I was thinking about making guns and bows having fixed damage.

Guns and Bows, while require strength to use effectively, its damage does not increase significantly with more strength, a sword does.

Having Guns and Bows fixed Damage, Other than solving this, would allow melee or rank specialization (Str for melee, Dex and Per for range) for combat and for the character concept.

Of course, it would require balance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bows should still scale with strength (properly using a bow, requires a LOT of upper body strength, A LOT! Especially something like a high tension longbow).

 

Crossbows and guns, yeaaaah, i'd imagine they shouldn't scale with one's strength (though i could see the crossbows being faster to reload if you had higher strength, but this is getting all too overly complicated already)

 

However, i do feel that maybe we should put the importance of gameplay mechanics above realism in this case. And let's not try to break unbroken things that don't really need fixing.

Edited December 14, 20178 yr by Juodas Varnas

Bows should still scale with strength (properly using a bow, requires a LOT of upper body strength, A LOT! Especially something like a high tension longbow).

 

Yes and no. A given bow, if drawn fully, will always contain the same amount of energy regardless of the strength of the user. Of course heavier draw weight bows wouldn't be drawable by people with insufficient strength, but as your strength increases you won't get more energy into the bow.

 

That said

 

However, i do feel that maybe we should put the importance of gameplay mechanics above realism in this case. And let's not try to break unbroken things that don't really need fixing.

 

 

Completely agreed.

I was thinking about making guns and bows having fixed damage.

 

Guns and Bows, while require strength to use effectively, its damage does not increase significantly with more strength, a sword does.

 

Having Guns and Bows fixed Damage, Other than solving this, would allow melee or rank specialization (Str for melee, Dex and Per for range) for combat and for the character concept.

 

Of course, it would require balance.

 

Right, except melee fighters need Dexterity and Perception as well. Or benefit from it, at least. So it's in no way equivalent.

 

Doing that would leave Strength in its typical place of being useful for a pretty narrow category of builds.

Bows should still scale with strength (properly using a bow, requires a LOT of upper body strength, A LOT! Especially something like a high tension longbow).

 

Yeah, but it's more about proper usage than "More Strength = more damage."

An attack of exact same power can cause different amounts of damage based on where it hits.

 

Randomness of damage also reflects where and how it hits. 

I think D&D v3.5 got bows nearly right by setting the maximum draw and allowing that to be reached with strength bonuses. I think they were called "mighty bows".