D&D General Do you track ammunition?

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I think he did check, probably not very good, or it wasnt really visable. Imsure theres a lot of factors involved, such as pound test of the string, the bow it self, probably arrow gage and tips that could effect this

I havent thought about this in years, unless its been changed in recent editions, or Im misremembering, I thought it was 20% in 2E??

50% for all arrows is my house rule. 3.5e has all arrows that hit being destroyed, and half of those that miss being lost or destroyed. I don't remember what 2e did.

 

[ColinChapman]

Like I'm sure others in the thread will have noted, I use Usage Dice for such limited resources. It keeps an element of scarcity and dwindling resources without finicky and tedious bean counting.

If anyone doesn't know what it is, it works thusly:

The limited resource (in this case arrows) has a die assigned to it. Let's say a d12.
After every scene the resource was used in, you roll that die. If it's a 1-2, the die type is downgraded, so in this case becomes a d10.
Eventually, it's downgraded to a d4, and is used up completely with that 1-2 result.

So, a single die roll at the end of each conflict represents the recovery, gradual loss, and breakage of the ammunition during use.

It's a great way to track consumables too, as swift Usage Die reduction represents spoilage, that time your character was a bit hungrier than normal and ate a bit too much, the moment that bloody seagull swooped down and grabbed your strip of jerky, etc.

 

[R_J_K75]

50% for all arrows is my house rule. 3.5e has all arrows that hit being destroyed, and half of those that miss being lost or destroyed. I don't remember what 2e did.

If I get a minute later, I'll look

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Put simply, we are talking about players choosing ti engage in an activity that would be dubbed "client side item duplication exploit" in an mmo & whitewashing it by making it out as some herculean activity.

I flatly eeject the inerrant "math class is hard" level foundation used to pretend that tracking ammunition is some onerous and difficult to juggle quagmire far in excess of the trivial & widely expected effort needed for players to to track their HP. Strip out the bold bit and change it to "is worth it because [interesting choices]..." Some of those interesting choices are mainly low level or edge case events, others are actively designed against in service of endless simplification & streamlining on loop

What I am talking about is the GM not requiring tracking of ammo as there is no point. It is not a massive task to track it, but as tracking it does not lead to interesting choices it is wasted time and effort.

 

[tetrasodium]

What I am talking about is the GM not requiring tracking of ammo as there is no point. It is not a massive task to track it, but as tracking it does not lead to interesting choices it is wasted time and effort.

No. What you are talking about is meandering all over the place to create loaded questions in defense of an item duplication exploit under a different name. Go back and look at what you wrote in post 76 asking "how often" it comes up where you have a couple scenarios that were basically tedious gotcha events. When I gave you other examples that produce interesting results you have since switched to a position talking up effort nobody has made any effort to demonstrate. There is a point to tracking it, even if those benefits are edge cases and lower levels,just as there is a point to not designing against it being able to produce interesting results without forcing the gym to rebuild entire core rule subsystems

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No. What you are talking about is meandering all over the place to create loaded questions in defense of an item duplication exploit under a different name. Go back and look at what you wrote in post 76 asking "how often" it comes up where you have a couple scenarios that were basically tedious gotcha events. When I gave you other examples that produce interesting results you have since switched to a position talking up effort nobody has made any effort to demonstrate. There is a point to tracking it, even if those benefits are edge cases and lower levels,just as there is a point to not designing against it being able to produce interesting results without forcing the gym to rebuild entire core rule subsystems

You're not making much sense. It is not an "exploit" it is just a convention one might adopt. And no, I absolutely do not think the effort is worth it for couple of unlikely to happen edge cases. Though prison break is good one, and it indeed would make sense to track arrows in a situation where the characters do not have access to the normal equipment, just like it would make sense to track (free) spell components in a case where the caster has no access to their focus or component pouch.

 

[Shiroiken]

Probably should have been a poll so we could easily see results.

I track everything: rations, ammunition, torches/oil, material components, etc. If the book says you need it, then you need it; ignoring it means you're cheating IMO. It's not like it takes that much effort to track things, especially considering the fact that most people (including DMs) ignore container capacity, which is usually the real limiting factor.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Probably should have been a poll so we could easily see results.

Yes.

I track everything: rations, ammunition, torches/oil, material components, etc. If the book says you need it, then you need it; ignoring it means you're cheating IMO.

I agree that player shouldn't unilaterally decide not to track things. It is for GM to decide what is and isn't tracked on their campaign. But this is the sort of thing that is best to be clarified on session zero, as people come from different playing cultures and could reasonably have different expectations.

It's not like it takes that much effort to track things, especially considering the fact that most people (including DMs) ignore container capacity, which is usually the real limiting factor.

That the weight is the only limiter makes things weird, and forcing tracking in such conditions might lead to absurd results. Like in 5e you can easily carry 500 or even 1000 arrows on your person, in real life it is highly unlikely tat anyone would carry more than fifty and that's already pushing it. But if arrows are tracked and there is real risk of running out, then it encourages bringing silly amount of them just in case. And of course if you have a mount or a draft animal, you can bring even more. I just rather hand wave the whole thing, visualise characters carrying sensible amount of arrows, which they automatically replenish by buying new ones when in settlement, taking arrows from enemies, recovering used arrows and even by fletching. But that is just sort of background detail we do not need to track.

I am not even opposed to more stringent tracking per se, I just do not think 5e rules really support it well. If what you can carry would be more limited, like you genuine would have to decide between bringing three torches, 20 arrows and a healers kit, or two torches 40 arrows and a rope, then it could be an interesting choice. But that's not what's happening in 5e.

 

[tetrasodium]

Probably should have been a poll so we could easily see results.

I track everything: rations, ammunition, torches/oil, material components, etc. If the book says you need it, then you need it; ignoring it means you're cheating IMO. It's not like it takes that much effort to track things, especially considering the fact that most people (including DMs) ignore container capacity, which is usually the real limiting factor.

Who at the table is making that choice decides what it is. If the GM is making that choice for the table then it's just a house rule. If the player is making the choice to stop over tracking their arrows encumbrance hit points or whatever then that choice to ignore arrow tracking immediately goes back to being no different from what an mmo would call a "client side item duplication exploit" because what rules to ignore is not a responsibility given to players.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Nope, never bother and never ask my players to.

Running out of ammo is part and parcel to the various "PCs don't have their equipment" scenarios, and I'll just wait until I run one of those scenarios for them to worry about it. At that point as the story the PCs are involved in consists of them trying to find their own (or any) equipment... counting arrows would be a part of that.