Quote:

In the open at moderate range, no amount of agility or amour will save you from a crack archer

Not necessarily. An arrow flies at -- depending on bow strength and arrow weight -- 45-80 meters per second. That leaves you about half a second, give or take some, to dodge it at moderate range. That isn't an awful lot, but it's nevertheless quite possible.

Under normal conditions, using a quiver and such, it takes about 4 seconds to fire another arrow after the first, assuming you actually want to hit something, and not just fire arrows into the field. You may achieve 3 seconds if you're trained in rapid shooting, if the target is not moving, and if you don't need to draw from a quiver, in a quiet environment.
But this doesn't mean you hit an angry running man in a life or death situation, or you hit any important part for that matter.
Archers not trained in speed shooting (the vast majority) probably take something much closer to 6-8 seconds between shots.

A relatively unencumbered man can sprint 40-50 meters in about 5 seconds. Trained sprinters actually come close to 4 seconds, and if you know your life depends on it, I figure you're likely to get close to that as well. As in that quote from "El Dorado", nothing makes a man sober faster than a bunch of angry indians :-)

So, what it boils down to is having to dodge one arrow, possibly two, before arriving at the archer (~3 seconds if you're maybe 30 meters or so away). With any luck, if the archer is not a top world class speed shooter, you get to strike the bow aside before the second shot is fired -- at which point the archer is in serious trouble. Most likely this would end in a "sword pwns dagger" experience, if the archer has a dagger at all.

On a different note, there is an interesting "knight versus archer" movie from BBC history channel (I forgot the title, unluckily), in which they're shooting allegely authentic plate armour in a controlled environment. The result was that for a bodkin arrow to go through plate and padding, so the wearer is actually injured (other than a slight bruise), the archer would have to be no farther away than 30 meters. Which basically means, if the other guy happnes to be on a horse and you don't hit him in the eye with the first shot, you're kind of fucked, because he'll just ride you and anyone near you down before you have a chance to get the next arrow knocked.

Having said that, archers were historically rarely if ever used in that one versus one manner, since they make little sense that way. Usually, large groups of archers would send volley after volley at long range (over 200 meters), hoping a few of their (unaimed) arrows would eventually hit someone, and would hit them in a spot not covered by heavy armour. If you fire enough arrows, that will happen, too. This way, you decimate the enemy a long time before they can even think about a charge.

Quote:

- thick spearhead blade for armor piercing.

You probably mean the right thing (bodkin arrow heads) but you worded it a bit wrong. Those arrow heads were not thick, but indeed very slim, so they would concentrate all energy on a very small area.

Quote:

Original post by samoth Quote: In the open at moderate range, no amount of agility or amour will save you from a crack archer So, what it boils down to is having to dodge one arrow, possibly two, before arriving at the archer (~3 seconds if you're maybe 30 meters or so away).

You are correct, but you missed my broader point in the one-on-one scenario on open ground.

The archer doesn't need to shoot at you from 30-40 metres away, since you can't do a thing to him until you close. Instead, he waits till you are 5 metres away, at which point even a passable archer isn't likely to miss (you are moving too fast to dodge, won't have time to dodge anyway, and need to be be running straight at the archer), and the arrow will certainly punch through the armour at such close range.

There is also the issue that archers tended to carry melee weapons too - if not a sword, then a long (and lethal) hunting knife. If the archer misses at 40 metres and you charge, he is going to switch to melee rather than loading another arrow.

Or, you know, just run away, especially if you are wearing full plate - while someone armoured may be able to run as fast, they are going to tire of that pace a lot faster than someone unencumbered.

Quote:

Which basically means, if the other guy happnes to be on a horse and you don't hit him in the eye with the first shot, you're kind of fucked, because he'll just ride you and anyone near you down before you have a chance to get the next arrow knocked.

Mounted knights changes things a bit, because they close a lot faster, and they can just ride you down. Although, to be honest, I would aim for the horse - half a ton of thrashing animal is considerably more lethal than my arrows.

However, a bigger issue in the historical period we are discussing is that archers didn't kill knights. Archers were generally commoners or mercenaries, whereas knights were aristocrats who could be ransomed - enemy knight alive is worth considerably more than friendly archer...

In all this though there is a passable balance in that this is a stand off. At 40 meters the archer may not fire hoping to wait until the range is more in his favor, knowing he may not get a second arrow off. The swordsman though is unlikely the charge him until the archer looses the arrow, afraid of closing to that lethal 5 meters and being shot dead.

At the long range, not only is the archer more likely to miss, and going to take longer to aim, but he will also be less likely to penetrate as his arrow loses power.

I have a feeling that dodging arrows may be a lot easier for trained martial artists than we think. Watch this martial artist dodge throwing stars (likely slower than arrows) while standing on poles (Fight Science, National Geographic).

link to Hulu.com

I'd love to watch the video, unfortunately Hulu only streams to the US and I'm in Canada.

Fight Science

Direct link to National Geographic site :)

That was a sweet video, and it featured a martial artist wearing what looked like very comfortable, unencumbering clothing. Could some kind of auto-dodge be introduced into your game that incorporates contortion of the character independent of the player's inputs? I'm thinking now about the early fight scene in Troy, where Brad Pitt is rushing some huge guy and while he's charging he ducks a thrown spear before engaging with his sword. It's a small, quick motion of his head and shoulders, something you probably wouldn't want to bind a button to, but it allows an agile, highly-trained warrior to evade a projectile attack.

How about a change of state, like the sprinting in Assassin's Creed or the "focus" in AvP that allows the character to behave differently on its own? Toggle your guy to "agile" mode and he'll start running faster and auto-dodging projectile attacks, but will become more susceptible to melee knockdowns and lose his ability to perform conventional attacks.

Another Fight Science video which may apply to this topic (in that your fighters may be granted a natural resistance to physical weapons):

The power of chi

You can also look into Deadliest Warrior, which is another show that tries to use science to determine who will win if certain fighting styles are pitted against one another (and typically takes into account each fighter's long range, medium range, and short range weaponry).

I didn't find the actual video for this (unless you're willing to "steal" it using torrent), but did find some videos on Spike.com where they discuss the results of the show, like this one where they discuss Shaolin Monk vs Maori Warrior.

Season 1
Apache vs Gladiator
Viking vs Samurai
Spartan vs Ninja
Pirate vs Knight
Yakuza vs Mafia
Green Beret vs Spetsnaz
Shaolin Monk vs Maori Warrior
William Wallace vs Shaka Zulu
IRA vs Taliban

Season 2 (starts airing April 20 on Spike)
Attila the Hun vs Alexander the Great
Nazi SS vs Viet Cong

Very impressive videos there.

I'm not sure about having dodges be done automatically, but I see no reason why dodge can't be generic and only as severe a movement as is needed.

Power of chi thing, it that's real, is very impressive. Even if its not real though, I need no reason for something of that nature to be included. Mind of body training in general is a fun idea to include.

I was thinking about the arrows again and one thing (rather stupid to only just think of it really) is that if you are charging an archer, you are going to hold your shield up if you have one (and would have one if you expected to charge an archer) and while arrows can go clean through a shield, they probably won't pierce both the shield and the armour and the padding and the flesh.

I think I have enough realistic options here to offer a player a way to defend against archers without pigeon holing him.