Bow prices

[Furry Fella]

On 8/21/2018 at 5:35 AM, Brootse said:

Nah, I'm not. A Gloranthan crafter makes about 80L a year or 2L a week, and and it's difficult for them to save any of it if they want to keep their normal standard of living. So using the current prices, commoners can't afford the weapons they are supposed to use.

You have to relate the Income and the standard of living in the charater professions. Plus there is absolutely no way a practiced crafter's gross margin (sales of goods ;less expenses to make them) nets only 2L a week go look at the prices and costs associated with living. Secondly these are disposable incomes for Characters so they are away 40% of the time - there being no penalty to income generation roles for absences of 3 weeks per season. This stuff is in the between adventures stuff. Equally a "Hide" of land generating max gross margin income of only 80L for something that takes several weeks to plow - please! Your own quote shoots your position down. take that 80L as net disposable income and the problem is solved. Equally you are assuming that much is not made and or achieved at lower cost. I'm a mix cropping and pastoral farmer with wood lots or rights to same. I want need leather or curoboilli similar armour for fyrd duty well I can supply the cured hide. I can supply the timber and hides for shield. Quilted Linothorax is actually producible at my steading - it was for the entire darkages and medieval period - as it is simply multiple layers of cloth stuffed tightly with wool generally ( but substances will do) and stitched to hold all in place very good BBC Doco had experimental archaeologists doing it in reasonable time to a high standard in days with only general instruction. As a farmer I'm a decent jackleg carpenter or wood worker so that's my spear shaft etc.

[Furry Fella]

On 8/21/2018 at 7:16 AM, M Helsdon said:

Spears tend to be expensive, especially if they are made of coppiced wood, which provides a stronger shaft than a spear made from split planks. Atlatl, to be effective, have to be made very carefully; if the shaft isn't perfectly straight then it isn't going to work very well.

As for the price of bows, whilst arrows are supposedly covered by the cost of a quiver, historically, a sheaf of arrows could cost more than a self bow (including a long bow). In the 14th century, a sheaf of 24 arrows for a long bow cost 16d (one shilling and four pence). As few players or GMs keep a tally of munitions, the cost of a RuneQuest bow also covers an endless supply of arrows. 

Yet the recovery rate for arrows is far far higher than any games I've seen factoring this in. A quality sheaf of arrows - especially war arrows would be very expensive. English war arrows are finished unlike the bulk points of say the Assyrians (recovered like other bits from fortresses and siege events) show cast arrow points that were tanged and show almost no sign of working or finishing. Equally hunting commonly uses very few arrows - the forest court records for several centuries in England repeatedly mention very few arrows - often 3 to 6 maximum.

 

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

Yet the recovery rate for arrows is far far higher than any games I've seen factoring this in. A quality sheaf of arrows - especially war arrows would be very expensive. English war arrows are finished unlike the bulk points of say the Assyrians (recovered like other bits from fortresses and siege events) show cast arrow points that were tanged and show almost no sign of working or finishing. Equally hunting commonly uses very few arrows - the forest court records for several centuries in England repeatedly mention very few arrows - often 3 to 6 maximum.

From practical experience, the recovery rate of arrows is dependent on how much time you are going to spend combing the undergrowth. I have seen arrows recovered from a well-mown lawn after a year or two when looking for someone else's arrow.

Arrow breakage is an issue, even when hunting. Your line of sight between you and your target may be free, but somewhere along the throw parabola there is some branch deflecting your expensive missile into a glancing contact with a few tree trunks, resulting in you recovering the tip and maybe the fletching.

Any archer who values his arrows should include some uncommon substance in their construction and learn the detect spell for that substance.

The repair spell may help reduce the loss of arrows, but won't improve the hit probability or the damage.

When using a metal tip, you are going to want to reclaim that.

 

In a battle situation, you are only going to recover any arrows if your side takes the field. In a siege, each arrow fired is an arrow lost, and while your opposition might grace you with volleys of their arrows, those are likely to break upon impact on fortifications or other hard material, and won't be good for any aimed shots either. Shooting an arrow not made for your bow is a good lottery game -- it might take a right hand or left hand turn halfway to or a meter from the target. A master archer might use such arrows to shoot around corners... exaggerating slightly here. For trick shots with a lot of preparation, shots like that might be possible.

[M Helsdon]

10 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

English war arrows are finished unlike the bulk points of say the Assyrians (recovered like other bits from fortresses and siege events) show cast arrow points that were tanged and show almost no sign of working or finishing.

Unfortunately the majority of Near Eastern (including Assyrian) bronze arrowheads suffer from extensive bronze disease corrosion (cuprous chloride in the copper alloy reacts with water to create hydrochloric acid which eats away at the bronze, and in turn reacts with the copper, ultimately resulting in a covering of green fuzz). After many centuries the original state of the head cannot be accurately assessed. Iron arrowheads rust, with a similar outcome. It is rare to find an ancient bronze or iron arrowhead in good condition, unless it is recovered from a very dry environment. Most of the ancient arrowheads you see on sale aren't very ancient.

Edited August 23, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Brootse]

On 8/21/2018 at 8:43 PM, Atgxtg said:

Perhaps. Most RPG price lists tend to be pretty bad overall. I used to get my playerslaughing in D&D by translating prices from gp to weight in gold, and the nightmare of logistics. Magics items were literally worth more than their weight in gold, which was fine until you realized just how commonplace magic was, and what it meant to the economy. A good magic sword could literally cost a ton on gold, and a leader outfitting his troops with even +1 weapons is going to need a heckova supply line, and the city of El Dorado to pay for it.

Not that any of that helps with RQ bow prices, but at least we don't have it as bad. If you want to, just divide the prices by 10 or 100, or assume that the Gloranthan Yu tree is much rarer and harder to cultivate, and takes longer to dry than the Terran Yew tree. Perhaps Yu only grows in Snakepike Hollow!

 

Haha, yeah it gets a bit silly, otoh carrying a ton of gold isn't much of a problem if you have a bag of holding

In RQ3 if you wanted to buy a broadsword, you had to give the smith about the sword's weight in silver coins. That at least has changed in RQG.

[Brootse]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

Unfortunately the majority of Near Eastern (including Assyrian) bronze arrowheads suffer from extensive bronze disease corrosion (cuprous chloride in the copper alloy reacts with water to create hydrochloric acid which eats away at the bronze, and in turn reacts with the copper, ultimately resulting in a covering of green fuzz). After many centuries the original state of the head cannot be accurately assessed. Iron arrowheads rust, with a similar outcome. It is rare to find an ancient bronze or iron arrowhead in good condition, unless it is recovered from a very dry environment. Most of the ancient arrowheads you see on sale aren't very ancient.

Speaking of, does Gloranthan bronze suffer from that too, and do iron weapons rust?

[Brootse]

11 hours ago, Furry Fella said:

You have to relate the Income and the standard of living in the charater professions. Plus there is absolutely no way a practiced crafter's gross margin (sales of goods ;less expenses to make them) nets only 2L a week go look at the prices and costs associated with living. Secondly these are disposable incomes for Characters so they are away 40% of the time - there being no penalty to income generation roles for absences of 3 weeks per season. This stuff is in the between adventures stuff. Equally a "Hide" of land generating max gross margin income of only 80L for something that takes several weeks to plow - please! Your own quote shoots your position down. take that 80L as net disposable income and the problem is solved. Equally you are assuming that much is not made and or achieved at lower cost. I'm a mix cropping and pastoral farmer with wood lots or rights to same. I want need leather or curoboilli similar armour for fyrd duty well I can supply the cured hide. I can supply the timber and hides for shield. Quilted Linothorax is actually producible at my steading - it was for the entire darkages and medieval period - as it is simply multiple layers of cloth stuffed tightly with wool generally ( but substances will do) and stitched to hold all in place very good BBC Doco had experimental archaeologists doing it in reasonable time to a high standard in days with only general instruction. As a farmer I'm a decent jackleg carpenter or wood worker so that's my spear shaft etc.

From RQG:

"The adventurer’s income represents the amount of income
they make before their expenses from Standard of Living are
deducted. Any remaining income is profit, and can be used
by the adventurer, or re-invested into additional property.

After determining their occupation income, an adventurer
must pay to maintain their Standard of Living.

After paying for their Standard of Living, any occupation
income left gets added to the adventurer’s personal wealth. If
the occupation income is insufficient to maintain the Standard
of Living for that occupation, the adventurer can pay
out of their personal wealth."

So that 80 L for a crafter is a what a crafter household earns on a normal year, and what they use to pay for their living expenses, not the amount they make extra on top of their living expenses.

[M Helsdon]

33 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Speaking of, does Gloranthan bronze suffer from that too, and do iron weapons rust?

I suspect that Bronze made as an alloy of tin and copper might (but it takes a very long time - I have a piece of late Roman bronze and it hasn't corroded - yet, and the chemical breakdown depends very much on chemical composition of the soil), but iron rusts (it would be logical for the dwarves to sell iron to humans with this inbuilt design flaw).

Edited August 23, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Atgxtg]

14 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Haha, yeah it gets a bit silly, otoh carrying a ton of gold isn't much of a problem if you have a bag of holding

Bags of holding. it actually got to the point where the containers themselves become a problem. 

 

But then, I'm the GM who once put a lifesized (SIZ 16) statue of solid gold (magically strengthen) in adventure to see how the PCs would do about it. It has a mass of around 1.5 metric tons (SIZ 52), worth about 40 million RQ3 pennies.. Being an work of art. the PCs didn't want to break it up-more because it would fetch a higher price as a work of art than as lumps of gold. 

14 minutes ago, Brootse said:

In RQ3 if you wanted to buy a broadsword, you had to give the smith about the sword's weight in silver coins.

That I can understand a bit. Medieval weapon prices were intentionally kept high by law (to keep them out of the hands of the "riff-raff"). So a pound for a broadsword is okay. BTW, if RQG prices really bug you, get a copt of the price lists from Harn. Harn uses standard medieval LSD pricing, and has a  longbow priced at 36d.

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

I suspect that Bronze made as an alloy of tin and copper

Which Gloranthan Bronze isn't.

[M Helsdon]

2 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Which Gloranthan Bronze isn't.

Only if it is mined as bronze. In Glorantha, bronze can be made by mixing tin and copper (or the Gloranthan analogues).

Edited August 23, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Brootse]

On 8/21/2018 at 1:14 AM, M Helsdon said:

Making a good javelin, much like making a decent bow, is a job for a specialist, not a carpenter. A javelin requires the services of a redsmith, a leatherworker (for the ankyle) and a skilled wood crafter.

Carpenters make carts, wagons, doors etc. not precision weapons.

It would be a mighty poor carpenter that couldn't make a balanced javelin shaft. Javelins predate Homo sapiens  by 80000 years: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131126-oldest-javelins-stone-weapons-projectiles-human-evolution-science/

So if a Homo heidelbergensis was able to make a javelin shaft, I think that it doesn't require very trained or specialized workforce, just some suitable wood. Therefore shafts' prices should reflect the amount of wood used, and the rarity of suitable wood. And since javelin shafts require less wood than spear shafts, they should be cheaper.

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Only if it is mined as bronze. In Glorantha, bronze can be made by mixing tin and copper (or the Gloranthan analogues).

Yeah,  but they arn't actually "tin" or "copper". Maybe someday someone will clarify just how close the analogues are. Is Glorantha iron magnetic? Is there magnetism on Glorantha? I bet the Mostali would know. 

[Brootse]

Just now, Atgxtg said:

Yeah,  but they arn't actually "tin" or "copper". Maybe someday someone will clarify just how close the analogues are. Is Glorantha iron magnetic? Is there magnetism on Glorantha? I bet the Mostali would know. 

There were "compasses" in RQ2. It was some kind of "tin" nail iirc, that pointed to Magasta's Pool. It had something to do with the Sky Rune.

[Brootse]

On 8/21/2018 at 9:27 PM, Joerg said:

The real question to me is, what does Joe Average have to sacrifice in terms of time and/or wealth accumulation to equip himself with such an item.

This quote explains my interest in bow and spear prices.

[M Helsdon]

5 minutes ago, Brootse said:

It would be a mighty poor carpenter that couldn't make a balanced javelin shaft. Javelins predate Homo sapiens  by 80000 years:

Not exactly a battlefield weapon but a close-in hunting javelin. You gets what you pays for.

If I were a peltast, I'd want a javelin with some range and penetrating power. In our ancient world, the most effective and strongest javelins were made from coppiced wood, which required long-term resource management. Making a javelin from split wood will provide you with an inferior javelin. 

[M Helsdon]

17 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah,  but they arn't actually "tin" or "copper".

The Air Gods are the progeny of Umath, who was the result of the union of Ga and Aether. Copper is the metal of Earth and Tin is the metal of Sky, and their union resulted in Bronze. This is the mythic explanation of why copper and tin (even though not the same as the terrestrial metals) can be alloyed to make bronze.

[Brootse]

1 minute ago, M Helsdon said:

Not exactly a battlefield weapon but a close-in hunting javelin. You gets what you pays for.

If I were a peltast, I'd want a javelin with some range and penetrating power. In our ancient world, the most effective and strongest javelins were made from coppiced wood, which required long-term resource management. Making a javelin from split wood will provide you with an inferior javelin. 

According to that NatGeo article, those javelins were used to hunt hippos and crocodiles which have quite thick skins, and would have needed deep penetrating weapons.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

Speaking of, does Gloranthan bronze suffer from that too, and do iron weapons rust?

Depends on the purity and original shape when deposited, I suppose.

Since you can still dig up godbones which have been in the soil since before the Silver Age, Gloranthan bronze appears to be somewhat less prone to this form of corrosion. The question is whether this extends to cast bronze alloy refined from non-metallic (stone form) ores.

Subject to strong corrosive substances like alchemists' or monsters' "acids", Gloranthan metals corrode (magically fast and complete).

Gloranthan humans will doubtlessly have witnessed iron rust and slag created when shaping iron into weapons or armor, but other than the Third Eye Blue smiths won't have any idea how to reverse that process. That means that iron sold by the mostali of Seshnela will dwindle away over the centuries, as is proper for any dwarf gift.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

It would be a mighty poor carpenter that couldn't make a balanced javelin shaft. Javelins predate Homo sapiens  by 80000 years: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131126-oldest-javelins-stone-weapons-projectiles-human-evolution-science/

No. The technology predates the oldest bone finds of what is assumed to be modern humans in the region by 80k years, but the Moroccan finds of modern human remains push the formation of Homo Sapiens further back.

It wasn't Homo heidelbergensis who made those tips, but at worst an intermediary form which had evolved the kind of shoulder anatomy that could do spear throwing contortions. Since our cousins, the Neandertals, don't appear to have used javelins, I don't expect their and our common ancestor to have done so.

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

So if a Homo heidelbergensis was able to make a javelin shaft, I think that it doesn't require very trained or specialized workforce, just some suitable wood.

Yes. You can make a mediocre javelin shaft from suitable whole branches or trunks of wood, and it doesn't take that much balance to get a spear to fly straight for a few meters.

It does take quite a bit experience with both the material and the spear-throwing techniqes to provide a balanced shaft, and even more so as the shafts got thinner and the throwing range got longer. A javelin suitable for an atlatl spearthrower does take as much care as does an arrow.

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

Therefore shafts' prices should reflect the amount of wood used, and the rarity of suitable wood. And since javelin shafts require less wood than spear shafts, they should be cheaper.

That's a fallacy. A spear or a lance shaft may require more wood by volume and length, but it takes a different quality of wood. A missile shaft needs to swing equally throughout its length if you do more than point blank spearing. Hitting a target at 30 to 60 meters requires a lot of fine-tuning of the shaft, good fletching and excellent balance. Your one- or two-handed long spear just needs to be stout, the shaft doesn't have to be knotless. A javelin shaft had better be knotless.

 

 

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Brootse said:

According to that NatGeo article, those javelins were used to hunt hippos and crocodiles

"In this area, I can see these thrown spears probably being used against crocodiles, hippos, or some other big animal that one could get close to with boats," Shea said.

Speculation: note the probably. Hunting hippos from boats with javelins would be a good way of ensuring your genes are not propagated. Hippos are notoriously bad tempered and deadly. Only slightly safer to hunt crocodiles, especially as the boat (for which there is no evidence) might be no more than a flimsy raft.

[Furry Fella]

11 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

"In this area, I can see these thrown spears probably being used against crocodiles, hippos, or some other big animal that one could get close to with boats," Shea said.

Speculation: note the probably. Hunting hippos from boats with javelins would be a good way of ensuring your genes are not propagated. Hippos are notoriously bad tempered and deadly. Only slightly safer to hunt crocodiles, especially as the boat (for which there is no evidence) might be no more than a flimsy raft.

Given the overall weight and thickness of Hippo Hide - more dangerous. Hippos are frighteningly fast too. "Modern" (i.e. post general firearms introduction) won't risk Hippos without several guns - generally military grade rifles of full caliber. Hippos kill more people than any other (non-insect or non-human) animal in Africa.

Much Safer to get ones Croc early in the day while it's warming up OR even better in the cold months of the year - seen some incredible footage of experts swimming among them in / just after the winter rains. Equally seen a "Green" Hippo hide fired at as a target the lack of effect was staggering.

Clearly Hippos were hunted we have finds made of their hides and have them recorded as trade goods (expensive ones) - but the how to do it without suicidal risks ???

[womble]

13 minutes ago, Furry Fella said:

Clearly Hippos were hunted we have finds made of their hides and have them recorded as trade goods (expensive ones) - but the how to do it without suicidal risks ???

Pits. Possibly with stakes. Cliffs and fire.

 

[Furry Fella]

31 minutes ago, womble said:

Pits. Possibly with stakes. Cliffs and fire.

 

Stakes and Pits yes. Cliffs not where your Hippos are they just don't move that far from river access. The fire - problem is Hippos are very likely to charge especially if the fire users are between them and the water.  a Big Boat may work Ahaw are surprisingly big, but to harpoon through that hide would need to be right beside and the Hippo may attack rather the produce a Nile (as opposed to Nantucket) sleigh ride - SHUDDER. Period is too early for a Ballista  or Skorpion.

There are some really not nice old videos of spear hunting Hippos and even Elephants in Africa - technique appears first isolate then mass mob from all sides. Attrition and confusion until it is worm out.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Furry Fella

[Furry Fella]

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

hour ago, Brootse said:

Therefore shafts' prices should reflect the amount of wood used, and the rarity of suitable wood. And since javelin shafts require less wood than spear shafts, they should be cheaper. 

Quantity of material is not a preindustrial cost driver except for rare materials or materials in  great quantities. Time of the worker(s) is the real driver - having to earn enough to live and support a family. As an aside it is why it is a pair of trousers - the way they were made saved a very great deal of sowing as it only required inside leg seams and a groin seam - often not that as you pants laced together. It "wasted" cloth but that could be used for other things and as cloth is machine produced (Looms are machines) for all but fancy fabrics this was still way cheaper.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Furry Fella