Giving an unlimited resource always changes the balance, the most fun i ever had as a rouge was with limited arrows because it forced me to think outside the box of “hide and shoot”
The Shadow of the Demon lord system is different and interesting. You don’t track individual arrows, you track quivers (which are quite expensive). A character might have like 3 quivers.
You lose a quiver on a critical fail, otherwise you don’t track ammo. This means on average you have 20 arrows per quiver, which works out about right without any of the paperwork.
Interesting but i don’t like it from a role playing angle. I don’t know how to explain how that works, but if i could it would be cool.
The way my gm does it is basically “Drawing and rapidly firing, you reach into your quiver and find it empty”. This works because we’ve never had multiple crit fails in a row.
Not a player myself, but would this work?
Each quiver holds a single arrow, but they are enchanted with a replenishment function. If the archer utters a specific phrase just after drawing, the arrow replenishes. If they miss the very tight window, the enchantment is broken and has to be re-applied.
Your in game god of archery thought your form was so cringe that they zapped a quiver out of existence to save you the embarrassment
Would you like it if it werent counted then ?
Because being forced to do what you do not want or need to do is the problem.
No matter if its counted or not, pick whatever you prefer and is more fun to you. You can even have both at once in the same party.
Depends on what the game is focused on. Combat and survival, absolutely. Story and ,role play maybe but not necessary. However you should play how the DM wants the game to play, period. They are the one putting in the real effort so you show that the proper respect.
As a player and DM : fuck that noise. Bows and arrows are part of the game, and if a DM would tell me that a sword can only hit 19 times and then need to be reworked by a blacksmith, I would either play something else or with someone.
Or you know, pick lizardfolk and make infinite arrows out of bodies.
Or ramsack any merchands.
Or loot every archer I find.
I tried to use limited arrows for the survival aspect. But its not fun or fair. Why limits arrows when cantrips arent ? Because its the rogue ? Because he has sneak attack ? Thats oretty much ALL he has. Take that away or limit it and he cant do shit. Or you force him down a path he doesnt want to take, a la breath of the wild. Everyone loves it when they cant play how they want after all.
But that bit about the DM decides ? Sure he can. He can do whatever he wants. And if he goes too far then the players will fuck off.
But Im here scratching my head and really wondering how more fun is the game if you cannot play it as you want in this specific way. Especially when the person deciding (the dm) isnt even the one directly affected by this. Or is he such a bad DM that he needs to limit an archer’s arrows to make it work ?
Yah having a sharpshooter hide behind cover and snipe every battle every turn makes encounters boring sorry. You just think “thats all rouges can do” because with unlimited arrows it kinda forces them into that mold. Just because you are not doing max damage every turn does not mean you are underpowered. Also you need to drain the resources of the party to balance and create the proper tension which is absolutely critical to proper storytelling. That time where the Big bad is slain by the final arrow of the ranger is epic tense moment.
If you play in a specific way and find it boring, THAT is a good reason to switch your playing style.
If I love to snipe from afar and now I cant because arrows are a very rare commodity in this world, this isnt fun. The moment you are forced down a path is where it stops being fun, because its not your own choice.
I have a player. He does that, shoot arrows. And he has fun. I dont need to limit his fun for it to exist.
Counting arrows is like encumbrance in videogames. Its fun for some, and a rapid hassle for most, and you should be able to choose which you wanna play with as a player instead of being forced to use it a specific way.
Options are always great. Their nonexistence is never good. Unless you just so happen upon a table or a videogame that their only option is the one you prefer purely on luck.
Yes people like to snipe from afar because you get to attack without putting yourself in danger, it’s powerful. There are restrictions to balance that. I wouldn’t let a Barb play where they could carry unlimited health potions or a Wiz play with their spells coming back on a short rest. It makes the game unbalanced. Also arrows don’t have to be “rare” just limited somehow between rests. Rouges use items, thats the resource you have to drain from them in order to create a really good tension. Its the difference between mediocre and memorable storytelling.
Arrows are 20 for 1 gold piece. Potions are 50 gold piece for the smallest. Spell scrolls are tens if not hundreds of gold pieces each.
Are you telling me youre gonna make them all the same price then ?
Btw, wizards can get some of their spells on a short rest.
If you need to restrict the amoubt of arrows to make your game balanced, it means you are very good at tailoring encounters to your current party and should restrict everything to make it even easier on you. After all, restrictions is how you have fun.
Its not like players like finding loot after all.
One last thing. Are you also limiting cantrips ? Or is a warlock shooting eldritch blasts with the spell sniper feat destroying your very good preparations ?
Swords are not bows. Arrows actually exist. If I go into the woods and shoot all my arrows and never retrieve them, they are gone.
To be honest if a sword is used in 19 fights it needs to be sharpened, at a minimum
What about physical training ? Callous feet ? Diet ? Real life aint a game and for good fucking reasons. If you want to, great, but that iz the question. Not Does this makes sense, but Does this make things more fun for everyone ?
Save we’re discussing mechanics for a game that’s job is to simulate a real life (albeit not this one) to the best of its abilities, because that’s what role-playing is. Living through a character, another person, in a world. The entire structure of the game’s supposed to support that conceit. And counting arrows is part of that because your character would have to count and track their arrows. I guess you can break it if the entire table wants to but if that keeps happening I venture to guess the table’s not actually playing the right system. I censor myself from harsher critique because I am old and bitter, but I really don’t like the concept that “less tedious is more fun” since the tedious stuff is normally the investment that leads to the moments of fun. That last tense shot, the drama of dwindling supply, and the excitement at looting the enemy and finding what you neat. But I also think a lot of the modern convenience items for spell-casters are what helped to destabilize the game and would like to see the “tedium” of them come back.
Random story on bows:
One of the first DnD experiences I had I was told not to worry about counting arrows. We had an encounter down a long corridor where I had a particularly advantageous spot I could use my bow at. I got some great rolls, got sneak attack bonuses, and ultimately carried the entire encounter.
The party was happy, the DM was not. Next session, I had to count arrows, none of them could be recoverable as they ‘always broke’, the DM ruled they no longer got a sneak attack bonus, and every merchant in town was always ‘fresh out’ so I could never restock.
This was years ago and I still have never made another character with a bow.
That’s just a bad DM.
100%. If you as a DM get salty about the players using the tools given to them, you’re a bad DM.
Almost like if being limited into your main gimmick outside of the rulea or even fun factor is never good.
Fuck that DM
I would have dropped that campaign like a bad habit. That DM actively made your experience worse because you had a good session, and that’s just not ok.
I’ll never understand why some DMs nerf players when they can just as easily buff themselves.
Because they suck ?
DM: “You all get a magic quiver with unlimited arrows. Hurray!”
The one player who spent all their money on fancy arrows of various kinds crumples their character sheet up and tosses it aside
Player: “I don’t wanna play anymore… 😠”
Regular arrows should be infinite and special arrows limited. I like how they did it in BG3 actuallu
I haven’t played 5E on paper so I was actually wondering if that’s how the rules worked or not.
Normally you count them and get half of the shot ones back. It sucks. Thats why almost nobody does it.
Technically no. In reality, yes. Bows require arrows and most spells require a material component. These are never tracked unless it’s something special. If a spell costs thousands of gold in material components to cast, it should be required that you actually aquire that component, but otherwise pretty much everyone just assumes that you are prepared with a enough basic materials. The same for arrows and any other basic resources usually. I’ve never played with a party that tracks food and water, for example. It’s just assumed you’ve come prepared.
I hardly have players even using arrows in our 3.5 games, but I do definitely require the expensive material components (like I know there’s a spell that requires a ruby with 100gp or more). Most of them can be acquired easily enough that it doesn’t matter (such as sulphur + bat guano) but if it’s expensive/rare enough, I’m going to make sure you can actually get them.
My players would just sell it back. I know, I gave them important items and they did that XD
For me it was not being able to cast spell with sword and shield
I started a Pathfinder CRPG a few days ago and one of the classes is specifically designed just to do that. I was tempted to choose it but it had like the highest class difficulty and it’s my first time playing so I played it safe and just went with a regular ol’ sorcerer.
Its mainly because it makes no logical sense. You van just put the sword in the shield hand then cast the spell it would not even be that hard.
It’s almost impossible to do that in a high stress environment without dropping the weapon, and if the shield is a buckler or a viking shield it’s completely impossible due to how you hold the shield. In any case you make the shield unfit for blocking while holding the sword.
If you want to throw spells you should do as the romans with a small sword with a scabbard on the sword arm side and sheathe the sword to free the hand
Drop the sword = free action Spell = action Take the sword back = object interaction Voila. You casted a spell with a sword in hand.
Some DMs could be a bit tight and say you need object interaction to touch your focus, but me as a DM a free hand is enough.
While i dont have one of those shields irl I can easily hold 3 swords in one hand so I disagree. Besides if your opponent is just letting you do hand movements eitherway being able to block is irrelevant. Not to mention you can also hold the sword in the palm of the hand by facing the palm uppwards.
I played in one campaign where I had to track arrows. It was a homebrewed world where anything outside of cities was extremely dangerous. We found eventually that the reason why was all the good gods had died, as this devouring entity had started eating them and then had gotten trapped, which let evil go unchecked.
It was a lot of fun, my character would have to go out and sneak around to find good wood for arrows and he spent his time during watches crafting more arrows.
So you liked it and had fun right ?
Good then. The question isnt to count arrows or not, but to find how to have fun yourself with the arrows. There isnt a right answer. It depends on you as a player.
If you have fun, you are winning. Doesnt matter if you count or not.
I just did it counting arrows for a 5e dungeon campaign, and it makes things more interesting. 5E has turfed most of the original D&D dungeon crawl mechanics, but I can see why it was a thing - it adds a little bit of risk.
I count special arrows, but normal ones ? Its not fun if you build your built around it. Plus, its very easy to carry hundreds of them at once, using your party as mules. Meaning the only moments you are lacking bolts or arrows is either your choice or your DM’s. So, either you have fun yourself by adding a challenge, akind to me picking spells appropriate for my bard, or the DM’s that wants to limit you in a bad way
So far the DM isn’t being difficult. I feel like I should be able to carry a few dozen without penalty. We’ll see how the game progresses.
Indeed. You should. Which is why coubting them is as useless as nightime embushes that everyone still heals from at the end of the long rest.
Thank you for telling me I’m enjoying the game wrong. That’s a really helpful addition to online discourse.
Are you telling him he’s having fun on the internet wrong? :D
No problems. Clearly you needed someone to tell you
Timer systems like arrow counting, rations and encumbrance are good for game flow. Removing them tends to diminish the level of emotional investment and roleplaying in the game.
Personally I’ve never managed to make 20 attacks as an archer in one combat in 5e before, so tracking those just tends to result in a number going from 20 to 12 or whatever and then me saying “by the way I walk around the battlefield picking up my arrows”
it doesn’t really add anything
What you described is barely a timer system, reset on combat end doesn’t really ever matter to a game. I’m addressing longer time frame resource drain benefiting the game by creating risk and promoting choice. There isn’t really a point if arrows aren’t lost and broken.
I mean sure, I’ve dealt with GMs saying arrows broke or were lost or whatever. Now in the next combat that number on my character sheet counts down from 17 to 10. Then next combat it goes from 15 to 9. Then I get to a town and say “ok i go buy some arrows how much does that cost” and the gm says “idk like some silver” and im like “cool” and i remove a gold piece and refill arrows
it still doesn’t really add anything
this isn’t because those aspects of game design are fundamentally flawed, that isn’t what im saying. just that 5e doesn’t really work like that. it’s not a very well designed system at the end of the day
“3 of them broke.”
“good thing I have mending”
I’d get overwhelmed very quickly trying to keep track of all that personally, but if it works for your table, that’s perfectly fine.
I can only keep up with this things on vtt’s, specially foundry.
There are systems that make it not purely accounting, like resource dice.
Maybe for a certain kind of game. Survival horror, absolutely - as an aside, i really want to find a good survival horror fantasy RPG, I think that’d be really fun. But for mainstream fantasy games? It doesn’t have the same weight or drama. The question isn’t “Will I have enough supplies for this adventure, and if not how I can I make do?”, but “Will the entirety my 100g worth of arrows in extradimensional storage last until I retire this character, can I spend less?”
Did you note that I included encumbrance. Magic bags are a huge problem for trivializing the concerns of your character.
In our PF1e game where I play a ranged slayer, I track arrows. It made it way more interesting early on where I didn’t have any blunt arrows so I couldn’t hurt skeletons. Eventually, I put the money into durable arrows so after every encounter I don’t run away from, it’s assumed I have time to pick mine up.
I don’t mind it at all, though we play on FoundryVTT so it tracks it a lot easier.
What all do you like about Foundry?
My favorite part is that it’s super customizable, and specifically that it’s self-hosted. We ran into issues with Roll20 all the time where it would get super slow or something wasn’t working like you’d expect, especially inventory stuff.
I won’t say Foundry is perfect, but where the tool itself lacks, the fact that there are thousands of modules that can change functionality or add something cool is just amazing. Modules get made to add blood spatter, deal with terrain, add custom weather effects, add in items from 3rd party books, etc.
And like I said, self-hosting is a big win because we’re no longer reliant on someone else. Sure, if the host’s internet drops, we can’t play, but it’s only happened twice in two years of using it.
Foundry is a decent virtual ttrpg. Its got good and bad sides of it like anything else, but what it does is use your ammo or hp automatically.
Yeah I’m a Shadowrun player and we even count the bullets in magazines
And the ammunition type!
I love pulling out protractors and doing trigonometry during my roleplay session to calculate bullet spin and drop
And doing all of that as a first step before rolling dice
Idk enough about Shadowrun to tell if you are exaggerating. But wtf?
Measuring the exact weight of every item in inventory is also a charming but typically discouraged new player practice.
I find this more fun in systems like Shadowrun where I can be like ‘This mag is alternatively loaded with Exex and APDS ammo and it’s for the big emergencies that sometimes happen’. Like, you might have 6 different mags with different ammo in that game and use them all, depending on what situations come up.
I really like Fabula Ultimas take on this too: Basic consumables like arrows aren’t limited or tracked, but you have inventory points that inform how many potions or other situation-changing items you can produce out of your bag of tricks, before you need to hit a town to restock. And then they have some abilities/classes you can pick give you more of these points, refill these points in combat or during travel, or key off of these points to do other things related to crafting and item use. Really really good.
Eating candy?
Wait what happened to all the comments? Even my benign comment about cod being a better system for basic ammo is gone.
I always use the arrow rule from icrpg. You have unlimited arrows until you roll a nat 1. From that point on you have no arrows and have to improvise.
That sounds really annoying. Imagine leaving a town fully stocked, get into a fight, roll a nat 1 on first attack and immediately have no arrows for the rest of the fight. What, did the ranger just forget that the quiver was empty before leaving town?
I’ve always disliked the concept of critical fails in general, and this is a great example of why. If we’re to believe that our characters are truly these great warriors with far more skill and experience than an average person like the texts usually say, how does it make sense for these professionals to just completely blunder 1 in 20 of their attempts at everything? From an RP standpoint, it doesn’t add up, and from a gameplay standpoint, it’s just annoying as hell IMO.
Right? Like our swordsman is just going to have a 5% chance to forget how to hold a sword
Imagine the Lockpicking Lawyer breaking his tools on a basic lock 5% of the time!
Which is why not counting normal ammo is best boi
Maybe it’s more like you clumsily dumped all your arrows on the ground. Fighting is messy and random. Just walking is random.
The other day I slipped on some stairs I walk up every day, fell and hurt my butt. That’s a natural one definitely.
This reminds me when I was trying to fish out natural ones as a new DM from my players. They were rightfully annoyed by this. I fortunately grew from this and no longer fish natural ones
Seems really stupid honestly, imagine going into a fight and two arrows in you roll a 1 and now your ranged character is useless.
Like imagine forcing your barbarian to lose their melee weapon everytime they roll a 1, or a caster just loses their prepared spells, etc.
People tend to not realize how often something is going to be happening with a one in twenty chance and that you are going to be rolling your basic attack roll a gazillion times per session. When you start rolling the dice, making attacks every turn, that is going to come up very often. In fact, statistically this rule would mean that your character would be carrying on average ~13½ arrows. By the time you’ve rolled 14 times it’s more likely that there was at least one 1 in there than not. With multiple attacks per turn that’s going to happen infuriatingly often.
It work best obviously with icrpg “balance”, those 2 arrows in the game could bring a boss to half health easy.
One thing I quite dislike on standard 5e is most of the time your roll matters very little. And 5e compensate this with rolling more often
Use ammunition? Roll a die. 11 and over, it’s recoverable. 1-10 it’s lost/broken.
