D&D General Do you track ammunition?

[Horwath]

If a I play I primary ranged character, I make sure I have bowyer/fletcher tool proficiency so I can make and repair used arrows.
I have 30 arrow quiver and another 30 arrows packed in backpack as reserve if Short/Long rest is not available after battle.

general rule, after battle 50% of arrows are reusable, with tools and short rest 75% of them are reusable and the rest can be salvaged as raw material for Long rest/downtime to make new arrows.



Magic quiver item(500 GP):
creates mundane ammunition for your ranged weapon.

can be loaded with 500 arrows/bolts if you want and you can draw any special ammunition that you know it's in there

 

[R_J_K75]

Used to in 2E and 3E, which was when we played on a consistent basis, a few times a week from 1995-2005. Now we don't bother as we're lucky to play once a week for 2-4 hours, but it's more like every other week. Keeping track of ammo, gold, or anything disposable just doesn't add anything to our game, which is more casual than in days passed. Though admittedly when we did it made the game more realistic and sometimes more deadly. Running out of ammo, rations, spell components etc. added more depth, and made the players think twice about how they approached certain encounters or situations.

 

[greymist]

As a player, I always track arrows/bolts/bullets. As a DM, I expect the players to do so, although I don't police it tightly except when they are not going to be in a town for a period of time. But I do remind them before they head out.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Yes. My house rule is that if the PCs loose a few arrows, each arrow has a 50% chance of being recoverable after the battle. If they loose many arrows, they recover half of them. It doesn't matter whether the arrow hits or misses.

A special wrinkle that hasn't come into play yet is a house rule that certain special-material arrows have a higher chance of being recoverable.

 

[tetrasodium]

As a player yes I track it. As a GM I stopped giving out magical ammunition because the system practically encourages players to ignore tracking it.

 

[James Gasik]

I do, even though there's usually not much reason to do so, as I can usually carry and afford enough for my needs, and at some point, go hog wild buying as much as I can carry.*

*Note that this is usually what I legally can carry by the rules, even if the reality of carrying around a few hundred arrows is debatable, lol. My usual argument that if we don't need to keep a close tally of what exact spell components a caster is carrying about, there's no real reason to keep a close tally of how exactly someone carries their ammunition. It only seems fair!

I don't really track my player's ammunition when I'm the GM and I'm very happy to give them reasons not to really have to worry about it.

 

[Sulicius]

I don't. My PC's make hundreds of gold, and I am supposed to tell them to buy arrows? Not what I am playing D&D for.

 

[GrimCo]

Used to in 2E and 3E, which was when we played on a consistent basis, a few times a week from 1995-2005. Now we don't bother as we're lucky to play once a week for 2-4 hours, but it's more like every other week. Keeping track of ammo, gold, or anything disposable just doesn't add anything to our game, which is more casual than in days passed.

Same here. We stopped when we switched to 5e, which was around time when our sessions became shorter and more sparse due to real life stuff ( career, starting families, that sort of things). We don't track anything that isn't crucial for story/campaign.

 

[Older Beholder]

As a player I try my best to.
Although, I tend to avoid ranged weapon options that have stuff to keep track of in the first place.

As a DM, it's up to the player, if tracking ammo is something they enjoy doing, then go for it. If it's a drag, don't worry about it.

 

[R_J_K75]

Yes. My house rule is that if the PCs loose a few arrows, each arrow has a 50% chance of being recoverable after the battle.

Here's a pretty guesome story about reusing arrows. Friend of mine was turkey bow hunting using carbon fiber arrows I believe. He recovered and arrow and he put it back in his quiver. Next time he went bow hunting he used the same arrow and once he released the bow string to fire the arrow it exploded and went through his hand holding the bow, left hundreds of shards in his wrist & hand. He had to have multiple surgeries to remove all the shards, took a long time for the feeling to come back and the nerves to grow back. Could've been a fluke, but more likely using an arrow multiple time compromises its integrity.