The Ranged Armory · Chapter 2

Reading a Weapon Entry

Every launcher in this book uses the same format. Ammunition uses a reduced version of it, shown at the end of this chapter.

Light Crossbow

Latchet, Goat's Foot Crossbow, Belt Hook Crossbow, Arbalete

The Fields

Also known as. Up to five alternative names for the same weapon, drawn from different cultures and periods. These are not variants with different stats. They are the same weapon under names other tables use, so a GM can rename an entry to suit their setting without touching a number.

Names are placed by mechanical shape, not by region.

Skill. Most entries use Light Ranged or Heavy Ranged. Siege engines in Chapter 8 use Gunnery. If your Universe uses a single undifferentiated Ranged skill, use it for every entry in this book; nothing else changes.

Damage. A flat value, dealt before Resistance on a successful hit. Add 1 for each Success beyond the first, as normal.

The damage on the launcher assumes a standard shaft with no head modifier. Chapter 9 adjusts it. A longbow is 5 damage with a plain arrow and something else entirely with a bodkin in it.

Crit. The number of net Boons that must be spent to inflict a Critical Injury. A Breakthrough may always be spent instead. Lower is better. A dash means the weapon cannot inflict a Critical Injury at all, which is true of the two capture weapons in this book.

Range. The furthest band at which the weapon can attack, on the core rules ladder: Engaged, Short, Medium, Long, Extreme. A launcher can always shoot closer than its listed band, but see Point Blank below, because most of them are bad at it.

Enc. Encumbrance. Emplaced weapons print an em dash, because a ballista is not carried by anybody and a number would imply it could be.

Price, Availability, Type, Qualities. As below and in Chapter 3.

Range Is the Axis This Book Turns On

The melee book barely used range bands. This one lives on them, and two things follow.

Range costs money. A Long-range weapon prices above a Medium-range one carrying the same qualities. Reach is what you are buying.

Range costs difficulty. Attack difficulty scales with the band, per the core rules' attack difficulty table. Shooting a man at Extreme range is not the same check as shooting him at Short, and the launcher's stat line does not change to reflect that. The band tells you what is possible; the table tells you what it costs.

Cover

Cover adds Bane Dice to a ranged attack. Arcing ignores the Bane Dice from Light cover by dropping shots from above rather than driving them through. That is the whole reason a staff sling and a longbow are worth carrying next to a crossbow, and the reason an indirect-fire engine can hit a courtyard it cannot see.

Point Blank is the genuine ranged weakness

Nearly every launcher here carries Point Blank X, which adds Bane Dice when shooting at Engaged range. It is the mirror of the melee book's Reach, and it is the mechanical reason an archer carries a knife.

Two entries answer it rather than suffering it. The Sumpitan has a spearhead. The Sling Glove is short enough not to care.

Two Reload Tiers, and They Are Not the Same Quality

Prepare X and Slow-Firing X both mean the weapon is not ready to fire again. They are priced and played differently, and the difference is the action economy.

	Costs	Typical of
Prepare X	X Maneuvers	Slings, staff slings, spring mechanisms
Slow-Firing X	X Actions, or X rounds	Crossbows, siege engines

A maneuver is cheap. An action is your turn. A sling that must be loaded and spun is annoying; an arbalest that must be cranked costs you the exchange.

Some weapons carry both. A siege engine is prepared once when it is sited and then reloaded after every shot, which is why Chapter 8 entries look so heavily encumbered with drawbacks and price so low for their damage.

Price and Availability Are Two Different Questions

Price answers what does it cost, and is derived from the weapon's qualities, damage tier, range band, and construction. Drawbacks make weapons genuinely cheaper.

Availability answers can you find one, and is independent of price.

Tag	Meaning
Common	Widely available to ordinary people. Any village, any market.
Restricted	Legal, social, or institutional permission is required.
Military	Intended for soldiers, guards, or organised conflict.
Rare	Difficult to find, expensive, or culturally limited.

A Gastraphetes costs 525 at Availability Rare, crude and cheap to build but four centuries out of fashion. A Light Crossbow costs 575 at Availability Common.

Rescaling prices to your Universe

Every price in this book derives from six base values, one for each damage tier:

Damage	Base
2	20
3	40
4	60
5	90
7	150
9	300

Multiply all six by the same factor and the whole economy moves while every relative price stays intact. Nothing else in the book needs touching.

Two adjustments are built in. Weapons that are mostly cord, leather, and shaped wood cost half the calculated price, which is why a sling costs 155 and a composite bow costs 650. And no price falls below half its base value however many drawbacks a weapon carries, which is what stops a trebuchet from costing nothing.

Damage Type

Every entry lists one or more of Thrusting, Cutting, or Crushing.

These do nothing on their own. Damage types support an optional armour system that is not in this volume; it is in The Armourer. If you are not using that system, ignore the field. No rule in this book references it.

On a launcher the field is inherited, not intrinsic. A crossbow is Thrusting because a standard quarrel is Thrusting. Put a blunt head on it and the shot becomes Crushing. The launcher's printed type is what it does with standard ammunition, and Chapter 9 overrides it.

Three entries own their type outright, because they do not take a head at all: the sling and stonebow throw stone and are Crushing, and the naphtha siphon has no projectile.

Archers Answer Armour More Cheaply Than Swordsmen

This is the one asymmetry worth stating plainly, and it is stated here and nowhere else in the book.

In The Fantasy Armory, a character who expects armoured opposition carries a second weapon. A mace beside the sword. That is expensive, heavy, and a whole extra object.

Here they carry a second quiver. Twenty bodkins weigh very little, cost a fraction of a weapon, and turn the bow they already own into an armour-piercing tool for as long as the quiver lasts.

That asymmetry is deliberate and it is not a flaw. Archers pay for their flexibility in Encumbrance and coin rather than in a second weapon, and they pay for it again every time something closes to Engaged range and the Point Blank dice come out.

Reading an Ammunition Entry

Chapter 9 uses a reduced block with three fields.

Bodkin

Adjustment is what the head does to the launcher's line. Price is added to the shaft's base cost. Per is how many you get, because a quiver is one purchase and not one arrow.

Shaft entries add a compatibility line naming the heads they accept.