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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.
There are systems that make it not purely accounting, like resource dice.
I can only keep up with this things on vtt’s, specially foundry.
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.
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?
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.
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 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
Measuring the exact weight of every item in inventory is also a charming but typically discouraged new player practice.
Wait what happened to all the comments? Even my benign comment about cod being a better system for basic ammo is gone.
Eating candy?
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.
No problems. Clearly you needed someone to tell you
