D&D really screws the pooch for ranged weapons. Here is my understanding of how the PHB ranged ammo weapons work in real life, not fantasy:
Blowguns: Basically a poison delivery system worthless against real armor. Range is bad, should be around 80 ft on average but if you want REAL accuracy, make long range = Constition x 5. But most importantly, basically should not work against Heavy armor. A guy in Chain Mail, Full Plate, etc. is immune.
Crossbows (All). Crossbows, whether Light, Heavy, Hand or even Repeating, are SIMPLE weapons, that use Dexterity. A child can fire them and hit (but an adult might need to load a heavy or one of the Chinese Repeating Crossbows). Even hand crossbows are incredibly easy to hit what you aim at. Yes, they are complex to make, but the reason they were outlawed was that peasants could use them to kill knights. But they take longer to load. Call it as is for Hand, bonus action to load a Light, and a full action to load a Heavy (same as repeating).
Bows (All). All bows are Strength based attacks that require massive amount of training. If you are strong enough to pull the bow, you have to also have the strength and skill to hold it on target WHILE also using all your muscles to pull it. Long bows should have a minimum strength of 15, Short bows of 13. The 'over sized bow' should be upped from an 18 to a minimum of 19 that only the strongest of the strong can use. All use Strength for to hit and damage.
Nets: The PHB rules seem based on a huge net that almost no one ever used. Instead smaller ones were used as an off hand weapon either to drop someone prone by attacking their legs or distract them by entangling your weapon arm. I would house rule that Nets aimed at legs use a save, not an attack. Dex Save, DC 15 to restrain you and if you roll under a DC 10, you fall prone and restrained. If you attacked their arms with a successful to hit on their AC, you instead cause them to be Entangled (same as poison), i.e. they have disadvantage to making attacks and can not use that arm for spell-casting. In both cases use the PHB rules to de-restrain and de-entangle yourself. Good for TWF as it does not do damage.
Sling: Real life Slings were NOT short ranged weapons, they could easily out range many bows. They could reach ranges of over 1,200 ft. They took a LOT of training to learn, but were simple to build (reverse of Crossbows). They also did respectable damage, better than a dagger. I would go back to rocks and bullets. Upgrade sling rocks to 1d6, sling bullets to 1d8. Change ranges to: 80/500 with rocks, 200/1000 for bullets.
Summary of changes:
Simple -> Martial: Short bow, Sling
Martial -> Simple: Heavy Crossbow, Hand Crossbow,
Crossbows take longer to load the Heavy and Light.
Sling gets a range boost and damage boost, along with rock vs bullet.
Blowguns get a con based range, but do not work against Heavy Armor
Bows (short, long and over) get a minimum Strength and are Strength based to hit, not Dex
Nets can be used to restrain and/or trip someone, but can also be used to entangle their arms, causing disadvantage to attacks. Great for an off hand weapon.
Dex based fighters would switch to Slings, nets might make a comeback, non-warriors can upgrade to better crossbows. Elves training would likely switch to slings or nets.
As long as the change is fun and could be as simple as changing a table, fine. I wouldn't go as hard on bow-users. Dex builds usually dump on Strength, and so all elf archer builds would be ruled out. That's not fun.
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D&D really screws the pooch for ranged weapons. Here is my understanding of how the PHB ranged ammo weapons work in real life, not fantasy:
Blowguns: Basically a poison delivery system worthless against real armor. Range is bad, should be around 80 ft on average but if you want REAL accuracy, make long range = Constition x 5. But most importantly, basically should not work against Heavy armor. A guy in Chain Mail, Full Plate, etc. is immune.
Crossbows (All). Crossbows, whether Light, Heavy, Hand or even Repeating, are SIMPLE weapons, that use Dexterity. A child can fire them and hit (but an adult might need to load a heavy or one of the Chinese Repeating Crossbows). Even hand crossbows are incredibly easy to hit what you aim at. Yes, they are complex to make, but the reason they were outlawed was that peasants could use them to kill knights. But they take longer to load. Call it as is for Hand, bonus action to load a Light, and a full action to load a Heavy (same as repeating).
Bows (All). All bows are Strength based attacks that require massive amount of training. If you are strong enough to pull the bow, you have to also have the strength and skill to hold it on target WHILE also using all your muscles to pull it. Long bows should have a minimum strength of 15, Short bows of 13. The 'over sized bow' should be upped from an 18 to a minimum of 19 that only the strongest of the strong can use. All use Strength for to hit and damage.
Nets: The PHB rules seem based on a huge net that almost no one ever used. Instead smaller ones were used as an off hand weapon either to drop someone prone by attacking their legs or distract them by entangling your weapon arm. I would house rule that Nets aimed at legs use a save, not an attack. Dex Save, DC 15 to restrain you and if you roll under a DC 10, you fall prone and restrained. If you attacked their arms with a successful to hit on their AC, you instead cause them to be Entangled (same as poison), i.e. they have disadvantage to making attacks and can not use that arm for spell-casting. In both cases use the PHB rules to de-restrain and de-entangle yourself. Good for TWF as it does not do damage.
Sling: Real life Slings were NOT short ranged weapons, they could easily out range many bows. They could reach ranges of over 1,200 ft. They took a LOT of training to learn, but were simple to build (reverse of Crossbows). They also did respectable damage, better than a dagger. I would go back to rocks and bullets. Upgrade sling rocks to 1d6, sling bullets to 1d8. Change ranges to: 80/500 with rocks, 200/1000 for bullets.
Summary of changes:
Dex based fighters would switch to Slings, nets might make a comeback, non-warriors can upgrade to better crossbows. Elves training would likely switch to slings or nets.
What do you think?
If it wouldn't completely upset several player builds in my game I would adopt these immediately!
As long as the change is fun and could be as simple as changing a table, fine. I wouldn't go as hard on bow-users. Dex builds usually dump on Strength, and so all elf archer builds would be ruled out. That's not fun.