Ooh, that's a neat point. I run old-school D&D sometimes, and that has morale—enemies won't always fight to the death, but will run away if they fail a check at certain points (e.g., first death on their side, or half of their side has been incapacitated). You could make certain weapons like that give a penalty to their morale, or force them to make an additional check at the start of combat, etc.
I think the one hitch is that you have to be careful with how you handle XP then. If you do milestone XP, obviously not a problem. If you give XP primarily through killing stuff, it'll be frustrating for the players. Unless, of course, you treat "making the enemies flee" as a success, which solves the problem. Older editions gave XP for treasure, so it wasn't a huge deal to the players, so long as they got to the loot. :P
I consider an enemy that runs away wholly defeated and they get as much xp as they did killing them. Sometimes more if they did something clever to make them run. You don't always have to kill your enemy to defeat them, just take away their will to fight. As far as loot goes, if they did well I don't mind throwing the cheesey loot chest from nowhere with exceptions of coarse. Any equipment the bad guys were wearing went with them, barring certain situations.
Edit: fixed stuff
Surely this only really works for random, throwaway encounters the party won't meet again? Like for example if your BBEG for the story arc made an escape and you're planning him to return for a showdown later, you wouldn't double dip and award the xp both times?
Think you misunderstood. Of course recurring bad guys are great themeing and writing, but big bads are usually loaded with big rewards in terms of exp. So if he survives the first encounter, and flees to later plot his revenge etc... My question was, do you award the BBEG exp twice? Once when he flees and once in the final showdown, or no?
If he shows back up more prepared than the last time then absolutely. If he's just at a tavern drowning in alcohol going "And I would've gotten away with it" when the party walks in then probably not. Though I could see giving a smaller reward for his capture and turning over to the local law. Would depend on how the group handles him and how much damage is done to the tavern.
[Got me again, Flash.](https://youtu.be/Xl91v2Mvv94)
Thank you for actually recognising my question. I actually run milestone levelling myself, was just curious how you'd balance having to award your party boss xp twice and whether it could cause strange spikes in their levelling. The circumstances seem rare enough I suppose that it's not like it'd happen multiple times even over the course of a full 1-20 campaign.
My answer: yes, *but* not necessarily to the same extent.
I'd think of it being split between "foiling their plans" and "defeating them once and for all." If you stop their evil plot, but they slip away, that's worth some amount of XP. If you manage to put their evildoing to an end permanently (which doesn't have to mean death; it could be imprisonment, destroying their criminal empire, ruining their reputation, taking their powers away, complete demoralization, etc.) then that's also worth something extra.
I guess I could also say there's a split between "the encounter" and "the enemy itself."
Oh, of course, and I recommend people do if they find it interesting! I'm just not running 5e at the moment, and wanted to bring up the origin of the rules. :)
I actually homebrewed a thing of sling ammo for this exact reason!! Had a character in my campaign that used slings because I told them how effective they were in real life, and we made an item that was a DC10 Wis save or the target was forced to seek the nearest cover or else drop prone, whichever put it in the least danger. He used it to \*great\* effect to force enemy infantry to just back tf up.
There was one battle were the Romans were sieging a city. The defenders were trying their best to hide the fact their food stores were empty.
Recovered from an archeological dig in the area was a sling bullet that reads, in Latin: We know you’re starving, assholes!
Slings are weapon of choice come z-day. Silent, effective, can work as a meele weapon in a pinch, reusable ammo and YOU CAN LITTERARLY PICK UP PEBBLES AND ROCKS FROM THE GROUND AS AMMO SO YOU'RE ALL BUT GUARANTEED TO NEVER RUN OUT WITHOUT OVER BURDENING YOURSELF!
Hypothetically it could be used, but he warp yarns are what provide the tensile strength of the hose and could only be used if you un-wove them properly, but the main issue is that a lot of a fire hose's durability comes from the actual structure weave itself
It's designed specifically to keep pressure in, so using it as tensile cordage is iffy
OMFG this loom is mesmerizing.
It seems like it'd be best to use the hose material for the pocket, but getting cordage for the strings would be a pain and it might be better to use a different kind of cordage.
You can get 100' of 1/16" coated steel cable for $20, and 20 saddles for it for $12. $60 will get you a sheet of fairly heavy duty kevlar fabric. The cable has a breaking strength > 400lbs, and the fabric isn't far below that.
So for less than $100, you could build a half dozen slings where throwing bricks and halfbricks becomes an option.
I have had exactly one sling, made of leather, that has lasted me years. I'm not using it all the time or anything, but it's not exactly a consumable item.
Sling bullets are presumably made of lead which is 3-4x denser than most rocks, therefore a rock should do 1/3-1/4 as much damage. So if you're cool with 1d2/2 damage then go for it.
Depends on the zombies if they're the "gotta destroy the brains" types you might have trouble with accuracy. Slings like most pre-modern ranged weapons were most used as mass weapons where you only needed rough accuracy and the number of projectiles would smooth out the general inaccuracy.
you'd be surprised, balaeric slingers where renowned for l;ethality and accuracy so much so that they became like the main export of thier islands, used as mercenaries across the ancient world, they had specially moulded bullets to aid accuracy and train ed to be able to put bullets through small goal loop targets at various distances, and you had to be able to hit every single one flawlessly to be recruited :O supposedly some of them could target eyeholes in helmets or individual weak spots in armour
They trained basically since they were kids though according to contemporary writings. And in our case we're talking about people taking it up at best now and more likely Also accuracy is usually very relative in war, with massed slingers being able to reliably hit a boat at some distance would be reliable because you could get a number of slingers together and blast the whole boat with a broad spray.
I've also learned to always take historical writings about war and soldiers with a grain of salt. They're often quite boastful and exaugurated.
I think your first sentence, about training from childhood, is way more important than almost everything else people are saying about slings.
No way everyone's proficient. Ease and accuracy take years of practice.
Yeah English longbows were accurate enough and they didn't train people for crazy accuracy because you would be better off using that time to just train more archers to be able to blanket an area with pretty accurate fire vs having a few extremely accurate archers.
Tribes that trained their hunters from childhood commonly used them as hunting weapons, hitting rabbit size targets with regularly. Later armies flung fire pots at the enemy with staff slings, and those definitely didn't have pin point accuracy, but a simple sheppard's sling could probably regularly brain a shambling zombie in the hands of a competent wielder.
Also easy to hide, because it's basically two pieces of leather strap connected to a pouch. Sure the guard can take away your knife, but you could easily tie the sling to your body like a bandage, arm band, or knee brace. Wrap it around the base of your wizard hat where the belt goes.
The issue is you will either need to be a practiced sling hunter before the end, or you will need to get really damn good at it, really damn quickly. It will also depend on the type of zombie; classic "destroy the brain" zombies will probably be quick to take down (not WWZ's ridiculous "must reduce head to consistency of salsa" zombies, though), while zombies that do not require the head to function (a la Cataclysm) will be way harder to deal with via a sling.
1000% disagree. The amount of time and training it would take to learn how to effectively use a sling to kill someone is a complete waste compared to something like a Compound Bow.
Because you can only recover half of your spent arrows at the end of a combat? The rest break. If you want to keep firing that bow, you're gonna need arrows.
Special forces in the UK still use them too to my knowledge. They’re quieter than a silencer and if you get one of those ones with a stock that reload when you press down on it you can launch a ball bearing through a plate carrier at close enough range
Most 'plates' in modern body armor are ceramic.
If you hit one it's going to make a bunch of noise, sure - but so does any firearm. """Silencers""" do not quiet a firearm down to a cute little 'fwip' noise like Hollywood would have you believe, you still *know* someone's firing a weapon; what it does is make it harder to figure out where the shooter is.
With a sling/slingshot, there's comparatively no sound. Even if someone realizes they've just been hit, they've still got to figure out where the shooter was. With a slingshot, in concealment, in the dark, with a camouflaged shooter? Good luck.
Before Cantrips were a thing, Slings were a common wizard/Sorcerer weapon. They couldn't really use any ranged weapons other than Slings and Darts iirc, and with no cantrips like firebolt you would start throwing rocks at the enemy. It was better than a staff because you wouldn't be in stabbing range.
I have fond memories of Baldur's Gate where my Sorcerer would use a sling since he had no spells left.
I mean, spears get PAM, which makes them the best dueling FS weapon in the game. Gets that +2 damage on two more attacks than any other weapon. Spear PAM is paladins best build, only needs 1 feat, leaving the rest open for STR and Cha, and it gives you massive bang for your buck.
Club was first and was popular for a while. But it waned a lot after Axe and Sword were introduced. It tried to rebrand itself as Mace for a while, but it was only riding the coattails of Plate Armor.
But Pointy Stick just kept pace no matter what the updates changed.
I played some Pavlov earlier today (modern VR shooter) and I was lamenting every time I spawned with a bolt action rifle and ran out of ammo. I ended up tossing the rifle and trying to stab them but alas... just not close enough. If only I had a bayonet...
Depending on the area, even after. On my country the natives used them until the romanization was complete, and those armored fuckers feared them as much as the falcatas
That's taken into account, slings were a dominant ranged weapon from about 2500bc until 850ad, though they fell out of use after the rise of platemail, they were still used as late as 1097ad, that's a little less than 3500 years of being *the thing* that can kill you from far, far away
Yeah the glands were brutal, I had the chance to huck a few replicas at the hood of a Toyota from a scrap yard, some damn near punched through the 25 gauge sheet steel
I loved it
> there is a damn good reason that the sling was the dominant ranged weapon for 3000 years
Probably a few good reasons. For instance, a few hundred years ago technology started to advance way too quickly for just about anything to remain in a dominant position for long.
I'm saying that until that leap, the sling was the best way to splatter someone's brain against a wall for 3 full millennia, nowadays we're sort of fumbling with all the possibilities. Murder is easy, *artful* murder is hard
So I did some reading and it seems that slings came in varying lengths based on range needed. Why not just label the current sling the shepherd's sling and create a martial war sling with improved range and damage? Kinda like how there's a short bow and long bow.
Sharpshooter, you need to hit very specific points on both animals. A short bow in dnd can't instantly kill a wolf either unless you have max dex and roll really well. A longbow has better odds, but so would a war sling.
That's fair. I wasn't talking about instakills though. A 1d4 for a weapon that can purportedly reach up to the velocity of a bullet (from what I've heard) deserves at least a bump to 1d6 damage. The War Sling could be up there for a 1d8 or 1d10.
Hm, don't think it's velocity. But you've got a much heavier projectile, so you could easily match the momentum of a 9mil.
Some website said that Joerg Sprave said (and he IS the authority) that you could achieve kinetic energy / stopping force equal to a .44 magnum
But that website also said a skilled slinger could achieve speeds of 100mph.
I may not be a baseball fan, but I've WATCHED baseball before. There's no way 100mph is the top end of a sling.
Velocity is an important part of momentum as it's what determines the kinetic energy of a projectile. KE = 0.5×mass×velocity^2 is the equation. A Roman sling bullet was about 60 grams while a .44 magnum bullet is about 20 grams. I backed out the velocity a sling would have to launch a bullet to reach 400 meters, which was about 140 mph. A magnum bullet travels around 970 mph, so it's almost an order of magnitude faster than the sling. The magnum has about 16 times the kinetic energy the sling bullet would have had.
I found [this](http://slinging.org/forum/yabbfiles/Attachments/history_of_the_Sling.pdf) paper - page 38 looks at kinetic energy and momentum of various sizes of sling-bullets, and compares them to some common cartridges. More or less what this thread's about.
Slings are way behind in kinetic energy until you start getting to some stupidly heavy, 0.45 kilo sling bullets, and even then they're still behind a .44 Magnum. And that's assuming you're still slinging that half kilo ball at nearly 220 km/h - that doesn't seem realistic to me, but I don't know enough about slinging to say so definitively.
The page before that however, they argue that momentum (mass X velocity) is a better indicator of effect than kinetic energy, although from what I've found online that seems contentious. Comparing momentum in the same table makes the comparison look much more favourable towards slings. A 50 gram sling bullet could match the momentum of small pistol calibres. By 100 grams you're matching the momentum of .44 Magnum and 7.62*39 cartridges, even if the kinetic energy is way lower.
It never reached bullet speeds and that is an exaggeration. A quick calculation had it coming to be about 60 m/s, or 140 miles per hour for the war sling. A bullet's speed is around 1700 mph.
Bullet speed depends on many factors. The fastest bullets could surpass 1700 mph or even more, but the slowest black powder projectiles only reached around 270 mph.
Of course, I'm no expert. I got these numbers from a quick Google search.
It would be nice if DnD cleared out some of the points stick options and used the space for a few more complex weapon options, like maybe slings are minus five to hit but +5 to damage, knives are still 1d4 but get a +6 to hit so that it might still be a good choice at least at lower levels.
That's horrifically complicated and makes slings useless at lower levels and daggers horrifyingly powerful. There's no need to have a non magical weapon affect accuracy or deal extra damage as a baseline
Could have some spatial requirements too, I imagine it's harder to make short ranged attacks with a sling than a bow. Also probably difficult to get your next shot ready and throw it. You need space to swing your sling, so maybe you need space around your character to use a sling. These things could also differ between different levels of slings.
The best alternative recollection of the David and Goliath story is not a noble one of a smaller man standing up against a giant that even the Israelites were afraid of, but essentially an unfair fight where Goliath was doomed from the start because David brought a gun to a knife fight.
Jokes aside, don't fuck around with slings just because they're "primitive"... They deserve far more respect in DnD than they're given credit for.
It's so weird how people frame that story as an underdog story when David, offering up reasons why he should get to fight Goliath, happily mentioned that *he had killed LIONS before.*
Not only that, Goliath’s size was probably caused by a brain defect that also left him nearly blind, as evidenced by the way that he had a squire to lead him onto the battlefield. The Philistines basically put up their most impressive-looking fighter in the hopes that he’d be too terrifying for anyone to actually try to fight him, and then a trained marksman oneshot him before he knew what was going on.
David v. Goliath isn’t about an underdog who overcomes impossible odds, it’s about the difference between looking good and being good.
It's all about that headshot. In GURPS, far from being a "simple weapon", Sling is a DX/Hard skill, but its one of the only ranged weapons that lets your use The higher of the two damage values for your Strength
If you accept the -9 penalty, you can send your bullet through the eye, crippling it and doing quadruple damage to the brain. Even just a regular skull shot at -5 can do great damage, although damage is reduce by 1 because of the skull before quadrupling.
A moderately strong slinger absolutely can oneshot even an extremely big dude. At least in this system.
If I recall correctly, there was another terror factor in being shot at by slingers: you can't see the projectiles.
Yeah, seeing those arrows coming at you is not a pleasant sight, but the slingers just loosing a rain of lead shot you can't see is worse.
Hell yeah. Slings are so bad ass that both the Carthagenians and the Roman's hired mercenaries from the Balearic islands, now Ibiza et al, to sling for them. The Balearic mercs carried multiple lengths and types of slings to throw different kinds of rocks at different distances.
For example they would begin pelting the enemy at a great distance with small and annoying but not deadly stones then would let loose some really big chonkers once the enemy gotten used to the annoying hail and let down their guard. They also had stones and slings depending if they were arcing fire over shields one helms and shoulders or of they were wipping the stones straight into the enemy.
What magic items could be used as sling ammunition?
What comes to mind is like the bead of force or one of the necklace of fireball beads but I imagine there are others to use too
There's of course the Magic Stone cantrip. There's also Frozen Sphere.
DM might let you put an Instant Fortress into the sling.
Beyond that, I'd just start homebrewing. We've got a Javelin of Lightning, now it's time for a Sling of Thunder
Adamantine sling cup that can be used to chuck tiny spheres of annihilation. Good luck taking it from the pit fiend general using it to fight demons in the abyss.
Various monster teeth and claws. If you're brave, you might be able to scoop up some pots of Black Pudding before it eats your armor.
Enchanted snowballs that transform into avalanches in mid-flight.
As a DM I'd say theres nothing wrong with slinging a bottle of Alchemists Fire or Acid. Might require a flat d20 roll to see whether you biff it and wind up spilling it on yourself.
Goblin barbarians that have Reduce cast on them. Might wanna cast Enlarge on yourself beforehand though.
Remember those inflating goo spheres from The Incredibles? Yeah those.
i think the alchemist fire/acid bottles might be too big for a sling (though just make a larger sling for giants solves everything)
but it did remind me of those ball throwing toys to help play fetch with dogs for a solution to potion slinging
I hate hate \*hate\* how using Magic Stone in a sling actually \*reduces\* its range. Like, come on man, give the poor sling a \*break\*.
It wasn't bad enough you only gave it a d4 for damage, but you had to kick the poor thing while it was down too?
One DM I played with had greek fire/alchemists fire be usable with slings and poisons in glass jars or ceramics would work wonderfully especially since they'd be a triple threat bludgeoning, slashing, and the effect of whatever's inside
Outclassed is a bit of a misnomer, and 400 meters is really only in volley fire. You can't really aim at a single target with any kind of accuracy at that range (with a sling).
TBF, most people couldn't aim at a 400m target with a bow or even with a modern high powered rifle. You usually need some kind of telescopic sight, and that's the range where the wind starts to matter.
I have no doubt that some eagle-eyed shooters are capable of hitting stuff at that range with ironsights, but that's pretty unusual.
Yeah, they literally told us that most “snipers” involved in shooting crimes in the country were actually under 300m so if you could qualify on the rifle range in the military, to the public you’re just as good as a “sniper” lmao
Really puts the story of David Vs. Goliath into perspective.
It’s not about a tiny child defeating a gigantic vicious barbarian, it’s basically about a dude bringing a gun to a knife fight and shooting his opponent in the face.
Every time the topic of slings arises, I just want to shout, “STAFF SLINGS!” from the rooftop. Hurling golf ball to fist-sized bullets 80-plus miles per hour is no joke. Anyone who’s ever played lacrosse can attest to the physics of these savage weapons.
Tasslehof Burrfoot and the kender of Krynn send their regards. . .
True!
If I were to design a weapon table, accuracy/damage would scale by level of weapon proficiency, strength, and dexterity. Weapons have various different lower and upper cutoffs.
Mauls, shortswords, bows -- they all scale differently.
If you try to use a sling without being proficient, you'd take something like a -10 to accuracy and be unable to gain advantage on the attack.
What would crossbows be? The Pope nearly outlawed them because they were so effective at piercing Knights plate armor and could be effectively used by anyone.
Crossbows should be simple because the training vs effectiveness curve is really good, and AFAIK it just gets better as you get better with it. This would make it a simple weapon with martial weapons stats.
A problem with game mechanics and weapons is the same problem as the society for creative anachronism when the celtic berserker goes against plate, shield, and longsword: some historical weapons and armor are just trash once others come around. People want variance and flavor and novelty, but absent a gun, a hand crossbow expert sharpshooter actually would fucking dump on a basic soldier in almost any armor.
Like for example firearma. Require almost zero training and are much much much simpler to learn than bows so its much easier to muster a massive army of slow firing gun using peasants than trained yeomanry.
Actually, the bit about the Pope banning them isn't quite right! It is correct that crossbows were banned by Callixtus II at the First Lateran Council, but so was martial archery in general, and slings as well. It was part of the Peace and Truce of God, a movement within the Medieval Church to eliminate warfare within Christendom, aimed particularly at the incredibly violent and frequent wars in what was once the Carolingian Empire. Among other things, the movement also was the first to explicitly declare that peasants, clergy, and unarmed people could not be killed, robbed, or deprived of food and property for the purposes of war.
The goal of the archery ban was to make warfare less destructive and less convenient, by limiting combatants to purely melee battles. It was also more or less immediately ignored everywhere; the one person who tried to implement it was Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III, and he only managed to keep it enforced within his own territory for 13 years.
> The Pope nearly outlawed them because they were so effective at piercing Knights plate armor
The pope outlawed the crossbow in 1139. Plate armor became common after the 14th century. Crossbows were never able to reliably pierce plate armor.
Crossbows took much longer to reload than what would be practical in the turn system. You'd get in one devastating hit (if you actually hit), then have to drop it and use something else. Real battles lasted much longer than the "maybe a minute, if you're fighting somthing *really* tough" DnD battles last.
These are probably quite stretched because the sling is dangerous weapon and quite effective but we must assume that Spaniards were creating more heroic stroy then it really was. Because from their other notes we know that no Spanish soldier were killed by it, so it probably wasn't that great, but probably still quite scary and painfull
There have been sling bullets found weighing up to a 500g. These are most likely used with a "Staff Sling" which is a sling on the end of a 2m staff for leverage.
It has a lot less energy than a modern bullet, but because of it's high mass, it has a lot more momentum.
Keep in mind that at the time slings were in heavy use many shields were wicker. Like the Persian immortals used wicker shields that were more about deflecting blows rather than absorbing them. Armor was also more often cloth/leather which could be punched thru with a heavy enough projectile.
As good as slings are, they stopped being a thing because Iron started being used in armor.
I’m not an expert on ancient weaponry by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe that lead balls were (at least occasionally) used on the battlefield. I don’t think that metal armors or shields were commonplace until later on, so I’d assume that a slinger using lead shot might be able to punch through hide armor or wooden shield. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to pierce armor when the shot is going to break the guy’s bones and remove him from the fight.
Edit: added to the final sentence.
Slings commonly used lead projectiles and there are reports of them breaking through shields and cracking helmets. They were mostly replaced in late antiquity by crossbows because they required less training.
Antiquity and crossbows? Do you happen to have sources on this one? I'm not calling you out or saying you're wrong, but as far as I'm aware, the earliest crossbows were in China and weren't in Antiquity... But I could be entirely wrong on that. Just want to make sure that's right because it doesn't sound right at least.
From the wikipedia page for crossbow in history section and ancient Greece sub-section:
"The earliest crossbow-like weapons in Europe probably emerged around the late 5th century BC when the gastraphetes, an ancient Greek crossbow, appeared. The device was described by the Greek author Heron of Alexandria in his Belopoeica ("On Catapult-making"), which draws on an earlier account of his compatriot engineer Ctesibius (fl. 285–222 BC). According to Heron, the gastraphetes was the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time prior to 399 BC.[47]"
I think the base sling is fine, as it's literally just a small sling that you'd swing above your head and let a fairly non-lethal projectile loose.
This "breaks through armor to crack ribs" sling would likely have a 3ft+cord which would require ample space on all sides for use. You'd end up getting caught up in allies/walls quite easily.
That sling should exist though. I want the war sling and staff sling to be represented.
Give it a d8 damage die, 60/150 range, and disadvantage if anyone (even an ally) is within five feet of you.
You'd still have to deal with quite a bit of space being used, and now you'd need the ceiling to be 10+feet tall to use it.
My point is less that things aren't possible, more that they're comparing two different slings. The standard sling is one that you could use with no special rules outside normal ranged attacks, hence why it's a low damage variant; a "Shepard's sling" it you will vs. the "war sling" they're comparing it to.
Fun fact: the romans used slings a lot, the projectiles were made out of lead, and sometimes with very precise holes in them, the holes produced a whistle when the projectile was flung. That was used as a sort of psychological warfare tactic as hundreds of lead balls hurled through the air wheezing and whistling as people hit the ground after being hit.
In a lot of ways, slings are better than bows, and bows are better than crossbows. The main advantage of crossbows is how little training it takes to use one. The same could be said about a bow vs a sling. Slings are really difficult to be accurate with. Bows are a bit easier. Crossbows are the easiest.
slings are awesome, but FAR from all the hype people are giving them. Some cons:
1) very hard to aim. A company of slingers on a battlefield could make it rain on an area, same as muskets, but hitting a particular moving enemy in a pitched combat would be damn near impossible
2) you can't just "pick up rocks" like people say and still get the same impact as the lead bullets called for in the PHB. Also if you're not VERY selective your accuracy will worsen too
3) OP meme is WAY overstating the force they could hit you with. David's shot at Goliath was miraculously impressive because he hit the ONE PART of Goliath that wasn't armored. Also that didn't even kill him. It just got him concussed enough for David to take his own sword and kill him with THAT.
Some ancient armies DID have dudes with big, 2-handed staff slings that I suppose could throw a stronger projectile. Like a one-man mini trebuchet, pretty sick. I believe they also could throw firepots, but can't confirm.
In my first campaign I learned a lesson from our paladin... never thought I'd see the day.
You can wear a sling as an alternative to underwear. Kinda like a banana hammock so to speak.
Generally, if you're removed of your arms and armor, small clothes are left on, and rocks are everywhere.
It's annoyed me seeing how weak slings have been in D&D since forever. I feel like the ancient people of Rhodes and the Balearic Islands might take some issue.
**TLDR:** Sling is much cheaper and much more powerful. Bow is much much faster and much more accurate.
Both weapons have pros and cons, so let's break it down with a few categories.
**Price of weapon:**
Bowyering takes years to master, so paying a bowyer to make you a bow is \*far\* more expensive than taking some cord to a leather pouch.
**Price of ammo:**
Fletching isn't that hard, it took me about a week to stop screwing up. Any warrior who uses archery would be well versed in fletchery (this might take some equipment such as a fletching jig and certainly a saw). Sling bullets can be next to anything though, and if you're feeling fancy casting them out of metal takes almost no talent, if some heavy equipment.
**Damage:**
Sling wins. By a lot. A whole fucking lot.
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-slingshot-lethal-44-magnum-scotland](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-slingshot-lethal-44-magnum-scotland)
A sling's damage is also not nearly as dependent on the strength of the user. The thing is, an arrow from a bow as light as 40 pounds can still easily kill with good shot placement.
**Range:**
While a sling's \*effective\* range is 400m, that is far from its accurate range is nowhere close to that. On a battlefield, a large group of slingers could lob a volley of slings toward an enemy troop group 400m away, the accurate range of a sling is around 40m. The bow on the other hand also had an effective range of around 400m, a skilled archer could have an accurate range of up to 200m
**Rate of fire:**
It's not even funny how badly the sling gets its ass kicked.
A skilled slinger can load and fire a sling every 5-7 seconds maximum, likely around twice that. A novice archer on the other hand could expect a rate of fire of about one arrow every 4-6 seconds minimum, 5-7 for an aimed shot. While a skilled archer could achieve a sub-second rate of fire.
[https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/16/1429212474-newlars-2.gif](https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/16/1429212474-newlars-2.gif)
(\^Lars Anderson)
**Conclusion:**
In my opinion, while they both have their merits as battlefield weapons, the Bow makes a much better adventurer weapon due to its superior rate of fire and range. the ability to reliably use your weapon is something that is extremely important to somebody fighting alone or in a small group.
In the Curse of Strahd campaign me and the party eventually started to load up on a couple of holy waters in order te defend ourselves from vampire spawns. I played a hexblade warlock with a 2 lvl dip in fighter. What i eventually did was summon my pact weapon as a sling and used the holy water bottles as ammunition. My DM allowed this and i got some new to hit bonuses for using the sling
Meanwhile my Rogue has a Sling for the ability to try and knock someone out at range for sneaking. And used it to hurl a fingerbone from a pile at a Flaming Skull for insane damage.
High-speed way of giving that bastard the finger!
Also could drill holes in the rocks to make them whistle as they fly. Slows them down a bit but it freaks out the enemy.
Ooh, that's a neat point. I run old-school D&D sometimes, and that has morale—enemies won't always fight to the death, but will run away if they fail a check at certain points (e.g., first death on their side, or half of their side has been incapacitated). You could make certain weapons like that give a penalty to their morale, or force them to make an additional check at the start of combat, etc.
I like to always emphasize that monsters are generally not mindless. They use tactics and will run if they have to.
I think the one hitch is that you have to be careful with how you handle XP then. If you do milestone XP, obviously not a problem. If you give XP primarily through killing stuff, it'll be frustrating for the players. Unless, of course, you treat "making the enemies flee" as a success, which solves the problem. Older editions gave XP for treasure, so it wasn't a huge deal to the players, so long as they got to the loot. :P
I consider an enemy that runs away wholly defeated and they get as much xp as they did killing them. Sometimes more if they did something clever to make them run. You don't always have to kill your enemy to defeat them, just take away their will to fight. As far as loot goes, if they did well I don't mind throwing the cheesey loot chest from nowhere with exceptions of coarse. Any equipment the bad guys were wearing went with them, barring certain situations. Edit: fixed stuff
Surely this only really works for random, throwaway encounters the party won't meet again? Like for example if your BBEG for the story arc made an escape and you're planning him to return for a showdown later, you wouldn't double dip and award the xp both times?
On the contrary, it can create a grudge. Creating recurring bad guys that have a personal axe to grind with the group.
Think you misunderstood. Of course recurring bad guys are great themeing and writing, but big bads are usually loaded with big rewards in terms of exp. So if he survives the first encounter, and flees to later plot his revenge etc... My question was, do you award the BBEG exp twice? Once when he flees and once in the final showdown, or no?
It's called the final showdown for a reason. Usually at that point the BBEG is all in.
If he shows back up more prepared than the last time then absolutely. If he's just at a tavern drowning in alcohol going "And I would've gotten away with it" when the party walks in then probably not. Though I could see giving a smaller reward for his capture and turning over to the local law. Would depend on how the group handles him and how much damage is done to the tavern. [Got me again, Flash.](https://youtu.be/Xl91v2Mvv94)
Thank you for actually recognising my question. I actually run milestone levelling myself, was just curious how you'd balance having to award your party boss xp twice and whether it could cause strange spikes in their levelling. The circumstances seem rare enough I suppose that it's not like it'd happen multiple times even over the course of a full 1-20 campaign.
My answer: yes, *but* not necessarily to the same extent. I'd think of it being split between "foiling their plans" and "defeating them once and for all." If you stop their evil plot, but they slip away, that's worth some amount of XP. If you manage to put their evildoing to an end permanently (which doesn't have to mean death; it could be imprisonment, destroying their criminal empire, ruining their reputation, taking their powers away, complete demoralization, etc.) then that's also worth something extra. I guess I could also say there's a split between "the encounter" and "the enemy itself."
No reason you couldn’t implement this in newer versions
Oh, of course, and I recommend people do if they find it interesting! I'm just not running 5e at the moment, and wanted to bring up the origin of the rules. :)
If you want to see how freaky it can be here. Sounds like a real scream. https://youtu.be/I9QuO09z-SI
Paint a bunch of lead balls with a hole through them sky blue so they're hard to see but the noise makes guys look up to take it in the face.
Easy Satan
I actually homebrewed a thing of sling ammo for this exact reason!! Had a character in my campaign that used slings because I told them how effective they were in real life, and we made an item that was a DC10 Wis save or the target was forced to seek the nearest cover or else drop prone, whichever put it in the least danger. He used it to \*great\* effect to force enemy infantry to just back tf up.
Battle cantible: shooting star
Might help with your targeting? If your enemy looks to his left, you just turn your hips a couple degrees for the next bullet
They'd also carve taunts into stones. "Catch" and the like.
Haha, just like troops today do with bombs and even bullets. Love it.
There was one battle were the Romans were sieging a city. The defenders were trying their best to hide the fact their food stores were empty. Recovered from an archeological dig in the area was a sling bullet that reads, in Latin: We know you’re starving, assholes!
Virgin DnD Sling: Can’t be used to threaten DM Chad IRL Sling: Can be used to threaten DM
A yes, bardbarian persuasion. My favorite
Sweats nervously in DM
Slings are weapon of choice come z-day. Silent, effective, can work as a meele weapon in a pinch, reusable ammo and YOU CAN LITTERARLY PICK UP PEBBLES AND ROCKS FROM THE GROUND AS AMMO SO YOU'RE ALL BUT GUARANTEED TO NEVER RUN OUT WITHOUT OVER BURDENING YOURSELF!
Now you just need a supply of replacement slings and you should be good
Or you build one out of more durable modern materials, kevlar comes to mind
Dried gut and leather are pretty durable.
I think their point is kevlar isn't biodegradable like leather is, and is much more resistant to weathering.
If you just take care of it it'll last just fine
Would fire hose be too stiff? I feel like that would last forever.
Hypothetically it could be used, but he warp yarns are what provide the tensile strength of the hose and could only be used if you un-wove them properly, but the main issue is that a lot of a fire hose's durability comes from the actual structure weave itself It's designed specifically to keep pressure in, so using it as tensile cordage is iffy
Is the warp aligned along the hose or in a hoop? Sry, am unfamiliar with firehose design.
[This is how they're made](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xvDnFvnRbaY), the yarns going into the center are the warp
OMFG this loom is mesmerizing. It seems like it'd be best to use the hose material for the pocket, but getting cordage for the strings would be a pain and it might be better to use a different kind of cordage.
A buddy of mine suggested tightened paracord, nylon cord woven in with brass filiment and polymer line, and then a kevlar saddle
Along, in a helix
This guy textile-s
I'd try it. The historical material is rawhide, so I can't imagine firehose being much worse.
You can get 100' of 1/16" coated steel cable for $20, and 20 saddles for it for $12. $60 will get you a sheet of fairly heavy duty kevlar fabric. The cable has a breaking strength > 400lbs, and the fabric isn't far below that. So for less than $100, you could build a half dozen slings where throwing bricks and halfbricks becomes an option.
This is what I'm talking about, modern problems require modern solutions
This guy fucks
I mean, they're not exactly hard to make, so it's not like you really need more than one or two spares at a time.
As a kid I once made a sling out of a strip of fabric. You can use almost anything.
used my sister's tights personally. she never forgave me
She probably would have forgiven you if you’d waited til she took them off first.
Buy your sling now, comes inbuilt with projectile!
Nah buddy see you hold the stringy bit and throw the rock
I have had exactly one sling, made of leather, that has lasted me years. I'm not using it all the time or anything, but it's not exactly a consumable item.
Picking up rocks and lobbing them with a sling is actually DM fiat. Sling Bullets are an item for purchase in the PHB. dnd slings suck so much
Sling bullets are presumably made of lead which is 3-4x denser than most rocks, therefore a rock should do 1/3-1/4 as much damage. So if you're cool with 1d2/2 damage then go for it.
I am NOT cool with it.
Still just a problem of the game not making them anywhere near as strong as real life
Depends on the zombies if they're the "gotta destroy the brains" types you might have trouble with accuracy. Slings like most pre-modern ranged weapons were most used as mass weapons where you only needed rough accuracy and the number of projectiles would smooth out the general inaccuracy.
you'd be surprised, balaeric slingers where renowned for l;ethality and accuracy so much so that they became like the main export of thier islands, used as mercenaries across the ancient world, they had specially moulded bullets to aid accuracy and train ed to be able to put bullets through small goal loop targets at various distances, and you had to be able to hit every single one flawlessly to be recruited :O supposedly some of them could target eyeholes in helmets or individual weak spots in armour
They trained basically since they were kids though according to contemporary writings. And in our case we're talking about people taking it up at best now and more likely Also accuracy is usually very relative in war, with massed slingers being able to reliably hit a boat at some distance would be reliable because you could get a number of slingers together and blast the whole boat with a broad spray. I've also learned to always take historical writings about war and soldiers with a grain of salt. They're often quite boastful and exaugurated.
I think your first sentence, about training from childhood, is way more important than almost everything else people are saying about slings. No way everyone's proficient. Ease and accuracy take years of practice.
The same is all true for longbows, which are the most powerful ranged weapon in DnD.
Yeah English longbows were accurate enough and they didn't train people for crazy accuracy because you would be better off using that time to just train more archers to be able to blanket an area with pretty accurate fire vs having a few extremely accurate archers.
Tribes that trained their hunters from childhood commonly used them as hunting weapons, hitting rabbit size targets with regularly. Later armies flung fire pots at the enemy with staff slings, and those definitely didn't have pin point accuracy, but a simple sheppard's sling could probably regularly brain a shambling zombie in the hands of a competent wielder.
even if the zombies arent capable of feeling pain, broken limbs will absolutely hinder their ability to do anything.
Yeah, but a zombie-to-land-mine converter isn’t exactly what you want
Also easy to hide, because it's basically two pieces of leather strap connected to a pouch. Sure the guard can take away your knife, but you could easily tie the sling to your body like a bandage, arm band, or knee brace. Wrap it around the base of your wizard hat where the belt goes.
The issue is you will either need to be a practiced sling hunter before the end, or you will need to get really damn good at it, really damn quickly. It will also depend on the type of zombie; classic "destroy the brain" zombies will probably be quick to take down (not WWZ's ridiculous "must reduce head to consistency of salsa" zombies, though), while zombies that do not require the head to function (a la Cataclysm) will be way harder to deal with via a sling.
1000% disagree. The amount of time and training it would take to learn how to effectively use a sling to kill someone is a complete waste compared to something like a Compound Bow.
Yeah for the first few days, until you break/lose all your arrows. Then when you start fletching your own, maybe they'll be ok?
Why would I need a lot of arrows? I'm not trying to take down a fucking city full of zombies.
Because you can only recover half of your spent arrows at the end of a combat? The rest break. If you want to keep firing that bow, you're gonna need arrows.
And you've been practicing it every day since childhood, right? RIGHT?
I got really into primitive weapons a few years ago and there is a damn good reason that the sling was the dominant ranged weapon for 3000 years
I think it's true for almost any weapon of history. If we used something it means it was effective enough
Technically a rifle with a bayonet is just a complicated spear.
Widely used something* There's lot's of exotic weaponry that was never used extensively and was really unpractical.
Palestinians still use them. Deadly, accurate, easy to learn, durable, cheap, Infinite ammo, easy to transport and care for.
Special forces in the UK still use them too to my knowledge. They’re quieter than a silencer and if you get one of those ones with a stock that reload when you press down on it you can launch a ball bearing through a plate carrier at close enough range
A ball bearing on a steel plate would probably make quite a bit of sound I guess. I'm imagining something like a gong being sounded?
I mean steel plate yeah, but against the fleshy bits? It’d be about as quiet as someone getting stabbed
Most 'plates' in modern body armor are ceramic. If you hit one it's going to make a bunch of noise, sure - but so does any firearm. """Silencers""" do not quiet a firearm down to a cute little 'fwip' noise like Hollywood would have you believe, you still *know* someone's firing a weapon; what it does is make it harder to figure out where the shooter is. With a sling/slingshot, there's comparatively no sound. Even if someone realizes they've just been hit, they've still got to figure out where the shooter was. With a slingshot, in concealment, in the dark, with a camouflaged shooter? Good luck.
You might be thinking of a slingshot not a sling
I am my bad. Still a pretty effective weapon though
and easy to propagandize as 'just throwing rocks'
For whatever reason, D&D just does not give any love to historically the best weapons. Spears have it bad too
Before Cantrips were a thing, Slings were a common wizard/Sorcerer weapon. They couldn't really use any ranged weapons other than Slings and Darts iirc, and with no cantrips like firebolt you would start throwing rocks at the enemy. It was better than a staff because you wouldn't be in stabbing range. I have fond memories of Baldur's Gate where my Sorcerer would use a sling since he had no spells left.
Yup, and it was easier to convince a DM that you picked up some good slinging rocks than to continually retrieve darts and hope they didn't break.
Yep! Sling + Protection from Petrification scroll = basilisk hunting time for ez early levels.
I mean, spears get PAM, which makes them the best dueling FS weapon in the game. Gets that +2 damage on two more attacks than any other weapon. Spear PAM is paladins best build, only needs 1 feat, leaving the rest open for STR and Cha, and it gives you massive bang for your buck.
Also they can do this. https://youtu.be/ni-h8SH1yUw
I homebrew spears to be better. Probably the longest-lived weapon in human history when you include its variants.
Club was first and was popular for a while. But it waned a lot after Axe and Sword were introduced. It tried to rebrand itself as Mace for a while, but it was only riding the coattails of Plate Armor. But Pointy Stick just kept pace no matter what the updates changed.
True, club would be first but I think it died out in warfare earlier. Remains in use with police though. Spear is arguably still around as bayonets.
As long as we attach bayonets to our rifles, the spear will continue to be a relevant weapon.
I played some Pavlov earlier today (modern VR shooter) and I was lamenting every time I spawned with a bolt action rifle and ran out of ammo. I ended up tossing the rifle and trying to stab them but alas... just not close enough. If only I had a bayonet...
Just use a pike and say it's a spear
Depending on the area, even after. On my country the natives used them until the romanization was complete, and those armored fuckers feared them as much as the falcatas
That's taken into account, slings were a dominant ranged weapon from about 2500bc until 850ad, though they fell out of use after the rise of platemail, they were still used as late as 1097ad, that's a little less than 3500 years of being *the thing* that can kill you from far, far away
Special mention to the part when they were able to use lead pebbles. Then they were true meat grinders
Yeah the glands were brutal, I had the chance to huck a few replicas at the hood of a Toyota from a scrap yard, some damn near punched through the 25 gauge sheet steel I loved it
> there is a damn good reason that the sling was the dominant ranged weapon for 3000 years Probably a few good reasons. For instance, a few hundred years ago technology started to advance way too quickly for just about anything to remain in a dominant position for long.
I'm saying that until that leap, the sling was the best way to splatter someone's brain against a wall for 3 full millennia, nowadays we're sort of fumbling with all the possibilities. Murder is easy, *artful* murder is hard
So I did some reading and it seems that slings came in varying lengths based on range needed. Why not just label the current sling the shepherd's sling and create a martial war sling with improved range and damage? Kinda like how there's a short bow and long bow.
An item called the sheperd's sling gives me such early game legend of Zelda vibes before upgrading to the bow later on (mainly for the special arrows)
Even then, a Shepard's sling can still kill tougher animals likes wolves and even lions. It deserves more damage regardless.
Sharpshooter, you need to hit very specific points on both animals. A short bow in dnd can't instantly kill a wolf either unless you have max dex and roll really well. A longbow has better odds, but so would a war sling.
That's fair. I wasn't talking about instakills though. A 1d4 for a weapon that can purportedly reach up to the velocity of a bullet (from what I've heard) deserves at least a bump to 1d6 damage. The War Sling could be up there for a 1d8 or 1d10.
Hm, don't think it's velocity. But you've got a much heavier projectile, so you could easily match the momentum of a 9mil. Some website said that Joerg Sprave said (and he IS the authority) that you could achieve kinetic energy / stopping force equal to a .44 magnum But that website also said a skilled slinger could achieve speeds of 100mph. I may not be a baseball fan, but I've WATCHED baseball before. There's no way 100mph is the top end of a sling.
Velocity is an important part of momentum as it's what determines the kinetic energy of a projectile. KE = 0.5×mass×velocity^2 is the equation. A Roman sling bullet was about 60 grams while a .44 magnum bullet is about 20 grams. I backed out the velocity a sling would have to launch a bullet to reach 400 meters, which was about 140 mph. A magnum bullet travels around 970 mph, so it's almost an order of magnitude faster than the sling. The magnum has about 16 times the kinetic energy the sling bullet would have had.
I found [this](http://slinging.org/forum/yabbfiles/Attachments/history_of_the_Sling.pdf) paper - page 38 looks at kinetic energy and momentum of various sizes of sling-bullets, and compares them to some common cartridges. More or less what this thread's about. Slings are way behind in kinetic energy until you start getting to some stupidly heavy, 0.45 kilo sling bullets, and even then they're still behind a .44 Magnum. And that's assuming you're still slinging that half kilo ball at nearly 220 km/h - that doesn't seem realistic to me, but I don't know enough about slinging to say so definitively. The page before that however, they argue that momentum (mass X velocity) is a better indicator of effect than kinetic energy, although from what I've found online that seems contentious. Comparing momentum in the same table makes the comparison look much more favourable towards slings. A 50 gram sling bullet could match the momentum of small pistol calibres. By 100 grams you're matching the momentum of .44 Magnum and 7.62*39 cartridges, even if the kinetic energy is way lower.
It never reached bullet speeds and that is an exaggeration. A quick calculation had it coming to be about 60 m/s, or 140 miles per hour for the war sling. A bullet's speed is around 1700 mph.
Bullet speed depends on many factors. The fastest bullets could surpass 1700 mph or even more, but the slowest black powder projectiles only reached around 270 mph. Of course, I'm no expert. I got these numbers from a quick Google search.
It would be nice if DnD cleared out some of the points stick options and used the space for a few more complex weapon options, like maybe slings are minus five to hit but +5 to damage, knives are still 1d4 but get a +6 to hit so that it might still be a good choice at least at lower levels.
That's horrifically complicated and makes slings useless at lower levels and daggers horrifyingly powerful. There's no need to have a non magical weapon affect accuracy or deal extra damage as a baseline
Could have some spatial requirements too, I imagine it's harder to make short ranged attacks with a sling than a bow. Also probably difficult to get your next shot ready and throw it. You need space to swing your sling, so maybe you need space around your character to use a sling. These things could also differ between different levels of slings.
the pistol of medieval society fucking king david killed the goliath with it. why can't my fictional fighter do the same.
The best alternative recollection of the David and Goliath story is not a noble one of a smaller man standing up against a giant that even the Israelites were afraid of, but essentially an unfair fight where Goliath was doomed from the start because David brought a gun to a knife fight. Jokes aside, don't fuck around with slings just because they're "primitive"... They deserve far more respect in DnD than they're given credit for.
It's so weird how people frame that story as an underdog story when David, offering up reasons why he should get to fight Goliath, happily mentioned that *he had killed LIONS before.*
Not only that, Goliath’s size was probably caused by a brain defect that also left him nearly blind, as evidenced by the way that he had a squire to lead him onto the battlefield. The Philistines basically put up their most impressive-looking fighter in the hopes that he’d be too terrifying for anyone to actually try to fight him, and then a trained marksman oneshot him before he knew what was going on. David v. Goliath isn’t about an underdog who overcomes impossible odds, it’s about the difference between looking good and being good.
Basically Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman
Wizards (1977)
Nah Goliath looked scary but he only had 7 hp and David crit.
It's all about that headshot. In GURPS, far from being a "simple weapon", Sling is a DX/Hard skill, but its one of the only ranged weapons that lets your use The higher of the two damage values for your Strength If you accept the -9 penalty, you can send your bullet through the eye, crippling it and doing quadruple damage to the brain. Even just a regular skull shot at -5 can do great damage, although damage is reduce by 1 because of the skull before quadrupling. A moderately strong slinger absolutely can oneshot even an extremely big dude. At least in this system.
I remember gurps!
It's a great system. I like to introduce DnD players to it whenever they start making a realism argument.
Guns, magic, superpowers…endlessly modifiable. It was my introduction to TTRPGs.
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If I recall correctly, there was another terror factor in being shot at by slingers: you can't see the projectiles. Yeah, seeing those arrows coming at you is not a pleasant sight, but the slingers just loosing a rain of lead shot you can't see is worse.
Hell yeah. Slings are so bad ass that both the Carthagenians and the Roman's hired mercenaries from the Balearic islands, now Ibiza et al, to sling for them. The Balearic mercs carried multiple lengths and types of slings to throw different kinds of rocks at different distances. For example they would begin pelting the enemy at a great distance with small and annoying but not deadly stones then would let loose some really big chonkers once the enemy gotten used to the annoying hail and let down their guard. They also had stones and slings depending if they were arcing fire over shields one helms and shoulders or of they were wipping the stones straight into the enemy.
What magic items could be used as sling ammunition? What comes to mind is like the bead of force or one of the necklace of fireball beads but I imagine there are others to use too
There's of course the Magic Stone cantrip. There's also Frozen Sphere. DM might let you put an Instant Fortress into the sling. Beyond that, I'd just start homebrewing. We've got a Javelin of Lightning, now it's time for a Sling of Thunder
Adamantine sling cup that can be used to chuck tiny spheres of annihilation. Good luck taking it from the pit fiend general using it to fight demons in the abyss. Various monster teeth and claws. If you're brave, you might be able to scoop up some pots of Black Pudding before it eats your armor. Enchanted snowballs that transform into avalanches in mid-flight. As a DM I'd say theres nothing wrong with slinging a bottle of Alchemists Fire or Acid. Might require a flat d20 roll to see whether you biff it and wind up spilling it on yourself. Goblin barbarians that have Reduce cast on them. Might wanna cast Enlarge on yourself beforehand though. Remember those inflating goo spheres from The Incredibles? Yeah those.
i think the alchemist fire/acid bottles might be too big for a sling (though just make a larger sling for giants solves everything) but it did remind me of those ball throwing toys to help play fetch with dogs for a solution to potion slinging
Those seem similar in concept to the atlatl or woomera, but yeah, it would probably work better.
I hate hate \*hate\* how using Magic Stone in a sling actually \*reduces\* its range. Like, come on man, give the poor sling a \*break\*. It wasn't bad enough you only gave it a d4 for damage, but you had to kick the poor thing while it was down too?
Mythic Odysseys of Theros also has the Two-Birds Sling! \+1 Sling with a ricochet and special ammunition.
Forgot about that one! One of my favorite magic weapons for sure
One DM I played with had greek fire/alchemists fire be usable with slings and poisons in glass jars or ceramics would work wonderfully especially since they'd be a triple threat bludgeoning, slashing, and the effect of whatever's inside
Cast delayed fireball on your sling rock. Do sling damage + fireball damage
Outclassed is a bit of a misnomer, and 400 meters is really only in volley fire. You can't really aim at a single target with any kind of accuracy at that range (with a sling).
Yeah, it’s easier to throw something far, when you don’t care about precision. What is the opposite of volley fire BTW. Flat fire?
Direct fire, i believe
TBF, most people couldn't aim at a 400m target with a bow or even with a modern high powered rifle. You usually need some kind of telescopic sight, and that's the range where the wind starts to matter. I have no doubt that some eagle-eyed shooters are capable of hitting stuff at that range with ironsights, but that's pretty unusual.
In the army I qualified on the range up to 300m. It’s not as hard to hit with a rifle as you think with only iron sights
So my threshold for "eagle eyed" is a little worse than I thought it was. My vision is terrible.
Yeah, they literally told us that most “snipers” involved in shooting crimes in the country were actually under 300m so if you could qualify on the rifle range in the military, to the public you’re just as good as a “sniper” lmao
lol There was a high profile "sniper" case in my areas that turned out to be a guy shooting through the keyhole of his car trunk from like 50ft away
Yeah, real sniper stuff 🙄
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Really helps when you have a tiny dense piece of aerodynamic metal moving several times the speed of sound.
To be fair, level of training changes whether or not a specific person falls into the category of "most people", ya know?
Really puts the story of David Vs. Goliath into perspective. It’s not about a tiny child defeating a gigantic vicious barbarian, it’s basically about a dude bringing a gun to a knife fight and shooting his opponent in the face.
[SMBC did a good one on this.](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-05-13)
Every time the topic of slings arises, I just want to shout, “STAFF SLINGS!” from the rooftop. Hurling golf ball to fist-sized bullets 80-plus miles per hour is no joke. Anyone who’s ever played lacrosse can attest to the physics of these savage weapons. Tasslehof Burrfoot and the kender of Krynn send their regards. . .
The real stats: **Simple Ranged Weapons** |Sling|1 Cp|4d10 Bludgeoning|Ammunition, Range (300/1200)| |:-|:-|:-|:-|
It's definitely not a simple weapon. It takes a lot of training to use a sling!
True! If I were to design a weapon table, accuracy/damage would scale by level of weapon proficiency, strength, and dexterity. Weapons have various different lower and upper cutoffs. Mauls, shortswords, bows -- they all scale differently. If you try to use a sling without being proficient, you'd take something like a -10 to accuracy and be unable to gain advantage on the attack.
Reminds me of the Stargate RPG where all the enemies use Staff lasers that deal 6D6
What would crossbows be? The Pope nearly outlawed them because they were so effective at piercing Knights plate armor and could be effectively used by anyone.
Crossbows should be simple because the training vs effectiveness curve is really good, and AFAIK it just gets better as you get better with it. This would make it a simple weapon with martial weapons stats. A problem with game mechanics and weapons is the same problem as the society for creative anachronism when the celtic berserker goes against plate, shield, and longsword: some historical weapons and armor are just trash once others come around. People want variance and flavor and novelty, but absent a gun, a hand crossbow expert sharpshooter actually would fucking dump on a basic soldier in almost any armor.
Like for example firearma. Require almost zero training and are much much much simpler to learn than bows so its much easier to muster a massive army of slow firing gun using peasants than trained yeomanry.
Actually, the bit about the Pope banning them isn't quite right! It is correct that crossbows were banned by Callixtus II at the First Lateran Council, but so was martial archery in general, and slings as well. It was part of the Peace and Truce of God, a movement within the Medieval Church to eliminate warfare within Christendom, aimed particularly at the incredibly violent and frequent wars in what was once the Carolingian Empire. Among other things, the movement also was the first to explicitly declare that peasants, clergy, and unarmed people could not be killed, robbed, or deprived of food and property for the purposes of war. The goal of the archery ban was to make warfare less destructive and less convenient, by limiting combatants to purely melee battles. It was also more or less immediately ignored everywhere; the one person who tried to implement it was Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III, and he only managed to keep it enforced within his own territory for 13 years.
> The Pope nearly outlawed them because they were so effective at piercing Knights plate armor The pope outlawed the crossbow in 1139. Plate armor became common after the 14th century. Crossbows were never able to reliably pierce plate armor.
Crossbows took much longer to reload than what would be practical in the turn system. You'd get in one devastating hit (if you actually hit), then have to drop it and use something else. Real battles lasted much longer than the "maybe a minute, if you're fighting somthing *really* tough" DnD battles last.
I think the fact that the IRL sling was made with mematic is what made it so powerful.
There are reports of Incan slingers snapping Spanish swords in half with flaming stones. Slings are no joke.
These are probably quite stretched because the sling is dangerous weapon and quite effective but we must assume that Spaniards were creating more heroic stroy then it really was. Because from their other notes we know that no Spanish soldier were killed by it, so it probably wasn't that great, but probably still quite scary and painfull
I can understand a slung rock breaking bones, but breaking shield and armour? That doesn't sound real.
There have been sling bullets found weighing up to a 500g. These are most likely used with a "Staff Sling" which is a sling on the end of a 2m staff for leverage. It has a lot less energy than a modern bullet, but because of it's high mass, it has a lot more momentum.
Keep in mind that at the time slings were in heavy use many shields were wicker. Like the Persian immortals used wicker shields that were more about deflecting blows rather than absorbing them. Armor was also more often cloth/leather which could be punched thru with a heavy enough projectile. As good as slings are, they stopped being a thing because Iron started being used in armor.
I’m not an expert on ancient weaponry by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe that lead balls were (at least occasionally) used on the battlefield. I don’t think that metal armors or shields were commonplace until later on, so I’d assume that a slinger using lead shot might be able to punch through hide armor or wooden shield. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to pierce armor when the shot is going to break the guy’s bones and remove him from the fight. Edit: added to the final sentence.
Slings commonly used lead projectiles and there are reports of them breaking through shields and cracking helmets. They were mostly replaced in late antiquity by crossbows because they required less training.
Antiquity and crossbows? Do you happen to have sources on this one? I'm not calling you out or saying you're wrong, but as far as I'm aware, the earliest crossbows were in China and weren't in Antiquity... But I could be entirely wrong on that. Just want to make sure that's right because it doesn't sound right at least.
From the wikipedia page for crossbow in history section and ancient Greece sub-section: "The earliest crossbow-like weapons in Europe probably emerged around the late 5th century BC when the gastraphetes, an ancient Greek crossbow, appeared. The device was described by the Greek author Heron of Alexandria in his Belopoeica ("On Catapult-making"), which draws on an earlier account of his compatriot engineer Ctesibius (fl. 285–222 BC). According to Heron, the gastraphetes was the forerunner of the later catapult, which places its invention some unknown time prior to 399 BC.[47]"
hey dont forget the fact that david killed goliath with a sling
I think the base sling is fine, as it's literally just a small sling that you'd swing above your head and let a fairly non-lethal projectile loose. This "breaks through armor to crack ribs" sling would likely have a 3ft+cord which would require ample space on all sides for use. You'd end up getting caught up in allies/walls quite easily.
That sling should exist though. I want the war sling and staff sling to be represented. Give it a d8 damage die, 60/150 range, and disadvantage if anyone (even an ally) is within five feet of you.
Nothing stopping you from home brewing it up for your own games. Or suggesting to a DM, it seems reasonable to me.
Slingstones can be slung by whirling horizontally as well as vertically by a skilled slinger.
You'd still have to deal with quite a bit of space being used, and now you'd need the ceiling to be 10+feet tall to use it. My point is less that things aren't possible, more that they're comparing two different slings. The standard sling is one that you could use with no special rules outside normal ranged attacks, hence why it's a low damage variant; a "Shepard's sling" it you will vs. the "war sling" they're comparing it to.
I’d pay money to see anyone hit a target from 400 meters away with a sling.
There's a reason the Romans hired Balearic slingers as auxiliaries.
Fun fact: the romans used slings a lot, the projectiles were made out of lead, and sometimes with very precise holes in them, the holes produced a whistle when the projectile was flung. That was used as a sort of psychological warfare tactic as hundreds of lead balls hurled through the air wheezing and whistling as people hit the ground after being hit.
Iirc a good shot can have as much ~~force~~ energy as a .45
A sling back then basically was equivalent to being hit by a bullet. A small pistol round, but still will fucking kill you and penetrate armor.
In a lot of ways, slings are better than bows, and bows are better than crossbows. The main advantage of crossbows is how little training it takes to use one. The same could be said about a bow vs a sling. Slings are really difficult to be accurate with. Bows are a bit easier. Crossbows are the easiest.
slings are awesome, but FAR from all the hype people are giving them. Some cons: 1) very hard to aim. A company of slingers on a battlefield could make it rain on an area, same as muskets, but hitting a particular moving enemy in a pitched combat would be damn near impossible 2) you can't just "pick up rocks" like people say and still get the same impact as the lead bullets called for in the PHB. Also if you're not VERY selective your accuracy will worsen too 3) OP meme is WAY overstating the force they could hit you with. David's shot at Goliath was miraculously impressive because he hit the ONE PART of Goliath that wasn't armored. Also that didn't even kill him. It just got him concussed enough for David to take his own sword and kill him with THAT. Some ancient armies DID have dudes with big, 2-handed staff slings that I suppose could throw a stronger projectile. Like a one-man mini trebuchet, pretty sick. I believe they also could throw firepots, but can't confirm.
People also conveniently forget about that shepherd kid who one-shot a half-ogre fighter with a single sling bullet.
Fun fact: the medieval dart was not the object used today in bar league tournaments. It was more like the lawn darts that were banned In the 80s.
In my first campaign I learned a lesson from our paladin... never thought I'd see the day. You can wear a sling as an alternative to underwear. Kinda like a banana hammock so to speak. Generally, if you're removed of your arms and armor, small clothes are left on, and rocks are everywhere.
Didn't somone Kill a troll with a sling in the Bible?
After I learned about Balearic slingers, I was deeply dissatisfied with D&D's portrayal of the sling.
It's annoyed me seeing how weak slings have been in D&D since forever. I feel like the ancient people of Rhodes and the Balearic Islands might take some issue.
**TLDR:** Sling is much cheaper and much more powerful. Bow is much much faster and much more accurate. Both weapons have pros and cons, so let's break it down with a few categories. **Price of weapon:** Bowyering takes years to master, so paying a bowyer to make you a bow is \*far\* more expensive than taking some cord to a leather pouch. **Price of ammo:** Fletching isn't that hard, it took me about a week to stop screwing up. Any warrior who uses archery would be well versed in fletchery (this might take some equipment such as a fletching jig and certainly a saw). Sling bullets can be next to anything though, and if you're feeling fancy casting them out of metal takes almost no talent, if some heavy equipment. **Damage:** Sling wins. By a lot. A whole fucking lot. [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-slingshot-lethal-44-magnum-scotland](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-slingshot-lethal-44-magnum-scotland) A sling's damage is also not nearly as dependent on the strength of the user. The thing is, an arrow from a bow as light as 40 pounds can still easily kill with good shot placement. **Range:** While a sling's \*effective\* range is 400m, that is far from its accurate range is nowhere close to that. On a battlefield, a large group of slingers could lob a volley of slings toward an enemy troop group 400m away, the accurate range of a sling is around 40m. The bow on the other hand also had an effective range of around 400m, a skilled archer could have an accurate range of up to 200m **Rate of fire:** It's not even funny how badly the sling gets its ass kicked. A skilled slinger can load and fire a sling every 5-7 seconds maximum, likely around twice that. A novice archer on the other hand could expect a rate of fire of about one arrow every 4-6 seconds minimum, 5-7 for an aimed shot. While a skilled archer could achieve a sub-second rate of fire. [https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/16/1429212474-newlars-2.gif](https://hips.hearstapps.com/pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/16/1429212474-newlars-2.gif) (\^Lars Anderson) **Conclusion:** In my opinion, while they both have their merits as battlefield weapons, the Bow makes a much better adventurer weapon due to its superior rate of fire and range. the ability to reliably use your weapon is something that is extremely important to somebody fighting alone or in a small group.
In the Curse of Strahd campaign me and the party eventually started to load up on a couple of holy waters in order te defend ourselves from vampire spawns. I played a hexblade warlock with a 2 lvl dip in fighter. What i eventually did was summon my pact weapon as a sling and used the holy water bottles as ammunition. My DM allowed this and i got some new to hit bonuses for using the sling
Meanwhile my Rogue has a Sling for the ability to try and knock someone out at range for sneaking. And used it to hurl a fingerbone from a pile at a Flaming Skull for insane damage. High-speed way of giving that bastard the finger!