I think that within the granularity of 5e the distinction between composite and non composite is meaningless. The nomenclature used in D&D is also misleading and is a legacy carryover. The real distinction is between hunting bows and war bows. The former represented by short bows and the latter by long bows. Just add in war and hunting composite bows with the same stats as the corresponding bows.Hello!
So, I wanted to add the Composite Longbow and the Composite Shortbow to my games, but I'm finding it a little difficult to convert it over from when I use to play until now. While looking around, I found that the last edition to have it was 3.5, but I don't have the books for it. There are a few things running through my mind on this, but basically, I want to bring these over because I play with a few that want to be able to use them again. I was thinking of just using the short and longbow already there, but reading around, a lot of people either say it really doesn't work, or that it works too well and now I'm confused. What I want to know is:
I have a few more questions that are running through my head, but these ones seem to just stick out to me right now. Mainly I just want to bring these back because I feel they added to the variety of ranged weapons, but I don't want to throw anything too out of whack. Any and all help with this is greatly appreciated.
- Why did they ever get rid of it from 3.5?
- Has anyone ever converted it from older editions with any success?
- Is there a mathematical equation or anything that I could use on older editions to convert weapons, much like monsters?
- Would having these in the game take away from ranged classes in some way and is that the reason they are gone?
If you want some more distinction maybe replace d8 with 2d4 or d6 with d6+1 or d4+2 or whatever.