I'm building an archery based character for the first time, and I want him to have a lot of utility in his weaponry.
Using magic as sparingly as possible, what are some interesting arrow types you can think of? I'm stuck on rope arrows, blunted arrows, silvered, and standard ones.
Magic *is* accessible to make other types, I'm just trying to avoid handwaving with it as much as I can.
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here, have this
Arrows wrapped in oiled cloth for setting things on fire
Rope cutters that have extremely wide, bladed heads
Arrows with whistling holes in the head for signals
Whistling arrows, flight arrows and incendary arrows seem to be missing from your list.
You can also put toggles on arrowheads, if you're so inclined.
All of those are great, thanks.
Flight arrows?
>Flight arrows?
Basically shorter, lighter arrows launched by means of a guide or a rail. It extends the potential range of your shot and is a double fuck-you to folks who're looking forward to shooting your arrows right back at you.
Oh, I see. I've not heard of those before, thanks.
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fishing arrows
bullet bows, because why the fuck not
>ammo is dried clay balls
Cheapest projectiles too, though seeing how round balls have shit for aerodynamics, probably the worst one as well.
plain old extra nasty barbs
go fuck yourself
>Arrows wrapped in oiled cloth for setting things on fire
An alternative is to use a pyrotechnic mixture (saltpetre, coal and sulphur, with much more sulphur and much less saltpetre than for gunpowder) that's soaked into a fibre wrapping (cord, fabric, some such) and allowed to dry. This appears to have done the job better and with far less fuss in real life (and thus what was used once it has been invented), but in fantasy the difference may mostly one of style. Or a way to make alchemical knowledge more battle relevant I guess.
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Fuck man that'd be horrifying to get hit with.
Skip the connecting cord and these harpoon arrows would probably be a good poison delivery system. Probably a bit longer points though so you can fit more poison on there. If you're stuck with old IRL grade poisons though the effect will probably be rather slow to depend on it in a combat situation, so building your arrow for that instead of doing structural damage straight up is probably for the hit and run or assassination situation.
>when you want to gun but you also want to arrow and you want your "man-packed siege weapon"-itch scratched
Notice how the guys shooting fire bolts down in the right corner aren't all armed with crossbows.
Here's what you gotta do OP
Make the world's strongest archer. Fucker needs to be using a small ballista for a crossbow.
With such large projectiles, you can get much more creative.
Want to take down a group of people? Make arrows with clay jars for arrowheads, fill the jars with bits of stone and pottery. Aim for a hard object for best results
Need to fight a dragon? Time for massive AP arrows, bonus points for a shitload of barbs on the head.
Want to get up a wall, but you forgot your ladder? That's okay, just shoot any wood exposed to the air. If you can, add a magic or fantasy glue to make it even stronger
why the hell would you want a tiny bow when you can shoot meter long bolts?
slingshot character. like this user has said, only instead of launching giant bolts you lob small clay balls with various payloads inside them.
>bees
>explosives
>acid
>incendiary
>caltrops
>adhesive goo
>flash powder
Be green arrow of your group. With a slingshot.
I remember in The Witcher games it's mentioned that the Scoia'tael have fear-weapon type arrowheads. They were clusters of barbed, brittle spikes that were useless against armour but killed and maimed unarmoured targets and civilians.
they make "snare arrows" meant to tangle in trees and things and around the limbs of small animals
then there are "turkey beheadder" arrows.
probably good for cutting lines at range or cutting throats
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flare arrows maybe?
Magnesium signal flare for white
+strontium for red
+sodium for yellow
get a few of each color and you can coordinate an army or bait bandits or smarter level predators
one thing your character NEEDS is crafting skills to make arrows and bows.
if they are gonna be crafty with arrows anyway they aren't gonna just pop by and ask the local artificer for "the usual bundle of bodkins, explosives, flamers, etc..." or they may spend huge amounts of time far from industry that makes the stuff.
you should have the skills to make functional arrows and bows from just about anything, in just about any place.
shards of river stones and crooked branches, and bone, and bottle glass, and maybe even enough smithcraft to forge the basics.
always carrying a hatchet and stout carving knife
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harpoon arrowheads anyone?
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it might be nice to take some craft(traps) too, bow-making synergies well with making spring-loaded traps too
Gas arrows
Arrowhead is a fragile vessel, releasing pressurized gas on breakage. Could be poison, incapacitating, or plain old colored opaque stuff for signaling.
Dragoon arrows
Extremely light arrows built for high-arc distance shots. Magic Runes along the shaft/head collect and freeze moisture from the sky, falling with greater mass than was fired.
Used primarily against fires, but also sets the field for electric attacks and/or pneumonia.
Blood Tappers
Fluted arrows designed to draw blood and fill tiny containers. Low capacity and fragile, but self-sealing. Useful for taking samples from extremely violent creatures, cases where the blood must be taken at the height of their ferocity.
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I twisted up in my chair a little bit thinking about it.
M-monster!
Oh man, Dragoon arrows sound so awesome. I'm gonna have a boss shoot normal arrows up and giant ice spears fall down.
Looks like she's planning on doing exactly that.
'Mirin that setup, but I wish he'd put a cover on that hatchet blade. Also, why leave the bow unstrung? Just string it and carry it, you're much less liable to snag it on low-hanging branches?
>Also, why leave the bow unstrung?
unless you're using it, never leave a wooden bow strung
the mechanical property called "creep" sets in and weakens the weapon over time making it more prone to shattering when drawn.
The most important question is if he is hunting people, or animals.
If he is hunting people, then the arrow heads need to be horizontal to the fletching, so it slides between the ribs. Otherwise the arrow head will never penetrate deep enough to kill anyone.
Now animals, on the other hand, mostly walk around on four legs. Which means their ribs are vertical, vs human ribs which are horizontal. So if your character is hunting animals, then their arrow heads need to be vertical to the fletching, so it can penetrate between the ribs.
>no wrist guard
The fuck is this dumb ass doing?
Not being a little pussy?
Is it me, or do these seem to be anti-aerodynamic?
don't fletchings cause the arrow to spin? Seems like if the arrowhead would have as much a chance of being horizontal as vertical
Is that an arrow head made from a car key?
It all depends on the type of fletching. Depending on the exact region, and point in history, some types of fletching keeps the arrows stabilized and straight. Others make it spin. But the ones that spin are much more specialized. You'd have to do your research and see if spinning fletching is even canon to whatever universe you are roleplaying within.
Most people don't even know about it. I can honestly say this thread has pleasantly surprised me.
Maximum haemorrhaging
A bandolier belt of arrow heads
Thumb rings for additional accuracy
But the classic flint heads work well. This fellow from the Bronze Age learned that the hard way
Explosive arrows are neat
You could have an arrow with a cable attached to it. Once in the target, send a magical shock down the cable for a guaranteed zap.
And if you get tired of small arrows, just fucking lob huge ones at the enemy. Worked for the Aztecs
that's actually a wives tale either orientation is equally effective
a wrist guard is not required equipment unless you aren't sure you're skilled enough to fire the bow correctly.
it may also be needed for combat archery that might involve firing while moving or taking snap-shots
so long as the center of pressure of the shaft is not too far behind the center of mass it should fly straight
some do some don't but most arrows do spin and flex in flight regardless of fletching.
youtube an example of "archer's paradox"
house key...these too take crafting skills ladies, they might save a character whose otherwise low on resources
is there a reason those weren't more common in Europe/the old world? They're said to be pretty powerful via conquistador accounts, and would be much cheaper than bows. I've never used them, but it seems like they would require less upper body strength than a longbow. You could easily outfit a group of peasants, who would be able to punch through (potentially) chainmail equipped warriors. Horses probably wouldn't like a yard long spike getting launched into their chests either
I can't say there is one. Just that Europeans stuck to bow and arrows once the idea took off and never looked back. The sling got very popular throughout the Old World for some time, but the bow never died out and eventually came into popularity in some countries. The crossbow/arbalest was popular too and we all know what happened when gunpowder came along. China loved making all kinds of crossbows and siege engines. Japan had their own kind of long bow with disproportionate arms for easier horse archery. The steppe nomads loved their composite bows for hunting animals and people.
Nobody in the Old World kept the atlatl around after the stone age. Without someone to reintroduce it before gunpowder it never would take off. The Nahua used it still because it was a great way to make a stone and wood projectile deadly. No armor other than bone or wood to speak of meant that hurling a stone tipped stick could easily skewer a man. Even metal armor had a hard time once the Spanish showed up. Then again, who needed a stick hurling a sharper stick when I have a handheld thunder stick?
Bows are easier to use, arrows are smaller and lighter, and since the weight distribution for spear-thrower darts is important they are annoying to construct.
A simpler trick for javelins was to throw using a loop of leather tied around the throwing end. Oddly this is enough to vastly improve the flight and throwing characteristics. Experiments done by one of Napoleon's generals found the range of some javelins could be quadrupled.
Good point. GMs are suckers for backstory. Dump skill points into a "useless" skill and they are more likely to let you get away with stuff.
harder to master and you lose way more energy to the projectiles paradox than with a bow. more paradox means a lower peak accuracy.
>The sling got very popular throughout the Old World for some time
sling-stones tend to fly almost perfectly straight and it cost almost literally nothing to make one, and ammunition for one didn't have to be custom made to be serviceable(unlike arrows or atl-atl darts)
>The crossbow/arbalest was popular too
so popular that the pope had to outlaw it for being unfair...I made an arbalest once out of a light trucks leaf-spring...I had to switch to metal bolts for it because the release energy would shatter an arrow made of wood
>The steppe nomads loved their composite bows for hunting animals and people.
I love me some mongolian horse-bows...
It worked wonders
The Romans and their sling-stone banter is hilarious
Some said things like
>duck!
>ouch!
>take this!
And there is a reason that David uses one to take down Goliath... slings were/are no joke
You made one of these? I have to see
Use of brittle but sharp materials like Obsidian seems a pretty good deal.
Also, depending on the state of alchemy in the setting, making sculpted lithium arrowheads (Maybe with a non-lithium core to provide a hard enough tip to penetrate) soaking in oil so that they ignite when they contact blood.
You could call them snarrows.
sold it to a gun nut.
but no way anyone but a landwhale of undreamt proportions could cock the thing like your pic...I had a 9:1 or 10:1 hand-winch bolted on the thing. recoil was a BITCH and it was built heavy enough to survive being cocked and fired...
gotta love working in an industry that just. throws away big fucking leaf springs or steel Ring gaskets and shit...
is this a pun I'm not getting?
bitch, if we see backstory reflected in skills it means you built a "character" and not a "gimmicky combat monster" it's a FANTASTIC THING...
OP take some pointers from the Romans, write profanity on the arrows!
DO IT, IT"LL BE FUNNY.
especially if the comments are puns based around the arrows function and mechanics...
Broadhead and bodkin should have been obvious ones. Broadheads have lower dice to hit, but higher damage dice, bodkins are the reverse.
can we figures level 5 stats for this guy in D&D 3.5? I may have a use for them...
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Tiny person or giant tree stump.?
supposedly it's a Russian competitive archer standing on a thing behind the stump. and the photographer wanted to be clever with perspective
Oh okay, thought it seemed a bit weird, even with a giant stump.
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the old size change enchantment could be really useful for an archer. It might cost a lot, but you could get logs enchanted to transform back to their original size after passing through a gate on the bow and arching down. Depending on the cost of the bow and arrow enchantments, it might be cheaper than traditional artillery
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I don't think this is an effective method of archery.
yeah, but it's cool.
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>hi my names is zergface and welcome to jackass
Robin Jihood
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Praise be to Nurgle!
...Thats not how you say Khorne...
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that would be hard to see through all the blood ejecting from the wound...
Me point is that the arrowhead is in the literal shape of the mark of Nurgle, hence why I said praise Nurgle. Though there's no reason it can't please both of them, Nurgle is the bro god and Khorne seems like a pretty chill guy.
>Khorne seems like a pretty chill guy.
in his own sort of blindly enraged way.
I'd love to see a sitcom starring the 4 Gods and the Emperor. Maybe they all share a flat or something.
might be interesting, niche audience though, so don't expect a GOOD one anytime soon.
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It's called javelin and pilum in Europe.
>21,000gp per shot
Sweet Jesus
how is that price considering it's an instant total kill on anything 10 feet across or smaller and tearing HP by the hundreds out of something larger...
21,000Gp versus a dragons hoard or a demons arsenal...
Fuck me, it's Eric Idle.