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.
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.
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 ?
