"Limitations of Dwarven Archers?" Topic

Crossbows, sure, but bows?

Dwarves would have powerful arms, but short. No longbows for them!

Also, being short, would have more trouble finding targets.

And wouldn't be able to pull the string back very far. So, recurve bows might be the best choice.

And they might loose some accuracy due to denser muscle mass. Yeah, I'm just making stuff up.

Perhaps the idea of Dwarves with bows is fiction rather than reality based? Just sayin'. (Tongue firmly in cheek, if you know what I mean.)

I'm not sure what you mean by that, rustymusket. Are you implying that having your tongue in cheek would improve accuracy, possibly due to stabilizing the jaw? :)

The real limitation of a dwarf is how much booze is available to continue the fight. Plus it depends on the type of bow.

Had a discussion on X-bows and bows, with my son, last night. The Heavy X-bow has better range than the Long Bow, in 2e BattleSystem rules! The Rate of Fire (ROF) is lower, but this can be overcome if they commit additional troops to wind, and reload, handing the ready weapons to the shooter. It takes three persons to fire one weapon, but this eliminates the ROF advantage of the Bow (at a considerable cost of man-power).

Other than that, the X-bow is under appreciated, IMO. In medieval Europe, more than one Pope issued an edict to outlaw the use of the X-bow in war: it was too deadly, required very little training to use, and did I mention, they were frightfully deadly! It was effectively a medieval rifle: cock, load, point, and kill!

With regards to Bows, troops with Long Bows typically decimate enemies with shorter ranged weapons, before they can ever bring them to bear. Short ranged weapon troops will take a terrible beating until they get their own weapons within range of their enemy. Most demi-humans and humanoids, wield Short Bows; most Humans wield Long Bows, and the Humans dominate the battlefield with them!

"Range, Mr. Gimli! We need Range!" Cheers!

I'm in favor of different humanoid races having different competencies, or else why bother? So when possible I'll raise Dwarves with crossbows, axes and perhaps cannon, but no mounted units, regular bows or much by way of skirmishers. Halflings, on the other hand…

Sgt Slag, might want to double-check with the Vatican. Sometimes Papal edicts about suitable weapons for tournaments get reported by historians as bans on use in warfare. But agreed a formidable weapon under the right circumstances, and one you don't have to be trained for from age five.

Crossbows seem more suited to Dwarf warfare. It would be better in close quarters such as caverns and skirmish warfare. Short bows such as composite bows can be powerful as well. If your castings are bow not crossbow armed.
Since mass lends itself to unit volley fire, warrior height would not be an issue.

Of course dwarfs could use longbows. The Japanese longbow was specifically designed so it could be used by a kneeling shooter. I would think a dwarf is easily as tall as a kneeling man.

Draw length might be an issue though.

Damon.

I wonder where the association between dwarves and crossbows comes from, Tolkein's dwarves used bows, but not as a typical weapon.

Is there something in D&D that links the two and has permeated every fantasy genre since?

DB

Its Fantasy, nuff sed!

Blast it, evilgong, I'm old enough I was probably paying attention at the time. No, Tolkien's Dwarves don't use bows often, but I think you'll find that one or two times when they do, it's crossbows. There's an old L. Sprague de Camp poem of Tolkien boom vintage, and you might want to check the first "Shannara" book, "Chainmail" and booklet edition D&D. But go pretty early, because I think Dwarves & crossbows are an accepted pair by at least the end of the 1970's. They certainly go back to early Ral Partha Fantasy Collector Series (1982) where they're the only Dwarven missile option, and Hawk the Slayer with its Dwarf crossbowman is released in 1980.

Axes and Dwarves actually pre-date Tolkien, going back to Lord Dunsany. I think in both cases it's a logical response to the reach problem. They can't match the draw length of a human or elf, and in a sword fight they're probably giving up 6".

No, Tolkien's Dwarves don't use bows often, but I think you'll find that one or two times when they do, it's crossbows.

For what it's worth, it's bows (not crossbows) in The Hobbit.

DalyDR is of course correct, no crossbows in Tolkien. (And for that matter, Saruman's Uruk-Hai were armed with shortswords and longbows, not pikes and crossbows…)

Yep, no crossbows in Tolkien, movie or not. Zip, zilch, nada. Everybody uses bows, or nothing. (And who storms a castle with a pike???)

But Dwarves are in the 4 to 5' range. Keep in mind that a 6-foot long bow isn't 6' from the grip to the ground— it's 3' or less. Even on my knees (and I'm 5'7"), the limb of such a bow would still be above the ground. There's no reason a dwarf can't use a smaller long bow.
But who's to say a dwarf uses a simple bow? These guys are expert craftsmen and metal workers. Maybe they use compound bows or composite bows or recurve bows (like the Parthians). Hey, it's fantasy, and the word "bow" covers a wide range of device variants.

So if Dwarves are so strong, there is no benefit to using crossbows vs bows, right? They have great strength.

But could Dwarves fire as fast as Men? Aren't Dwarves supposed to be slow?

SO if Dwarves are short and have short arms, that should limit bow use in some way. And being short should limit what they can see, but would that limit range?

X-Bows are mechanical, technical, and they typically require metal bits and bobs, to function. Perhaps Gygax chose X-Bows because they fit his concept of Dwarven technology. Bows are made of wood, without any metal components. X-Bows are made of both metal, and wood. I suspect that is why Gygax favored X-Bows. That, and they are so simple to use? Cheers!

FWIW, the "dwarves with crossbows only" thing was not set in stone at the beginning of fantasy gaming.

The first release of Grenadier's Wizzards and Warriors had dwarves with bows, and ELVES with crossbows. No dwarves with crossbows in the earliest Heritage or Ral Partha releases either.

We were a little less dogmatic, 47 years ago . . .

I have some of the old heritage dwarves with bows, converted them to crossbows. On the other hand, I had a RalParttha crossbow armed dwarf that I converted to a hand gunner.

My goblins, on the other hand, have both short bows and crossbows depending on the tribe.

I alway prefer to ask what people have actually done and not what they think.

Yes.

If Elves can have hammers (yes, looking at you GW) then Dwarves can have bows. The reduced range of motion could be offset by the extremely strong draw.

MOVIE? Did someone say "Tolkien MOVIE?" (Don't get me started on the Jackson Two Towers. "Better than the Bakshi" was not the standard I was hoping for.) Anyway, Jackson would have been much too late. I was actually thinking I'd seen a reference late in The Hobbit--by which I mean a book, with something called "text."
I've owned most of those Grenadier, Heritage and Partha castings, and I tend to think the Partha Dwarves with crossbow--beautiful castings--locked it in from a miniatures standpoint. They can't be later than 1983, and I think they were closer to 1979.

Has anyone considered the influence of Mostali who always tended to be a little high-tech? I remember they had some gunpowder weapons, so the odd crossbow wouldn't surprise me. Never played Runequest, though.

I wrote "No crossbows in Tolkien, movie or not." Pay attention to the distinguishing comma there. Rather important. As in Tolkien being the novelist and his name, by extension, refers to his collective his works (as would be a phrase like "no machine guns in Aristotle"), and the movies being by someone else and therefore neither Tolkien nor his work. Indeed, the only source which links Tolkien with crossbows would be Jackson's film, which doesn't give them to dwarves in any case.
The first I recall a dwarf being associated with a crossbow was AD&D (1e), and I couldn't give you a specific reference to it there. Maybe it was a piece of art (can't recall one) or a pre-gen character in a module, or just the odd rule that said dwarves can't use Large weapons, and thus having a crossbow being more sensible for damage and range in the game. Or maybe it was just the weight of "difference"— elves being associated with the long bow, so dwarves needed a different look, and hey, here's a crossbow, that's something a dwarf would make… So I couldn't tell you how it got started, but somewhere along the way the idea took hold and here we are now, with it almost impossible to find 10mm dwarves armed with bows unless you pay absurd eBay prices for GW's discontinued metal Battle of Five Armies line, grumble, grumble…

Maybe I should finish drinking my morning tea…

. Bows are made of wood, without any metal components.

In Persia and India, some bows were made out of steel, using the form of the more common composite bows, made of bone, sinew and wood.
So a dwarf could indeed make a bow out of metal.

Excellent point, Parzival! Color me, skewered! I really like that idea, actually.

Hmmm… Anybody make modern Dwarf figures with bows? Easy to paint as metallic bows -- of course Dwarves would make metallic Bows! Truth be told, I've seen metallic bows in fantasy art before, like in the 1980's? I really like that visual in my head. Cheers!!!

Parzival, take a look at these Dwarf Bowmen, from Conqueror Models. You get 16 figures for $27.40 USD + S/H. They have another set, as well. Cheers!

I stand--or rather sit--corrected, Parzival. My apologies. Clearly I should have gone to the political websites first this morning. Notice how we keep hitting in the same range? Somewhere between 1970 and 1985 crossbows became the normal Dwarven missile weapon. I think you're right about the weight of difference being a factor.

"SO if Dwarves are short and have short arms, that should limit bow use in some way. And being short should limit what they can see, but would that limit range?"

If the Dwarf archer stands on the shoulders of another Dwarf, that would improve LOS greatly. Though if spikey helmets are being worn, that creates another problem in itself… ;-)