Re: Battle - ballistics.

>so, you have a trade-off between range and damage. a heavy bolt will be
>slower but hurt more *for the same ballista*. all things being equal
>however, a heavier ballista would have longer range.
>perhaps if you're very fond of bookkeeping you could have special rules
>for unusually light/heavy ammunition, but frankly i don't think it's
>worth it. physics is screwy enough in SJ to make such arguments tenuous
>at best, and i think it's more interesting as an intellectual diversion
>than anything else..

The easiest fix would be to simply reverse the ranges, use Lt ballista
ranges for heavy ballista, and so on.  I've tried this in the past, and it
works okay but of course you have to constantly redo the ranges and explain
it as such to your players:)  Since there might be a good reason for the
change that no one has thought of yet (some sort of science thing we
missed) and the balance as it is set up isn't too hard to maintain, I
usually end up going back to the official charts:)

"We look on the same stars,  the sky is common,  the same world surrounds
us.  What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth?  We
can not attain to so great a secret by one road..."
Symmachus,  "Memorial on the Occasion of the Removal of the Altar of
Victory from the Senate House" (392 AD)

Paul Westermeyer,  westermeyer.3@???.edu
Phd Candidate, History, Ohio State
Adjunct Faculty, Humanities Department, Columbus State Community College