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Originally posted by Butterfingers:
I am a very short person, 5 foot 5 with shoes on. And I have used long bows larger then six foot long in the stave.
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Butterfingers, no disrespect, but 3 inches shorter than the male average isn't "very short." (The girl I went out with in high school is 4'11" and has never weighed more than 90 pounds.) But if you want to talk about....
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....a real life dwarf, a Pitituary Dwarf. He stands about 4 foot tall and he uses long bows just fine. He holds his sideways however.
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....then I should point out that the difficulty in short people using Long Bows is not the angle at which the bow is held, but the length of the arms. A Human can draw a bow and get a pull of about 3 feet, if he hauls that sucker all the way back to the shoulder. A hypothetical Dwarf, using the same Bow and also drawing to the shoulder, would only get about 2 feet. Shorter pull = less powerful draw = shorter range and less damaging when it gets there. And that's
if the Dwarf is able to hold the Bow perpendicular to the ground.
Aeschylus, while spears and assorted polearms do indeed come in a wide variety of sizes, short spears are by no means strictly ceremonial. The Vikings used 2 types for thrusting and throwing, and both sorts were about the height of the user. I have no problem whatsoever with the image of a Dwarven Viking, fighting with Spear & Shield. (I don't know if the Vikings used spear-throwers, though. And is the term "atlatl" native to any specific part of the world?"
But you do seem to have a point on your "short & stocky" issue. Long limbs do indeed grant a higher top speed and can impart a great deal of leverage to a comparatively light weapon....but then again, shorter limbs give better
acceleration and can put more leverage onto heavy weapons. Still, for this reason, long limbs would definitely be better, since most Staves are rather on the lightweight side (unless they're made of things like solid rattan, etc.)