This is a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but would you consider (if just for a moment) having arrows that do not automatically shatter into kindling upon striking an opponent? When archers have to go into a dungeon with 60+ arrows, it's just getting silly. Wouldn't it be great to go in with just one quiver?
I haven't put a lot of thought into the actual mechanics, but how about something like this:
"Arrows are not automatically destroyed by striking (or missing) a target though a target struck can snap all arrows currently imbedded in them with a standard action. Arrows are assumed to survive combat (hit or miss) unless purposefully destroyed. Those which hit are assumed to end up in the creature struck. Those which miss may be lost or too far away to recover depending on the situation. Enchanted arrows lose their enchantment after the attack, but the arrow itself is unaffected (and still masterwork quality)."
Some clarity on whether long bow and shortbow arrows are interchangeable would also be useful (same for hand/light/heavy crossbow ammo).
I never noticed this was a rule or house ruled it so long ago i forgot.
How we have done it is 25% an arrow brakes . simple 76 or higher on D100 and its gone.
From a reality point of view, arrows break. Nearly every time. Either when the victim falls, or in trying to extract the arrow. There is a good reason that modern arrows are made from aluminum and not wood. And even those need to be replaced regularly.
Some clarity on whether long bow and shortbow arrows are interchangeable would also be useful (same for hand/light/heavy crossbow ammo).
Strictly from a reality point of view, they are not interchangeable - normally.
But for gameplay, I don't see either of these not following realism as a problem. Depends on your group really. Mine likes a bit more realistic.
I have an elegant houserule for this. If the d20 roll is odd, the arrow breaks. If even, it survives.
Whether the arrow hits or misses is irrelevant.
This obviates the need for a second roll or calculation. The player only erases an arrow if the attack roll is odd.
We have done this since 1988 in my games. No problem so far.
that's a nice role man . I may try that out soon.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ammunition[/size]
"The Black Arrow was forged by Thror the Dwarf, who was "King Under The (Lonely) Mountain", and ultimately was destroyed when Bard used it for target practice against a swallow, thereby dooming most of Middle Earth."
The ammunition rules are in need of adjustment. And that's not just because having a shuriken get destroyed permanently every time it hits is really dumb. It's almost balanced to have magic arrows cost about 1/50th of what a real magic weapon does and then explode when used like they were bullets or something. Almost. But it is also dumb, so we're putting our foot down.[br][br]Magic Arrows are supposed to be awesome. Some of them even have names. I cannot recall any story where an insipid adventurer went to War with 137 magic arrows and then called it a day when every one of them had been fired once. So here's the new rubric: the cost of enchanting a magical arrow is a mere 1/10th that of enchanting a weapon (move the decimal place over one place), and magical arrows are always recoverable. That's part of what makes them magic. Of course, just because it's recoverable, doesn't mean that you will actually recover it. If you shoot three arrows into a guy and then you run away, chances are good that he has your arrow.
Heck, even regular ammunition is way too fragile in D&D. Shuriken are fairly reusable even after you pull them out of the eye of a fallen foe. And we're fine with that. A good rule of thumb is that an item of ammunition is no longer usable if it inflicts more damage that it has hardness. And precision damage, such as Sneak Attack, Death Attack, and Sudden Strike, does not count. So yeah, Shuriken aren't going to break on impact with small children, happy birthday.
Naturally enough, there are still one-use arrows in the world. Alchemical arrows, such as fire arrows or poison arrows, are generally not as useful after they've been shot into an appropriate target. Those don't require magical forging however, and don't really count as magic weapons. One use ranged weapons should be marked as such (such as the vial of acid, hard to reuse that one).
-Frank
There's a good reason for havinga arrows break: It means you don't have to go FIND them!
By the rules, an Arrow from a composite longbow can fly over one thousand feet! It's easy enough to assume 'hits' are imbedded in the target (even though passing all the way through is possible), but what about misses? Are they in the wall behind it? Maybe if it's a clean miss. What about it it was deflected by shield or armor? Did it go down the hallway? Did it fall into the bottomless pit of death? Shouldn't a wooden arrow break when it strikes a stone wall? What if you're outside?
Love the LotR scenario, that's funny.
Just to nitpick, the archer in your example would only get to fire each arrow once if all 137 of them hit, in 3.5 arrows that miss have a 50% chance of not breaking.
As mentioned in the bottom of this thread, I use basically the same house rule as Taliesin, except I don't worry about what sided die I use. I might try his even/odd thing instead of high/low just to try something new.
Hell, some people don't even bother tracking arrows, and some fudge it when the DM isn't looking. This is kind of a book-keeping detail that can be easily omitted or modified by house rule, so I don't think it's worth wasting a lot of ink on in the rulebook.
I would simply maintain the present official rule, mention the option of not tracking ammo usage (except special arrows), and indicate that DMs who want to do things differently can do so without greatly altering the game.
Part of the reason a high-level ranger needs an arsenal-load of arrows is the iterative attacks plus rapid shot. But then the game assumes that one will have extradimensional storage by the time you're high-level enough to need so many arrows in combat.
In some campaigns, players have ample opportunity to refill their quivers from those of slain enemies anyhow.
The main point is to make sure people can't just keep re-using that +1 arrow over and over. Unless you change the price to reflect its re-usability.
There are a couple of issues with magic arrows.
The biggest "issue," is don't use magic arrows.
Since 3.5 negated (rightfully so) enhancement bonuses from missile weapons and their ammo stacking, their is no reason to enchant the ammo except to "break" the max +10 bonus rule without going epic.
|
Disenchanter,
Thats not necessarily true. I had an archer in my group who used to get his arrows enchanted for variety more then anything. He had a rather high powered bow, so adding any additional enhancements upon it would have been very costly because of the ways things scale, so instead he would pick up ammo that he would enhance with specific things in mind, whether they were simply cold iron or silver weapons that had alignments added to them(so when fired they were considered aligned and magic for DR), or if they were things like bane arrows for different races or some arrows with far shot on them. All sorts of things that are more or less 'just in case'. Bonuses may not stack, but when bonuses come from multiple sources you take the higher of them(the bow's bonus in this case, while using whatever properties the arrow in question had on it).
-Tarlane
|
|
We've been using the 50/50 break rule as long as I can remember, regardless of what the rules state.
It's kind of amusing having the bow ranger in the group scrounging for intact arrows and trying to extract them from felled enemies when they expect to be stuck away from friendly territory, I have to say ^_^
|
|
I negate the issue IMC by being lax on (non-magical) ammo tracking :-p
Every now and then, I have the PCs buy ammo in town, but as long as they're just using mundane ammo, I assume they've got enough ammo between what they have left in their quiver, what they pull out of the bodies, and what they loot from dead enemy archers. Magic or special arrows I enforce tracking on, but the other stuff is too book-keepy for us.
My campaigns are usually level 6 and under, and this method works great for us, YMMV.