Arrows Usable Once Only?

[NMcCoy]

That's actually a pretty good idea. Anyone with proficiency in X has the barebones knowledge to keep X operating. To whit: armor proficiency conveys enough knowledge to knock dents out, scavenge replacement buckles, and rivet. Weapon proficiency teaches you how to hone the edge, balance, and care for a sword.
Bow proficiency tells you how to fletch arrows.

Spellcasting proficiency keeps your component pouch stocked for combat, if your particular wizard's style involves such things. (My current one is powered purely by snark, arrogance, and a Staff of the Warmage.)

And I love how easy it is to not care about ammo in 4e, even for thrown weapons. They gave the KotS rogue 10 daggers, which I immediately read as "enough to not worry about running out in combat". One of the things 4e does very right, in my opinion, is knowing when to apply the Zero-One-Infinity rule.

 

[generalhenry]

tracking arrows is like tracking food. 95% of the time it's pointless accounting since it's trivial to not run out.

5% of the time running out of food can lead to excellent gaming sessions and so you should track it only when there's a real risk of running out.

In 4E I wouldn't track arrows at all. It's trivial to stock up enough and having one player have to sit out a fight is lame.

 

[LowSpine]

If you played 3.5e, it wasn't (really) a houserule.

Arrows were destroyed on a hit, and 50% of being destroyed on a miss.
Being able to recover half is just cutting corners rather than rolling for each one.

With a 50% standard recovery rate it wouldn't be that difficult to roll % dice for the amount of arrows recovered.

A better way would be to use a perception check for those that missed.

You could use a Heal check for removing arrows that hit, cutting them out without damaging the arrow.

It's all a bit of a ball ache though, but it depends on the group as to wether or not this complexity level is okay.

Things like this should have been kept in the optional section instead of just leaving it out and making the text size bigger to fill out the book. Theis has annoyed me a bit. ("Peter threw the ball to Jane. Jane caught the ball. The ball was red. It was a big ball.")

 

[valeren]

on a somewhat related topic, does anyone have the ruling as to how many ammunitions/daggers gets used up when using those close blast ranged attack powers?

For example, like the level 9 ranger attack power 'spray of arrows' - what if there are 9 enemies in that close blast 3 area? does he use up 9 arrows or just 1?

or the level 7 rogue attack 'cloud of steel'? Does the character need to throw 25 daggers or just 1 to hit everyone in the close blast 5 area if there were 25 enemies in that space?

 

[Danceofmasks]

PHB p271
Last sentence (I think) of close powers.
You need ammo for each target.

 

[valeren]

Thanks for the quick reply.

A follow up question though. I assume that the Rogue needs to have all 25 daggers in his body at that time. But how about drawing them? I think drawing a weapon is a minor action. How does that work? Don't tell me the Rogue needs to get the quick draw feat to make that work.

 

[Danceofmasks]

That annoys me too.
According to customer service, yes .. you need quick draw to make it work.
Unless your weapon is magical, in which case, you can hit all 25 targets with 1 dagger ('cos all magical weapons with the thrown property returns, now).

 

[valeren]

Again, thanks. I guess that rogue better make sure he has a magical dagger then before picking up that power.

(and yes, it is annoying. )

 

[Caliber]

Again, thanks. I guess that rogue better make sure he has a magical dagger then before picking up that power.

(and yes, it is annoying. )

Indeed it does, and on this one I do believe that they are incorrect. If you check out the PHB you'll see:

If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the additional load time is accounted for in the power.

It clearly seems like the flubbed this one.

To those up thread, the concept that proficiency provides for maintenance is golden. It's a good one.

 

[BarkingDeathSquirrel]

Thanks for the quick reply.

A follow up question though. I assume that the Rogue needs to have all 25 daggers in his body at that time. But how about drawing them? I think drawing a weapon is a minor action. How does that work? Don't tell me the Rogue needs to get the quick draw feat to make that work.

Again, thanks. I guess that rogue better make sure he has a magical dagger then before picking up that power.

(and yes, it is annoying. )

Or you could use shuriken instead of daggers all the time... slightly better damage too, for the rogue at least. If you don't want to think of "ninja stars" just call them "throwing knifes" instead...