[Any, but mainly OD&D] Thrown Weapon Physics (1 Viewer)

[talysman]

I was thinking about a different approach to setting the short/medium/long range for throwing daggers, rocks and other weapons or objects. I posted an idea to my blog: set the range of thrown weapons equal to Strength/3 in 1" increments (10 feet underground, 10 yards outdoors, for those of you who play modern editions.)

There was some discussion about whether the physics of throwing daggers would even work that way, on that post and on the follow-up. So I decided to open the discussion to a wider audience: For an item of a given weight, can a stronger person throw it farther than a weaker person? If not pure strength, what about mass? Does a stone thrower with a beefy arm and build transfer more momentum to the stone at the time of release, or does the greater force needed to move that massive arm mean that the acceleration is identical?

 

[IvanMike]

http://www.knifethrowing.info/physics_of_knife_throwing.html

that's way too much information, but you get the point. You can also look up physics of throwing balls, etc.

A long story short - yes a stronger person can throw an abject faster and farther (assuming technique and skill are identical). This goes hand in hand with BD&D and AD&D ideas that STR would affect damage of hurled missiles. (if you want to get technical, at the end of their ranges the damage bonus should go away, as by that time the missile has lost momentum, but then you really have to do some calculating way above what should be in D&D - perhaps). As the end of the link indicates, at least with knives, accuracy can suffer with a hard throw. However, in objects that are either rotationally symmetrical, or so massive that they're going to cause damage anyway, (a hand axe that hits blunt side might just do 1 point of damage, but it's still going to hurt!) this becomes less of an issue.

I think the idea of increased range is a good one. That would extend S-M-L ranges accordingly, and since D&D is terrible at really simulating real world physics, I think you can get away with some approximate arbitrary figures like you're considering in your blog. I might steal it. Of course, in versions where STR does affect damage, (let's take basic moldvay modifiers), one could say that this is reduced by 1 at medium range and another 1 (or 2) at long range. This does of course assume a lot, including the arc the object gets thrown/slung at, and adds in the further conundrum of "why doesn't range affect damage negatively for everyone?", so perhaps it's best to let that sleeping dog lie.

 

[Severion]

I agree in principle that strength should affect distance thrown (and have my own house rule in 3e to reflect this) but skill is much more of a factor. i have a fenced in drainage area next to my house and can throw a rock about 3/4 of the way accross it, my buddy's nephew who is no where near a strong as i am but much more athletic can hit the roof of the house on the other side w/o much effort.
No idea how i'de include this in a game w/o bogging things down.

 

[Epoch]

Mass of the person throwing the object does not affect the distance thrown. The distance thrown is going to be a factor of the speed of the item at release, the orientation of the item and its aeroedynamic properties, mass of the object thrown, etc. But not the mass of the thrower.

 

[talysman]

Mass of the person throwing the object does not affect the distance thrown. The distance thrown is going to be a factor of the speed of the item at release, the orientation of the item and its aeroedynamic properties, mass of the object thrown, etc. But not the mass of the thrower.

I was thinking in terms of momentum. The mass of the thrown object and of the thrower's arm form a system; thus, when someone uses their entire body to throw instead of just their wrist, or hand and forearm, they impart more momentum to the projectile.

 

[Epoch]

I was thinking in terms of momentum. The mass of the thrown object and of the thrower's arm form a system; thus, when someone uses their entire body to throw instead of just their wrist, or hand and forearm, they impart more momentum to the projectile.

Nope.

The momentum of the object can be completely described by the following equation:

Momentum (of the object) = Mass (of the object) * Velocity (of the object)

You being heavier does not increase the mass of the object. The velocity of the object at the outset is equal to the velocity of your hand when you release the object -- there is no magical creation of additional velocity that comes from your gut. Being fatter also does not mean that you can move your hand faster.

Thus: your mass is utterly irrelevant to the speed that the object moves at (and, thus, the distance it travels).

(EDIT: I suppose that if you were light as a feather, when you tried to throw the object, you'd end up pitching yourself over backwards instead. For anything within, say, an order of magnitude of realism, this will obviously not happen. The "recoil" of throwing objects is negligible.)

 

[B Nakagawa]

It depends largely on the type of thrown weapon.

If it is a weapon that relies on mass, then strength is most important. A man who can't heft a boulder has a throw range of 0, a man with a belt of giant strength has a much longer throw range. In this case, skill doesn't matter one bit if you lack the strength.

If it is a weapon that relies on technique, precision and speed, then skill probably trumps strength. If you compare the effective ranges of a skilled sling user and an inexperienced sling user with a belt of giant strength, I'll go with a skilled slinger every day. I've tried using slings, they're tricky.

 

[B Nakagawa]

Nope.

The momentum of the object can be completely described by the following equation:

Momentum (of the object) = Mass (of the object) * Velocity (of the object)

You being heavier does not increase the mass of the object. The velocity of the object at the outset is equal to the velocity of your hand when you release the object -- there is no magical creation of additional velocity that comes from your gut. Being fatter also does not mean that you can move your hand faster.

Thus: your mass is utterly irrelevant to the speed that the object moves at (and, thus, the distance it travels).

(EDIT: I suppose that if you were light as a feather, when you tried to throw the object, you'd end up pitching yourself over backwards instead. For anything within, say, an order of magnitude of realism, this will obviously not happen. The "recoil" of throwing objects is negligible.)

His point is not completely invalid.

Given that the OP is asking about thrown weapons, your power source is muscle power, which means that, up to a point, more muscle mass will add range to your throw. The tipping point being where adding muscle reduces range of motion and flexibility)

In at least some cases, those being the launching of heavy objects e.g. the hammer throw, added mass actually increases the maximum throw range because of the spin technique. If you don't weigh enough, you can't spin as fast and since the technique uses rotation to generate range, a very light person can never throw as far as a bulkier person, no matter what their skill.

 

[Julius Sleazer]

This goes hand in hand with BD&D and AD&D ideas that STR would affect damage of hurled missiles.

I play B/X, in which STR does not affect missile range or damage. Does it do so in Holmes, BECMI, and/or RC?

 

[badmojo26]

i dont think strength should affect thrown damage or distance thrown. I do have some reasoning behind this and its real world.

At school athletics i was really good at shot put, i am not talking olympic standards but i was good enough to get first in my school division. Now if strength was the only factor i should have been good at discus and javelin but i can tell you i was not. No matter how hard i tried to throw the javelin i was useless at it. The same went for the discus. At the time it was a real let down but since it was 20 years ago it doesnt matter now.

What i think is that technique is way more important than strength for determining distance and power. I had a good technique with shot put so it worked but lacked technique in discus and javelin.

So in most game systems if you know how to use the weapon then you already have a good technique so the damage done and distance thrown should be what is written. So for an unskilled person using the same weapons you could lower the damage and distance thrown to show the lack of technique and skill.

Its only a thought tho and i could be rambling.