woahboy wrote:
If someone is in the third row, the people in front of them are providing enough cover to stop you from stabbing them. Why is it that firing a bow seems to ignore that you're behind things? The arrows should be missing, or hitting the positions in front of the third rank person no?
Or is the archer shooting the arrows upwards in an arc and letting them come down? If that's the case, the person being shot at has much more time to move or raise their shield, I would think, incurring an accuracy penalty.
Thoughts?
At distances of less than 20 meters, an arrow flies with enough velocity, and carries enough force to penetrate plate mail.
Most of the loss of accuracy with ranged weaponry comes from heightened fight and flight responses. The average response of police in the current day with their firearms is roughly a 12% accuracy shot in high stress scenarios. In that regard, archers in SK are far above and beyond the shots of your modern police force. Small arms fire can also be repelled (Ned Kelly) by armor plating.
With the speed that projectiles are launched versus the reaction time of the average combatant, I don't see why "being in the way" would be an issue.
A lot of the combat in SK is highly romanticized to fit action movie tropes. Fights don't actually go the way of Jackie Chan, or Bruce Lee movies. If someone is close enough to you that they can touch you with your hand you have already been punched, should they decide to go that route of action. The same concept is in play here. You cannot react to the velocity of the arrow. The only thing that would affect the shooter is if he didn't have balls of steel. If anything the hapless newb in the third row that has no martial combat training would be standing straight up, and be an easier target as stances in martial arts tend to lower the fighter to the ground for increased stability from lowering the center of gravity. The only way I can see it going the other way is if there's a giant or centaur in the way in which case they'll take up more space by merit of being larger.