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 ?
I’ll never understand why some DMs nerf players when they can just as easily buff themselves.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
