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Archers and arrows - a trope we hang on to

RollPlay®: Court of Swords
#16

It’s only important because its punishing.

And the weight of quivers does make it trivial when encumbrance is 15*STR lbs and a quiver weighs 1lb 20 arrows weigh 1lb.
10 lbs of weight is 100 arrows which would last nearly 198 rounds on combat on average (which is 50 combats or 8 “adventuring days”) and worth a good 4 levels of xp.
Even with the more restrictive encumbrance rules, 2-6 lbs of weight means you will not have to buy arrows again for maybe in a year in real time.

Its a a bunch of effort to solve a problem that doesn’t need to exist.

When it comes to snidge if you look at the tone of the game they are playing and consider that they havent diligently tracked arrows saying “you should have been tracking arrows the whole time i guess you are fucked” could derail everything and would need to serve a purpose.

As i said earlier, if you want resources to matter you need to hack the game.

2 Likes
#18

Carrying Capacity: Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don’t usually have to worry about it.

You are intentionally supposed to not have to give a shit about encumbrance

So any resource limited by how much you can carry is redundant because you can easily carry more than you ever need.

2 Likes
#19

The Tone of the game is very important. It informs players expectations. If DM and the player are very clear that they need to be keeping track of stuff and the player doesn’t, then the DM can enforce the rule.

But pulling out rules that players were unaware of, that would have affected their decision making is horseshit unless the person bought in to you doing that to them.

Suddenly deciding to apply a rule you have been to lazy to follow is also bullshit.

If you are not being consistent with a rule when you apply it against the PC’s it comes off as unfair and undermines your job (which is to be consistent). Once you start handwaving things you need to warn people before you decide you aren’t going to be handwaving next time.

1 Like
#21

Jabba is extremely set on following rules if they are written in the book and he clearly can’t see the correlation of needing to maintain the gear in any other form is essentially the same as counting ammunition. The reason why whetstones aren’t important is the fact that there are no rules for them to be used and not the fact that they are in the game. This is because swords never break or dull. They don’t do that as there are no rules for it.

There is no reasoning that can go trough to someone when they just go “No, i’m right because i’m right.” No need to feed the flames and just let him have his opinion if he doesn’t want to participate in the conversation.

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#22

Some rules are best left in the garbage. I think when you introduce a player to the game you have to have priorities and that is more or less why this happened (and how tracking pointless crap works in a game).

btw if you have time (god knows i fucking do) this is a relevant and interesting piece which concerns resource management.

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#23

Hmm. Sudden surprise here we go.

1 Like
#24

As currently they can not just go back to town and are in fact only using looted ammo, we could have that rare scenario where it would matter.

Personally, I’d say they probably loot enough so it doesn’t matter, but it is a scenario where the DM could very well put them in a spot where running out was possible.

#25

The thing is that it is an impossible thing to measure now. Maybe I’ll just ask at the start of the next session how many crossbow bolts he has and if he can’t answer, i’ll say “cool, well, you’re out.”

#26

But both of those scenarios, suddenly telling him in fight, or at the start of the show, are a bit unfair to Sean, too.

Ammo tracking wasn’t really a thing up to now and no one, neither you nor him, has established any ammo count, so how should he know?

Edit: If you wanted to establish a count, I’d say, Quiver’s 20, so I’d probably have him roll 2d10. He’s obviously not out yet, but might be surprisingly low on ammo.

#28

If someone did, I’d love to know what it was, so we could just use that.

#30

They haven’t counted the whole show, what’s the point of worrying about it now?

#32

It is surprising how little that does to answer the question. If it wasn’t important enough to notice and freak about earlier instances, then why is it important enough to freak out about this instance?

#36

reminder to keep it civil and to remember not everyone will agree with you, so there is no need to get mad about that.

1 Like
#37

Here’s my thoughts on this, Sean is an unexperienced guest, who’s new to DnD (as I’ve understood it). So I’m going to cut him some slack, he does not know better and since he’s a temp guest “for fun” Adam propably has also cut him some slack.

Now if our core member creates a Ranger next (they’ll die, they always do), THEN, I expect them to follow the rules.

1 Like
#38

Arrows are not hard to make. Seriously, all you need is a short rest and an experienced bowman would have 2 more arrows.

Salvaging resources for arrows is not difficult. You need brances or sticks, feathers or sturdy jungle leaves, small rocks and a whetstone.

Most DM’s don’t make swordmen maintain their swords, or spearmen maintain their spears (which would break every other fight, altough this is not accounted for in the rules).

I see no reason for why a player should be more vigilanr about their weapon just because they choose to be ranged. Ammunition for a bow is extremely simple to make, it shouldn’t be such a cumbersome responsibility on the player to keep track of. Just assume the badass warrior player character is on top of his/her shit, unlike the actual player.
We do this in so many things when playing D&D. Why are arrows such a weird deviation?

3 Likes
#39

Apparently because the rules say otherwise and better late than never to start following them.

#41

I see it as maintaining the ability to fight as whole. Player characters are most of the time heroes that should be able to maintain their needs or they wouldn’t really be that heroic. Any ranger worth a sack of salt needs to be able to make some kind of an arrow. Much like casters can have a component pouch (PHB p. 151) for their spells and they don’t need to gather any extra ingredients after the first purchase. They just go about their business and collect extra stuff on the go.

1 Like
#42

It certainly wasn’t a rule for Sean as Adam was hot on him for using up nearly all his bolts.

#43

I really really dislike that JP’s character is magic/skilled enough to reload crossbows instantly (while running around, being attacked, doing other things), but not magic/skilled enough to carry enough bolts to support this.

Arrows/bolts should be like torches. You have enough in the beginning to not worry about the supply for multiple dungeons. At which point you can restock so cheaply that it isn’t worth talking about.

#44

A sword is a weapon system.

A bow and arrow is a weapon system.

A bow without arrows is a stick. A dull blade is a metal stick.

Does that help you visualize how buying arrows is the same as sharpening a sword?