At-Will Magic and Arrows

[Campbell]

One of the big objections to At Will attack spells that keeps coming up is the idea that it's unbalanced because unlike archers spell casters never run out of ammo for their ranged attacks. Now, my experiences might be unusual, but throughout 12 years of playing various editions of the game I've never seen a PC run out of ammo. In most games I've played ammo is so cheap that players load up with so much of the stuff its damn near impossible to run out. In the last 3e game I played in it wasn't unusual for the archer in the group to head out on the adventure with somewhere near 200 arrows.

 

[mlund]

My PCs run out of ammunition about as frequently as they run out of food or water.

That means it only comes up if limited resources is germane to the plot - like traveling in a wasteland of trapped on the high seas. Generally mundane survival issues don't hold my PC's interest. If I wanted to force the issue regularly they'd just carry a bunch of extra ammo and have one PC be a tracker/hunter by trade and another be a fletcher.

- Marty Lund

 

[Lanefan]

My PCs certainly can run out of ammo but very rarely do, mainly because they are wise about when and how they use it and they make sure they're well stocked before leaving town. They also make sure to loot any useful ammo off defeated foes.

The players are expected to keep track of what gets used and if someone does run out, them's the breaks.

Lanefan

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I don't keep track of mundane ammunition as DM. Even for Gunslingers, even though that's supposed to be a part of the class.

As PC in 3.X, I always take either Warlock 3 or Soulknife 2/Soulbow 1.

 

[BobTheNob]

One of the big objections to At Will attack spells that keeps coming up is the idea that it's unbalanced because unlike archers spell casters never run out of ammo for their ranged attacks. Now, my experiences might be unusual, but throughout 12 years of playing various editions of the game I've never seen a PC run out of ammo. In most games I've played ammo is so cheap that players load up with so much of the stuff its damn near impossible to run out. In the last 3e game I played in it wasn't unusual for the archer in the group to head out on the adventure with somewhere near 200 arrows.

Its been a long time since we counted arrows. A LLOOONNGG time. I think we stopped counting arrows back in the 2e days.

So much of old D&D is just book keeping. How many iron rations do you have, how many candles? Do we have enough toilet paper? Did we bring 5 iron spikes each? These are things that only really add to the game when the absence is felt, yet require so much micromanagement to keep track of.

So we canned tracking them, and the game sped up. Soon after, the same question was asked of arrows. Even magical ones. So we applied the same philosophy, but we made sure enchantments on bows were strong enough to make up for the loss of enchanted arrows (some conpensatory house ruling). Whadaya ya know, the game got a little easier again.

Its been decades since we bothered tracking arrows, and I cant see my group ever going back.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

PCs sometimes run out of arrows until they find a bag of holding or something, but it's rare. The rate of fire of 2 per round means a quiver of arrows will last for 10 rounds of combat, so that's about 3-5 fights if all they do is shoot. They generally last longer than that,m though due to movement, and the inability to fire into melee without the chance of hitting their friends. A couple quivers (40 arrows) should last an archer a long time, unless they're in a megadungeon or something.

 

[Agamon]

Can they run out? Sure. Do they? It's so rare an occurrence, the party is probably more likely to fight in an area of no magic, where the spellcasters are the ones that run out of "arrows".

In other words, non-issue.

 

[JamesonCourage]

People are usually pretty good about carrying a good amount on their horses or whatever, but if they're separated from their reserves, they need to be careful not to burn through them too quickly. So, it happens pretty rarely, but I like a game that allows it.

Should there be a way to get around the bookkeeping and mundane tracking? Sure. Give a couple options. "Don't track them! Just assume you have them!" "mark off 10 silver (silver standard) a month, and assume you've purchased them or made some during your downtime!" etc.

But, yeah, back to the topic: yes, it happens, but generally for an encounter or two in a row. As always, play what you like

 

[Raith5]

I have never counted arrows. This archer would go through a quiver in about 55 seconds -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI

 

[howandwhy99]

A better question might be "Can missile combatants run out of ammunition in your game?"

I'd vote yes to that.