I just make a whole number (50) and then erase and make it new (44)...easier to use if you use a document protector with dry/wet erase markers.
I have yet to be in a campaign that forces me to keep track of ammo. My technique is not doing it at all.
Buy durable arrows and say, "after every battle, I collect all my arrows."
Buy durable arrows and say, "after every battle, I collect all my arrows."
Ninja strike!
Yes, that's exactly what I do. Durable arrows cost 1 gold each, but that's a negligible expense compared to the hassle of counting.
|
Two ideas:
I generally have a sheet for characters that has consumables, and cross them off as used. For ammo or wand charges, this can either be with little circles that are crossed out, or tracking hash marks as used.
A friend kept little bundles of colored toothpicks for different arrow types, and moved them out of his shot glass quiver when used. A nice little prop.
|
With bullets on my gunslinger in PFS, I just use ammo upkeep. I don't care if I end up paying more than I used.
Since there's much less being used, I still count damage reduction ammo. To make life easier, I'll put down on my character sheet how much each cartridge of those will cost me so I can buy them easily between games.
Cocktail sticks or matches!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As GM I never track ordinary ammo. IMO, unless it's important to the story for PCs to be able to run out of ammo, then the hassle of keeping up with it only gets in the way of enjoyment.
That said, the method I would suggest is the same one I use for keeping track of wand charges and spells for a spontaneous casters:
.
.
.
- Ensure your tracking sheet is printed on a durable material such as cardstock.
- On your tracking sheet, add an area with a grid or with boxes. You'll need to ensure there are an adequate number of boxes or grid cells to represent the maximum number of arrows/charges your quiver/wand can hold.
- When you stock-up on ammo or buy a new wand, use a pencil to place a hash mark in each box to correspond to the number of arrows/charges in your quiver/wand.
- Each time you use an arrow/charge, erase one of the hash marks.
- If you are able to recover spent ammo after a fight, re-add it to your inventory by drawing more hash marks.
- Once you have no more hash marks remaining, you know your quiver/wand is empty.
I like to have "quiver" cards, which have the 20 (?) arrow "slots" on them. As I lose the arrows, I just check off each of the arrows. It also allows me to keep track of how many readily available quivers I can have, what arrows they have, etc.
Simple write it down on your sheet?
Arrows, Longbow (60) and everytime you shoot one you make a stroke. Can't understand the difficulty with it (I track all my limited ressources this way).
To protect your char sheet you can also use an index card for it.
You can also use the index card + some paper clips to keep track of your buffs/debuffs, actual attack, aC, dmg etc. (Very helpfull if you player a class with a lot of different self buffs (e.g. inquisitor) or have a buff-heavy group)
One of my players keeps tabs on her wand charges on a piece of checkered paper. She marked a rectangle measuring 5x10 squares and just crosses out a square each time she uses a charge. You can do the same with your arrow quiver(s), put down a rectangle with a non-erasable pen, that includes as many squares as the quiver can hold arrows (best to do it in rows of 10 each, so you can quickly count them if you need the exact number) and cross out a square for each arrow spent with pencil. you can erase the crosses easily aterwards, wehn retrieving arrows or refilling the quiver with new ones.
It's quick, effective and prevents the messyness of a constantly erased and re-written number on your character sheet.
By the way, my players also keep track of hit points lost with a simple telly on a seperate sheet, because the tiny wounds box on the character sheet gets messed up way too quickly.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Tallymarks on an index card.
Index cards are the best thing to have as a GM or player, hands down.
I draw squares on my character sheet or if I'm the GM, I have the boxes on the NPC's index card. I put a '/' through a box if I fire an arrow and it misses indicating that the arrow is recoverable. If I hit I put an 'X' in the box indicating the arrow is destroyed. After combat, I roll d%'s and then either erase the slash or turn them into Xs depending on the result of the dice roll.
|
|
HeroLab is good at making check-boxes for expendable items. (It fails at showing the correct number of charges left on a wand though) I just use those boxes.
My gunslinger uses a lot of types of ammo. I'm thinking of making a wheel with a dial on it that I can point to what type of ammo is in the gun at any given time, with checkboxes on it to track shots.
|
|
I do not track my ordinary ammo as our GM doesn't usually care about nitpicking and trusts us to stay within reason.
I do track my special ammo so that I do not abuse his trust.
If I had to track my ordinary ammo, I would likely follow several counts during each combat :
- Full attack, no haste
- Full attack with haste
- Standard attack
And figure the total number of arrows expended at the end of each combat encounter.
Not tracking regular ammo gets my vote too. I ask my players to keep two quivers worth of ammo in their inventory and then just hand wave it.
It's assumed that they scavenge what ammo they can after battles and refill when back in town. The gp cost is negligible and not worth tracking.
Non-standard ammo I suggest the index cards with tally marks or check boxes or the toothpick idea.
When I play archers or crossbow-users, I'll simply cross off 1-2 gp every time I'm in a town, to represent re-stocking regular arrows/bolts. If I was in a campaign where towns weren't so easy to come by, I'd just mark each regular arrow/bolt fired at the bottom of my sheet or something.
What level and feats? A level 10 archer with rapid shot and manyshot will use up a lot of arrows.
In general we don't track individual ammo except in cases where each round can use up five or six arrows, then we care.
We typically just use a dry erase marker and mark off how many arrows we've used until we have to get another bundle out of the bag of holding...
I use the Modified Neceros sheets, which have some checkboxes, and on the weapon lines have ammo & notes. Each time I shoot, I put a tally mark, and then inbetween sessions I'll usually clean up the sheet and reprint to have a nice new sheet for next session.