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2 years ago ::
Mar 18, 2011 - 1:16PM
#21
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Usually people are good at saying I look for my arrows after a fight
Except, as I say for like the fourth time this thread, you can't recover ammunition after a fight.
I would rather have a small quiver and it never come up than think some can actually meaningfull carry all their gear and 150 plus arrows.
Except that it's already been demonstrated that doing so is rather easy.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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2 years ago ::
Mar 19, 2011 - 12:28AM
#22
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I don't do arrow tracking. It takes away more than it adds, for my money. It's never a minor issue - it's a nonissue until the last arrow leaves the quiver, and then it escalates to a matter of life and death. There's no in-between spot where it's important, but not critical. It's always either pointless or game-breaking.
It's also unfair, when you get right down to it. You don't track fatigue, which is what limits melee fighters in practice. We stopped tracking spells when we chucked out Vancian spellcasting. Weapon breakage isn't covered, and isn't fair in itself. This game makes a few prefunctory swipes at simulationism, but at its heart it's about heroic storytelling. The hero has as many shots as he needs to Get the Job Done, just like the guy in eighty pounds of ironmongery swinging his ten pound cleaver holds the line until the last foe falls, and then (and only then) has to catch his breath.
If you don't let it become a life-or-death concern, one that turns one person in the group into dead weight, then it's just a bunch of bookkeeping that never amounts to anything. Yeah, he'd be a dead man if he never restocked his arrows. He'd also be a dead man if he never stopped to excrete waste, but I'm not running the session into the privvy to make sure the players are remembering every detail of keeping an imaginary person alive.
Thank you, Kaganfindel. That was what I was going for, but you said it much better. That brand of "immersive gameplay" is really, really unpleasant from a storytelling point of view, which is the best reason to leave it out of the story you choose to tell at the table.
Anyone strongly in favor of arrow tracking want to discuss Kagan's point?
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2 years ago ::
Mar 22, 2011 - 9:02PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2009
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According to the online Compendium, arrows come in groups of 30 - and already in a quiver.
So obviously one quiver can hold at least 30 arrows.
(Crossbow bolts, by the way, come in groups of 20 and also in a quiver.)
That quiver and arrows, together, weigh 3 pounds and cost 1 GP.
For simultaneous carry... I've done a bit of archery, not a lot, but assuming that a Ranger averages 3 arrows per round for an average of 10 rounds per combat, I see no problem with assuming he can carry enough arrows for at least 6 combat encounters (and probably 10) while needing only couple minor actions during each rest to get a full quiver into position.
For longer trips, disassembled arrows (a stack of shafts, a box of heads, a box of feathers) pack much more closely than assembled arrows do, and you don't need to be able to get one out easily. Figure that a quiver holds 90 prepared shafts, and the prepared heads and fletchings for two quivers are the equivalent of a ritual book - that sounds about right. If there is a pack animal, or a wagon, or a ship, there is REALLY not a problem.
Cost? 10 GP maximum to get through level 1, during which time the character's share of the party's not-a-usable-magic-item treasure is 145 GP. Then another 10 GP maximum for level 2, while the character gets 220 GP. At level 3, another 10 GP maximum outlay for arrows, while the character gets 271 GP. At level 4... you see where this is going.
The DM has to really work to create a situation where tracking ammunition makes sense.
(This is why the Endless Quiver is so absurd. Ten hard encounters per level for 30 levels is 300 quivers = 300 GP, and probably less than that. The Endless Quiver shouldn't be seen before level 5, so 40 of those 300 are already spent, making the EQ worth a maximum of 260. Want to buy one? If available, the price is 4,200. Frankly, based on its benefit to the players, it should be downgraded to level 2 and given an additional minor property.)
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
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2 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2011 - 3:46PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Mar 12, 2011
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Can't recover arrows?? We are actually talking about realism and it is impossible to recover a single arrow. Do they dissappear into the same worm hole as left socks in the wash.
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2 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2011 - 3:48PM
#25
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Can't recover arrows?? We are actually talking about realism and it is impossible to recover a single arrow. Do the dissappear into the same worm hole as left socks in the wash.
Arrows are fragile. They break. Them's the rules; if you want to house rule, that's fine, but as written, ammunition is not recoverable, period, at all.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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2 years ago ::
Mar 27, 2011 - 8:33PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Sep 30, 2006
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Can't recover arrows?? We are actually talking about realism and it is impossible to recover a single arrow. Do they dissappear into the same worm hole as left socks in the wash.
wooden arrows shot from even a moderatly powered bow usually break if they hit anything other than a soft target. and an arrow shot into an emeny was probably broken off during battle anyway.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 07, 2011 - 1:08PM
#27
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Date Joined:
Jul 13, 2008
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In my game, we are in the middle of an extended adventure away from civilization. My character had 120 arrows when we began the adventure and is now down to about 50. To conserve ammo, she has resorted to throwing a +1 dagger at nearby enemies when high damage is not critical. If we ever encounter an archer enemy, she will definitely be killing and looting him as quickly as possible.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 07, 2011 - 1:36PM
#28
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Date Joined:
May 14, 2002
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I personally find tracking ammunition to be a chore in a game that already has a tendency to get bogged down in numbers, both as a player and as a DM. I just assume my character/players have enough ammunition to get the job done, and they restock when they get supplies the next time they visit a town. If they're out in the wilderness for long periods of time . . . well surely they recover some of their arrows, take arrows off of dead enemies, or scrounge them up in ruins and the like.
Having said that, there are plenty of people who find it more enjoyable to try to simulate reality more closely. If that's your bag, go for it, but if you're a DM, make sure to tell your players before hand.
TL;DR: What people above said, but slightly less scorn for those who prefer to keep track of arrows.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 07, 2011 - 7:13PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2010
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In my game, we are in the middle of an extended adventure away from civilization. My character had 120 arrows when we began the adventure and is now down to about 50. To conserve ammo, she has resorted to throwing a +1 dagger at nearby enemies when high damage is not critical. If we ever encounter an archer enemy, she will definitely be killing and looting him as quickly as possible.
In my mind, this is just a tax on the character. Your pals are going to be plowing away with swords and spells while you're forced to count each and every arrow. It may be realistic, but since it isn't applied across the board, you are unneccesarily hindering yourself.
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2 years ago ::
Apr 08, 2011 - 8:53PM
#30
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In my game, we are in the middle of an extended adventure away from civilization. My character had 120 arrows when we began the adventure and is now down to about 50. To conserve ammo, she has resorted to throwing a +1 dagger at nearby enemies when high damage is not critical. If we ever encounter an archer enemy, she will definitely be killing and looting him as quickly as possible.
In my mind, this is just a tax on the character. Your pals are going to be plowing away with swords and spells while you're forced to count each and every arrow. It may be realistic, but since it isn't applied across the board, you are unneccesarily hindering yourself.
This. And as I quoted the lovely point above, we don't track other meaningful realistic limitations on characters continually attacking forever, like that fact that swinging a mordenkrad once or twice every six seconds indefinitely while wearing heavy armor is tiring enough to not be physically viable beyond a certain number of rounds. That one's a little easier to handwave than the idea of running out of arrows because it's not numerically visible when you picture the action in your mind, but it's no less realistic to skip than skipping arrow tracking is. And if you start working that way, all you're really doing is nerfing the martial power source (mostly, I guess crossbow artificers are going to have similar problems and need to fall back on implement powers or a melee weapon eventually, as will seekers) because you're taking its nonmagical status literally in a game where even "non-magical" abilities commonly transcend the laws of physics by wide margins, but primal, divine, arcane and psionic abilities get a pass because they're "magic" and we expect that.
Again, if you really think tracking individual arrows is going to make the game more fun for both the DM and the players, it's certainly not wrong in any essential sense to do that. It just seems like sort of an arbitrary time to start caring about realism in a combat system that's less based on realism than any previous edition.
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