Getting ready for surprise combat?

[PalladiumBrony]

One thing I've never seen covered, probably because the writers deemed it an annoyance(?) is how long it takes to get ready for combat.

Obviously if you're a sensible adventurer, in any situation where you're expecting a fight you would be at least vaguely prepared - wearing some minimal armour and carrying at least a dagger. And even if you weren't "ready", some things are obvious in how long they take - drawing a weapon costs one action, and I presume strapping a weapon to your belt could be done similarly quickly, but there's a couple of things that never seem to have been considered:

Stringing a bow: With the exception of crossbows and modern compound bows (which obviously don't exist in Palladium, unless I missed something?), a bow should not be left strung when it is not in use - doing so causes undue stress on the limbs and can, over time, damage the bow's effectiveness. I've never strung a bow myself so I don't know how quickly a skilled archer could string a longbow, a shortbow or a composite bow under "literally being attacked right now" circumstances.
Donning armour: I use the rules from the Compendium of Weapons, Armour and Castles, which provides for all sorts of armour combinations, but gives no indication how long it takes to put everything on. A knight should not wear full plate any longer than he has to (Adventures in Dinosaur Swamp has some handy rules for what happens when you wear lots of armour for hours or days on end - short answer: Rashes and ulcers!) and obviously you wouldn't try and put on an entire suit of plate once the fight has already started, unless you were sure there were enough men between you and the enemy to give you the time.

[Kraynic]

You won't be stringing a bow if you are being attacked "right now". This is one of the many tutorial videos on youtube for stringing a bow. If nothing else, a close attacker would have little problem damaging or destroying your weapon while you were stringing the thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHd1bHl0i4A

As far as the heavy armor goes, I would be tempted to use the chart from Pathfinder for the time required to don armor. Scale the time as needed for piecemeal armor. I don't know how accurate any of this might be, but any time longer than an action or possibly a single melee round would likely be too long to bother with when under fire.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipmenT/armo ... t-of-Armor
If the characters are in an area where they expect there to be danger, I usually assume anyone on watch is fully armored unless they say otherwise. Anyone with heavy armor that is resting, I usually treat them as if they still have the padding on, so will give them the equivalent of cloth or soft leather armor if they don't have time to don the outer layer. Of course, this is assuming the group is operating in a climate where you won't get cooked doing that.

[PalladiumBrony]

You won't be stringing a bow if you are being attacked "right now". This is one of the many tutorial videos on youtube for stringing a bow. If nothing else, a close attacker would have little problem damaging or destroying your weapon while you were stringing the thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHd1bHl0i4A

As far as the heavy armor goes, I would be tempted to use the chart from Pathfinder for the time required to don armor. Scale the time as needed for piecemeal armor. I don't know how accurate any of this might be, but any time longer than an action or possibly a single melee round would likely be too long to bother with when under fire.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipmenT/armo ... t-of-Armor
If the characters are in an area where they expect there to be danger, I usually assume anyone on watch is fully armored unless they say otherwise. Anyone with heavy armor that is resting, I usually treat them as if they still have the padding on, so will give them the equivalent of cloth or soft leather armor if they don't have time to don the outer layer. Of course, this is assuming the group is operating in a climate where you won't get cooked doing that.

Oh wow, that's quite impressive! Looking at that video (which was him going slowly to show you how it works) I have no trouble believing a skilled archer could realise he's suddenly under attack, and have his bow strung and ready to shoot in the space of just an action.

[Kraynic]

Oh wow, that's quite impressive! Looking at that video (which was him going slowly to show you how it works) I have no trouble believing a skilled archer could realise he's suddenly under attack, and have his bow strung and ready to shoot in the space of just an action.

Keep in mind, though, that he was probably using bows with only 1/3 to 1/2 the pull weight of what an adventurer would likely be using to demonstrate in those videos. The easily available bows (outside of compound of course) are 50lbs and below draw weight, with the recommendation for beginners to start down around 30ish. Not only that, but a low draw weight bow helps keep you from looking silly on a video.

Longbows are often up around 120 lb., though there are definitely some up above 200 (you better have some tough fingers by then). The short horn horsebows used by the mongols were rumored to be around 80. If the adventurers are using bows that are effective to the ranges in the books, they aren't likely to be at the low end of draw weight. They will be more difficult to string in a hurry than what is shown there. Not saying it is impossible, but just saying it won't as easy as it looks there.

A bit different video (that may be hamming it up a little, but gives you an idea how tough a heavy longbow could be to string).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY9_J4lL0tY