A typical deer has an AC of 14 and CMD of 15 (with CMD 19 versus trip). If the deer is surprised both of these are penalized by the same amount.
A typical hunter has average ability scores. His or her Strength and Dexterity are the same. He or she has the same chance to succeed with a weapon attack or combat maneuver.
Without a special feat, a hunter who charges can gain a 10% (+2) bonus to hit but only for a attack with a melee weapon or combat maneuver.
The result? Hunters in Golarion are 5% more successful with charging up to a deer and grabbing it than hitting it with an arrow or spear.
Typically it will be very hard for hunters to come within charging range and a clear area to be charging, the scent and perception of most animals make that very hard. Typical hunting tactics might be to trap a deer in a dead end boundary of some kind or having multiple hunters to chase a deer down, otherwise a ranged attack will be your best option typically.
And this is why rich people hunt on horseback with a pack of dogs. Then it's just a matter of following your dogs to where they have the deer cornered/grappled and dealing the killing blow(s).
Alternatively you could do it how people do it today. Hang out in a tree and wait for a deer to meander by. Then shoot it. Rifle, longbow, same difference.
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actually wouldn't the average weapon be something like a light or heavy crossbow as most npc's save warriors are only proficient with either simple weapons or 1 simple weapon? If you take that into account you can assume that the hunter can also go prone making him harder to spot (granting concealment if he's on anything other then basically dry earth) plus a larger base damage of a d8 or d10 and a crit range of 19-20/x2 which would be far more helpful to the average commoner who probably has a low to average strength rating. Also they posses longer ranges.
Yes, you do realise that killing a fully grown deer with a shortbow is not exactly an easy feat, right?
Options:
a) go for young ones. Easier to hit and easier to kill.
b) use traps
c) use poison
d) hunt in groups
e) use dogs
Also the default NPC array is 13,12,11,10,9,8 not 6x10. Add the +2 human bonus and you get a 15 in his major stat.
True that stat could be strength, so the charging thing would still work. And you're right it would be more likely to hit. But then the hunter has a big problem: He's now in melee with an animal that has 3 natural attacks and is very pissed. There's a reason hunters don't do that :)
Use a composite longbow instead of a shortbow and maybe have a level in rogue for sneak attack, or ranger for favorite terrain makes a difference too.
But in the real world, nailing that deer with a couple of arrows might not kill it outright, but it will begin bleeding out pretty quickly.
In the real world, wounds aren't either 'instantly fatal' or 'no worries'. This is where the abstraction breaks down. Shock, infection, blood loss etc, not very well covered.
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Well first lets admit DnD in this way(and some others) doesn't measure up to RL very well at all.
My dad is a avid deer hunter, he hunts with a compound bow, crossbow and rifle. In all three cases you have to hit the deer in the heart or other vital organ. If not you have to track the deer sometimes for miles to wait for it to bleed out.(running, heart pumping, makes it bleed out faster)
So in DnD to get close to that, i think you would need to make a expert class that got a sneak attack bonus with ranged weapons.
Not sneak attack, but rather the ability to inflict the Rogues Bleed ability.
I had a low level campaign Rogue that used that as his main means of assassination. A Handcrossbow bolt in the back at the local Bazaar style... in a low end campaign, proper medical attention for such a wound is rather scarce.
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Well i would say sneak attack, cause good hunters are good at hitting the heart and dropping the dear before it can take more than a few steps. If they followed the rogue SA then by 3rd level hunter would have a reasonable shot at dropping a deer with one shot. 3d6 from bow and SA combined. With the deer having a avg 11hp and that attack doing a avg of 10.5
Of course you could throw in it does a 1 pt bleed attack as well, unless a heal check is made. Of course such a expert would make a good bandit too. :)
To bring the in-game (ruleswise) effect in line with the one expected from reality, I'd just assume that Golarion's hunters would use arrows (or bolts) similar to these whenever they lack a hunting team (or the sneak attack class feature).
But really, all you need to not starve is one point in Survival, and then you just take 10.
Survival DC Task
10 Get along in the wild. Move up to half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.
;)
Fun fact about survival:
A group (you need more than just one to take advantage of the law of large numbers) of commoners with 10 wisdom and 0 ranks in survival, and no other bonuses whatsoever on it, can feed up to nearly twice their number with survival :)
I did the math once, I think 100 people bring in food for 180 or so on average.
Fun fact about survival:
A group (you need more than just one to take advantage of the law of large numbers) of commoners with 10 wisdom and 0 ranks in survival, and no other bonuses whatsoever on it, can feed up to nearly twice their number with survival :)
I did the math once, I think 100 people bring in food for 180 or so on average.
Well, that more or less makes sense, doesn't it?
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Or you can take ranks in Survival, roll to find food in the wilderness, and when you roll enough for ten people you can claim you bagged a deer.
Deer are not the only animals that were and are hunted. They are just one of the largest. From what I have read, it took a great deal of energy to take down a deer but the meat would feed a large family for a couple of weeks. This is opposed to smaller animals like rabbits, rats, and snakes which took little energy to hunt but only read a few people for a day.
Buffalo, boar, rams, elk, and other large animals would take even more energy to hunt and kill. Typically these would be hunted by large groups that would try and herd an animal into a kill zone.
As for the gaming part of this conversation, why do we need rules for everything? The rules are not meant to be an exact simulation of life. If a player asks to hunt deer, I might just tell them to roll a survival check to track the deer, a stealth check to move close enough to it, and an attack roll to see if they hit it. Three successes means they have a deer.
Well, that more or less makes sense, doesn't it?Fun fact about survival:
A group (you need more than just one to take advantage of the law of large numbers) of commoners with 10 wisdom and 0 ranks in survival, and no other bonuses whatsoever on it, can feed up to nearly twice their number with survival :)
I did the math once, I think 100 people bring in food for 180 or so on average.
Alot of people seem to think "average result equals take 10" and with take 10 you can only feed yourself, that's why I mention it.
Alot of those 180 day rations will be stuff like rabbits or even berries or mushrooms etc. Then 20 of those 100 people worked together and bagged a deer, amounting for 50 of those 180 rations in just one animal or so.
The people hunting deer in Golarion would likely not be commoners, but rather experts, or perhaps most likely rangers with animal as their favored enemy.
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In soviet golarion deer hunt you.
A 1st level adept can cast sleep.
I had a boss who was a bow hunter in his younger days, and had framed photos on his office walls showing him with his kills. I can only assume he was higher than 1st level.
Funny thing though, he was famous for silently moving to where his people were working. Watching them, waiting for his chance to strike (with his words).
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The thing i think most people are forgetting is that the vast majority of NPC's who would be hunting for deer wouldn't be proficient with any type of bow at all as only the warrior and the aristocrat are proficient with them. This means that most Golarionites are probably only proficient with heavy or light crossbows at best. This means that most common folk are probably hunting deer with crossbows (most likely heavy) and some dogs used to chase them down and track it once they hit. That being said most commoners probably couldn't actually afford either a bow or crossbow and would probably be forced to either hunt with darts, spears, and other cheap simple weapons or to rely on npc hunters or experts who have turned hunting into a chosen profession.
The thing i think most people are forgetting is that the vast majority of NPC's who would be hunting for deer wouldn't be proficient with any type of bow (...)
I think the commoners who are hunting deer would be the ones who purchased martial weapon proficiency (bow) with their 1st level feat. It would indicate that indeed, only a minority of commoners would be hunters (most would grow or herd their food).
In feudal nations, commoners would not be allowed to hunt anyhow since they own no land (unless they are commissioned to do so by their lord). Aristocrats have the opportunity to hunt (even for sport) since they have the proficiencies with weapons, the wealth to afford dogs horses and men, the land and the leisure to spend time doing so.
Otherwise in many pre-feudal / borderland societies, warriors would often double as hunters (and vice-versa), so weapon proficiency isn't an issue there.
I could see elven commoners using bows alot actually. Couple of halfling slingers with a trained dog or two might work?
Greg
a 9th level adept can become invisible to sneak up on the deer, hit it with Sleep, kill it with Coup de Grace, then animate it to walk back to the village. Then cast Purify Food and Drink on it and serve it up for dinner.
Yum!
Couple of halfling slingers with a trained dog or two might work?
A halfling commoner might hit the thing, but is barely going to annoy it. A small sling does 1d3 damage, or 1d2 with a stone. The halfling is unlikely to have a significant Str bonus and may well have a penalty.
I suspect the dogs will be doing all the work.
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Well, speaking to Golarion specifically, most NPCs aren't 1st level. Indeed, only the most incompetent are that low.
Looking at the NPC Gallery, only the Village Idiot is Commoner 1.
Your standard Farmer is a Commoner 1/Expert 1, and (frankly), not a skilled hunter, so his unlikelihood of success is appropriate. Most farmers aren't exactly expert hunters.
A more typical professional hunter might use the stats of a Bandit has a composite longbow, and (from surprise, and with a 110 ft range increment) is likely to get two shots before the deer gets away, maybe three. That's more than enough to kill the creature if they hit...which they seem likely to.
So...I'd say people who should be able to kill a deer have a pretty good shot to do so.
You could always catch it in a trap like a pit or a net and then shoot it with stuff until it stops moving.
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The thing i think most people are forgetting is that the vast majority of NPC's who would be hunting for deer wouldn't be proficient with any type of bow (...)I think the commoners who are hunting deer would be the ones who purchased martial weapon proficiency (bow) with their 1st level feat. It would indicate that indeed, only a minority of commoners would be hunters (most would grow or herd their food).
In feudal nations, commoners would not be allowed to hunt anyhow since they own no land (unless they are commissioned to do so by their lord). Aristocrats have the opportunity to hunt (even for sport) since they have the proficiencies with weapons, the wealth to afford dogs horses and men, the land and the leisure to spend time doing so.
Otherwise in many pre-feudal / borderland societies, warriors would often double as hunters (and vice-versa), so weapon proficiency isn't an issue there.
That is true though I think most commoners would prefer crossbows to bows. First of all assuming normal stat array on a human commoner with a favored Dex bonus we are talking about a +2 atk with a d8 to d10 of damage and a 19-20/x2 crit at a minimum of 80ft much better then either bow type for the average commoner. This is compounded by the high crit range mentioned above allowing for a higher chance that they will not only hit but critically wound the animal and take it in the first shot and the long range which would allow them to be both better hidden and less likely to trip the deer's scent ability. After this it also means that you don't have to worry about losing a feat, something most commoners would rather expend towards something in their chosen field like skill focuses in their chosen professions and what not. Also they then don't have to worry about having good strength either as a crap strength negatively affects their ability to use a bow and therefore would further limit it's use amongst the common man.
That is true though I think most commoners would prefer crossbows to bows.
Possibly.
But commoners will not hunt deer. If they go hunt they'll use snares to trap rabbits at most.Deer hunting is what the actual hunters do and they probably have 3 or 4 levels or ranger or something.
This is golarion where even the tavern keepers are 4th level paladins :)
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Possibly.
But commoners will not hunt deer. If they go hunt they'll use snares to trap rabbits at most.
Deer hunting is what the actual hunters do and they probably have 3 or 4 levels or ranger or something.
This is golarion where even the tavern keepers are 4th level paladins :)
This is a distinct exaggeration. Again, check out the NPC Gallery, a barkeep is Expert 4/Warrior 1 on average, apparently. So, decent level, but not a PC class...or at least not usually.
The idea that 'everyone except very rare adventurers is a level 1 commoner' is just not supported in most of the published adventures in Golarian, at least. Some other settings may be lower level in general, but there's no reason to think that someone who's spent several years learning how to hunt and track animals wouldn't be at least a level 1 ranger, with favored enemy: animals.
Doesn't most deer hunting involve sneaking up on the deer and shooting at it flat-footed?
Doesn't most deer hunting involve sneaking up on the deer and shooting at it flat-footed?
Its usually more tricking/luring the deer into an open area that your hiding in and shooting it flat-footed. At least in modern times.
Ok, looking at the Rise of the Runelord #1 where people of Sandpoint are described, we have there for example: Cleric 4, rogue 1/cleric 2, expert 4, wizard 2/expert 4, expert 3, warrior 3, expert 7, rogue 2/expert 3, dozen or so warrior 2.
And thats just the first two pages.
One tavern is run by sorcerer 4, the theatre by a bard 6, one is a druid 3/sorcerer 4/mystic theurge 1, another tavern run by rogue 2/expert 2.
Sure there are some NPC classes in there obviously, but the only commoner 1 that show up are children there. Everyone is usually 3rd-5th level, some even higher.
So why exactly are you trying to figure out how a commoner 1 hunts deer? Because the answer is "they don't, they leave it to people that actually can do it"