Id reckon bows will possibly be added when the two toher cities thaw out from the time predicttament.

What is this "time predicament"?

i think being frozen in time is a predicament.

This "time predicament," if you read the histories, is Hallifax and Gaudiguch's being sealed in time owing to the results of Project Paradox - steps are supposedly being taken towards returning them to the normal timestream.

If bows are put into the game they shouldnt be added as say a knighthood specialisation. If they did you would end up with knights that can shoot arrows from 6 rooms away but when it comes to close combat are almost completely useless. If archery is added in it should be added as either a public skill so that anyone can use it or for a new guild.

Anyway thats my view.

Bows are usually used in a support role to supplement heavily armed and armored melee troops (aka Warriors). It's my belief that at conception a character should be given a skillchoice of, along iwht HIghmagic or Lowmagic, Combat or Archery. Warriors would only be allowed to choose Combat, just as Mages and Guardians are only allowed to choose HIghmagic. And Archery should be a common skill, as arrows will only be about half the power of swords. Arrows should not be envenomable.

Boooooo. No fun in that. You'll have every arse running around with a ranged weapon, which they would have NO idea how to use, especially since it'd fall under the Melee category.

Plus it'd be more nifty in its own guild-based skill set, since Melee-type stuff is done excellent in Lusternia.

psha, yeah, ok hendrix.

Uhm, right kid...

Trust me, they're not giving bows to everyone. It's never been that way, never will be.

They did in Achaea, Imperia, and I'm pretty sure in Aetolia as well.

Give bows to everyone? Not as guildskill-based weaponry sets. Knights and snakes only in Achaea, I know that.

Saboteurs, and knights use bows on imperian, in a supporting/minor way. Only one guild now has bowmanship as an actual whole skill. And, the only way for someone outside these groups, or without Ilaferi class (Guild that used bowmanship, no longer about because it was to small) to use a bow with any accuracy/at all, is an artifact.

And anyone who plays imperian, will know what bowmanship was like. I'm praying they don't put in a skill totally focusing on ranged attacks. Firstly... it's not possible to balance it. If you make it strong enough to actually harm or phase someone, it's overpowered because they can't fight back. If you make it any weaker than this, it'll be useless as a choice because anyone can get a scry ring, or scan the area, or just plain ignore the hurt. Bows as a supplement are fine... But as a focus of a guild, or a whole skillset, they just become awkward as hell to fit into any IRE world. Somehow it's now not hideous to fight a bowmanship user on imperian... but the flip side of this, is they have difficulty really damaging with bows. Compared to what it used to be like.

Anyone in Achaea or Imperian could buy and use a bow for 300cr or so (full price, less during sales).

Yeah, but there wasn't really anything they could DO with it. I mean, people could buy artie broadswords for all the good it did them.

I've at some point of time or another been in every IRE world. Bows in MUDS are extremely powerful. That's just the way they are, because you almost never have warning of when the arrows will strike, and you can do nothing to attack the opponent until you come to his location. I would compensate by making arrows unenvenomable. Adding venoms to bows makes it so that the target not only has to heal, he also has to actively try to cure afflictions, which makes it even more hellish to fight a bow user. Here was my idea for bows (similar to bow/crossbow/darkbow from the other realms: Longbow, Powerbow. Longbows would use arrows and be slower than powerbows, and also earlier in the Bowmanship or Archery skillset. Powerbows would not use arrows but instead fire each shot from one's mana reserves. Probably 50 mana a pop per shot. Also, Powerbows would shoot energy arrows of a greater power than Longbows. Lusternia, at least to me, is a High, Powerful, and Majestic setting of incomparable grandeur (or at least that's what I thought the intention for the world was) where great powers compete and ascend to rulership. Crossbows don't seem, to me, to fit with this world. Neither does a rogue/serpent class (stealth abilities are commonplace and simply part of almost everyone's tactics). combat is more of a team/group effort than solitary. As such, the bow should have a specific role within this group combat- to produce ranged damage that chips away at an enemy and uses the target's unawareness to his disadvantage while the warrior classes atually go oin and do raw damage. But the role of Bowman should not be limited to one guild, or class. Rather, it should be a common skill, but at the terrible expense of losing the defensive abilities in Combat. I would think that if I didn't have Combat's defensive abilities, fighting a knight would be an even greater hell than it already is. Thus a bowman could damage, and using feats perhaps severely damage enemies from afar, but be unable to actually kill a powerful target. The core weakness would then be a Bowman/Guardian/Druid/Wiccan (Mages should not be allowed to use the skill, they have demesnes) is MUCH easier to kill at close range by a warrior than someone with Combat.

Uhh well if you looked at things, we already have Archers of sorts, they're basically teh Mages/Hartstone, since with their Staves/Cudgels they can shoot in a straight line 10 rooms away at a target. This is basically the same as Archery in Achaea, cept in achaea you have a chance to miss, depending on bows and skills and such.

How about as a basic/guild skillset if you pick combat you only get the very basic bow attacks say shoot and aim. But if you pick the other specialisation you get good capabilities with archery but when it comes to close combat you can use knives like with ranger capabilites... However knights also used bows etc in medieval time so there should be restictions for changing between swords and bows. say it takes a long balance time to switch cos you'd have to fiddle around alot... that way you couldnt sit in the room oposite shooting then run away when they attack.

It could also be handy if arrows stuck in your limbs etc say. so if you choose the archery specialisation you can do damage just like blademasters can.

Also the further away the enemy is from you the longer it should take for you to regain balance this would help you know how many rooms away they are and also prevent hit and run tactics.

One anoying thing would be when teams of the enemy sit next door to you all ready for big combat while a few send arrows into your room to annoy you. perhaps shields and armour should come into play with arrows alot more plus arrows that miss or bounce off armour can be picked up and used against the enemy.

Right, I would think that with shieldparry and/or weaponparry there would be chances of deflecting arrows. Combat defensive skills would apply to arrows the same as they do to other weapons.

I ran this idea by a few people on a clan before bringing it to my guild. Most of them seemed pretty interested, to say the least. Glad that there's a thread on it.

Basically, bowmanship should be an ability in Knighthood. It would be a purely supportive, ranged attack that would give us some offensive options as opposed to having to enter the room of our opponent head on. The ability itself would automatically give you the AIM and SHOOT commands. The higher your Skill level in Knighthood/Specialization, the more accurate you become with your arrows. Arrows would be envenomable by poisonists only. The poisons would have a 50% chance of actually coming off..same as with cutting or blunt weapons. Mitch had a few good ideas on how it'd effect the economy as a whole. Quivers, bows, arrowheads...

I definitely don't believe that Archery should be a Common Skill. I could see a new Ranger archetype with Archery as a Guild Skill. I forget who and I don't feel like pulling up the quote, but someone mentioned having to pull arrows from your body. I think that's a cool idea. Make it so that the bleeding increases the longer the arrow remains imbedded in the flesh. I'm starting to ramble. In short..

I want a ranged attack!

One other thing.. How does the idea of giving archers the ability to target limbs with their arrows sound? Aim could be modified to target a specific area. This could make shield and weapon parry a bit more interesting. Arrows would have a chance of being deflected. Just a thought.