How would you defend against this?

[Shadowdweller]

My solution to almost any case where the direction of the arrows was not immediately notable would be to inflict physical injury upon the DM.

Any sane person is going to know at least a general direction that an incoming arrow came from provided the arrow can be found/seen afterward. Arrows are not little round pieces of metal that are hard to find, and ricochet all over the place, like bullets; they have a definite heading with a very recognizable point and tail.

 

[Scion]

You've watched too many Hollywood movies. Being hit by a thrown, launched, or fired projectile does not push the target back. The kinetic energy the arrow has when it hits the target is equal to the energy it had leaving the bow minus the energy lost to air resistance. When the bow exerts a force on the arrow at launch, it exerts an equal and opposite force on the archer, so if it was capable of knocking the target back, it would knock the archer back as well. The same goes for shotguns and other firearms.

I agree with the physics, but in several cases in d&d this may not be strictly true. There might be feats which adjust how the shot works (maybe even shooting specially to make the target spin, people are funny like that, sharp pain does it) but that doesnt change what you said before.

The main thing I was thinking of though are magical enhancements. If you fire that arrow from a +5 bow the extra damage comes from somewhere, depending on how it is described it 'could' come from extra kinetic energy applied by the enhancement. Which means that it is possible that it had enough force to really move the target around, at least within their own 5' square There might even be a weapon enchancement somewhere which allows something like a bullrush check..hmm.. I should go make one, that would be great!

Anyway, nothing terribly useful, just saying that with proper conditions it might be nearly impossible to tell where it is coming from. But generally arrows travel slow enough that anyone should be able to follow its flight path, even when only seeing it fly for a few feat (range of torchlight). Anyone with the deflect arrows feat I would probably allow to automatically know direction and be able to guess distance as well (it may not be exact, but it is a perk )

 

[kwiqsilver]

The main thing I was thinking of though are magical enhancements. If you fire that arrow from a +5 bow the extra damage comes from somewhere, depending on how it is described it 'could' come from extra kinetic energy applied by the enhancement. Which means that it is possible that it had enough force to really move the target around, at least within their own 5' square There might even be a weapon enchancement somewhere which allows something like a bullrush check..hmm.. I should go make one, that would be great!

I think there is the knockback enhancement for magic ranged weapons (from the Complete Warrior?). Guess what it does. Unfortunately Newtonian Physics doesn't cover D&D.

Anyway, nothing terribly useful, just saying that with proper conditions it might be nearly impossible to tell where it is coming from. But generally arrows travel slow enough that anyone should be able to follow its flight path, even when only seeing it fly for a few feat (range of torchlight). Anyone with the deflect arrows feat I would probably allow to automatically know direction and be able to guess distance as well (it may not be exact, but it is a perk )

It takes a small fraction of a second for an arrow in flight to travel from the edge of torchlight to the center, which is why I was suggesting a DC20-30 Spot check. The observant characters should notice it without a problem, but the others should have a small chance. Elves (and others with darkvision or lowlight vision) should have a much lower DC, since they can see it coming from farther out.
After the first shot, anybody with Deflect Arrows should have an easier time. But on the first shot, if he's flat-footed, he can't deflect, so he probably wouldn't know where it came from any better than the others, unless he makes a spot check.

 

[Scion]

It takes a small fraction of a second for an arrow in flight to travel from the edge of torchlight to the center, which is why I was suggesting a DC20-30 Spot check.

I dont know about you, but most characters would have a pretty hard time with a dc 30 spot check. Only 4 of the base classes get it, no guarentee they will put ranks into it, or enough. It is a wisdom check and not all characters have a high one of those DC 30 means they cannot do it at all, but catching the direction of something that is moving as slow as an arrow.. should be very easy

Edit: oh, as far as the deflect arrow feat goes. They have special training to interact with arrows, so I would give them a pretty big bonus to be able to tell. Since they are just plain good at seeing them and timing properly.

 

[da chicken]

Easy solution: Cast daylight. People with low-light vision can now see 120', shadowy illumination out to 240'. If you still can't see, cast see invisibility or purge invisibility. This is why people like bullseye lanterns.

As far as determining where the arrow came from, the guy who got hit will have a pretty good idea of the general direction (assuming the arrow didn't miss AC 10 entirely). The second set of attacks should solidify it for anyone paying attention (i.e., those who are no longer flat-footed).

 

[kwiqsilver]

I dont know about you, but most characters would have a pretty hard time with a dc 30 spot check. Only 4 of the base classes get it, no guarentee they will put ranks into it, or enough.

I did say DC20-30. I guess it really depends on the character's levels. A good rogue, ranger, or monk should have a spot check of Level +3 to Level +8, so if they're low level, it's a tough roll, but if they're high level, it's pretty easy.

 

[Pielorinho]

In terms of figuring out the basic direction of the arrow, I'd be pretty generous as a DM. If a character is moving North (for example) along a cavern wall to their right, and she gets shot with an arrow, there are a few options:
-It's sticking out of her belly. In this case, she was shot by someone North of her.
-It's sticking out of her left arm. In this case, she was shot by someone to the West of her.
-It's sticking out of her back. In this case, she was shot by someone South of her.
-It's sticking out of her right arm. In this case, the wall to her right is an illusion .

Even if she falls to the floor, or spins around wildly looking for her assailant, the first arrow probably hit her when she was facing normally along the wall; an instant's thought can get her the general direction that the arrow came from.

I probably wouldn't give anything more accurate than a roughly 20-degree arc, sketched out with my hands (I'd either gesture roughly on the battlemap, or I'd mime being in the same position as the wounded PC, say, "The arrow came from somewhere over there," and wave my hand vaguely in one direction). But they'd definitely get, without any spot checks (maybe a DC 10 Int check), enough information to know the enemy's basic direction at the moment the arrow was fired.

Daniel

 

[James McMurray]

Except that in D&D not every hit means an arrow lodges itself in you. Most hits are actually close misses narrowly averted by luck or skill.

 

[Pielorinho]

James, that may or may not be true, depending on how you play it and what level you're playing at -- the ambiguity around HP is one of the weaknesses of the system. In a case like this, I would be very inclined to give the ambushee every benefit of the doubt.

Even if the arrow were a near miss, I'd rule it was a miss due to skill, implying that the character threw themselves out of the way just in the nick of time; in order to do that, they'd most likely know the approximate direction of the arrow's flight path. Or maybe it'd be a miss inasmuch as it pierced the wizard's pointy wizard hat or something .

Were I a player who took 7 points of damage from an ambusher's arrow, and the DM said, "sorry, you have no idea where that arrow came from, it didn't even hit you," I'd be very annoyed.

Daniel

 

[Greybar]

I'm with James, actually.
Unless you're level 1 or 2 or so, that first arrow from the archer is best described as something that just rattled off your shield or helm. Scary stuff.

And I know that if something like an arrow or a dart hit me unexpectedly out of the darkness (the real me, not any D&D me) then I'd be jumping and twisting around like a mad dog from surprise. If someone asked "where did that come from", I could probably give them a 90 degree arc at best. Which is probably what I'd give my players, at least for the first shot or so.

I think a good point was also made by someone that an arrow in flight is very fast, but not like a bullet. While a gun-sniper might only be spotted by muzzle flash, the archer is potentially going to have a twang of a string, the sound of the arrow in the air, and a brief glimpse of the arrow moving into your vision. So with the second shot you will get a progressively better feel for it.

As often happens this is a real GM call and perhaps has more to do with what feeling he wants the scene to have.

In a vaguely similar case, an archer firing at the PCs in my game was spotted on (I think) the third round of shooting. The first round was a total surprise, but some of the arrows were lodging in a wall behind the PCs. The second round was "he's up that hill somewhere" and the third round had a sharp-eyed ranger says "he's hiding in that tree 300 feet uphill just behind that ridgeline." Note that arrows fired from a competent enemy large-size enemy ranger with a mighty composite bow can be deadly...

That's when the charging and DDooring started.

john