure how to implement it in D&D as is; the game just isn't designed for that kind of tactics. But there should be ways of getting around these weapons that are effective, such that "run towards it and hit it with a sword" will always seem like the reckless (though possible!) decision that it is.

4. Arrows should matter. 

Ammunition should be tracked. This is immutable for the style of gameplay I'm going for: you bring supplies with you when you venture into the world! You make calculations, you protect your baggage train, you use the tools available. So yes, you need to track those arrows. (This is a way of countering archery, incidentally! Burn, steal, or simply drain their ammunition!)

Incidentally, this allows for more gameplay, not less! Resources, like any constraint, give your story texture. They force you to make considerations, to have losses, to consider actions! Otherwise you're going to be in mindless videogame automatic mode: see enemy, shoot enemy. Everything should have *some* kind of cost! 

5. Stop making archery abilities

This is a personal taste thing, but every archery ability is stupid, video-game stuff. Fire 3 arrows at once! Fire 5 arrows at once! Fire an arrow at every enemy in a 10-foot square! Go full General Radahn and fill 1/3 of the map with glowing arrows! Look, I just don't like this. I don't want a simulation but I also don't want to feel like we're in an anime. Archery abilities, if you have them, should be very specific and easy to justify: shooting when someone starts casting a spell or something, I guess? Specializing in knocking weapons out of people's hands? Stuff like that. But nothing that starts to defy physics please, or to carry out would need to look like some kind of AI video of a guy shooting 15 arrows a second. 

Where does this all lead?

I'm not sure any of this is possible in D&D as is, which is why I'm writing my own game system to try and put this into practice!

Hey, if you read all this, thank you! I really would love to know what you think!