craft(bowmaking) question

[Bastoche]

How many arrows per day can be made in a normal adventuring day ? Typically this means while the wizard is studying spells, the cleric praying, the monk meditating, etc, how many arrows can the archer make ? During his guarding turn ?

Does the craft skill assume you use it as a "full time job" ?

 

[el Voz]

Do you allow the archer to retrieve and mend arrows he has already shot? If so than this can become a moot question. How many arrows does the archer fire between buying new ones?

Have the pack mule (either animal or strong PC) carry 5 quarrels. That is 100 arrows. That should be more than enough to last between shopping sprees.

 

[trentonjoe]

I would say one arrow an hour or 10 per 8 hour day would be about right.

I think the DC is 10.

The old rule was that you could make the shafts but you need a weaponsmith to make the arrowheads. Did they change this?

 

[Bastoche]

We use the standard rule that says (I don't remember where in the book although...) that every arrow that hits is lost and there is a 50% chance to retreive arrows that missed.

We are playing the 2E "against the giant" module and we're in occupied territorry. I had 60 arrows when I left the safe grounds. Last fight cost me 18 arrows. And I don't think we'll ever reach safe ground until a few levels.

Even if I wanted to pack a s***load of arrows, I'm currently forced to do them myself.

I believe the craft skill assume the ability to "weaponsmith" arrowheads. The DM is considering the possibility of allowing me the retreive the arrowheads of the arrows that did hit.

In the PHB, there is a DC 12 to build ordinary bows but nothing about arrows. I assumed a 12 DC.

 

[el Voz]

That rule is right about not retrieving arrow hits, and 1/2 of the missed.

A crooked arrow = severe plenalties.
A crooked bow = no big deal.

Due to the need to have an extremely straight, balanced shaft, Arrows are not easy to make on the move or during an adventure. Logically I always disagreed with the rule on arrow retrevial.

Broken down, an arrow has a head, shaft, fins. Your whole question probably needs an answer from you and the DM working out a solution.

Seeing how you are starting out with 60 arrows, you need to practice ammo control. Only shoot what you know you will hit.

 

[AuraSeer]

I allow a bowyer to craft arrowheads, if he has the time and materials. The problem is that arrowheads are metal. Even a master blacksmith can't work metal unless he has a forge, and some metal to start with. (Tools are necessary too, but they come in the Artisan's Tookit from the PHB, which your bowyer probably has already.)

It's possible to set up a workable forge in the wilderness, but it's not exactly a fast operation. For simplicity's sake, I say it takes two hours to set up and get hot, and then you can make up to 20 arrowheads in a regular day. Raw material is more problematic, but I allow any nonmagical weapons to be reforged into arrowheads.

Alternately, if you're about to leave town for an extended adventure, you can buy a bunch of premade arrowheads. They're far easier to carry than an equivalent number of arrows.

Once you have the heads, you can make shafts one at a time. If you've got an hour to kill, you can make one shaft; spending a full day (8 hours), you can make 10.

 

[Little_Buddha]

In Second Edition you could just sharpen and fire-harden the tips of the arrows (assuming that metal arrowheads were unavailable). Gave a -1 to damage, IIRC.

 

[Zhure]

Purely working the numbers, you need to expend resources equal to 1/3 the value of the item to be crafted.

To simplify the calculation, take 10 (you can't take 20 since there's a penalty for failure) and I assume you've at least 4 ranks of Craft (fletcher) and also that the DC is 12 and that you are taking a -2 for using "improvised tools."

Use the formula (derived from the Craft Skill description) to determine daily output:
if (rankx12)/100 = 1, then 20 arrows

By taking ten, you can set the pace at this rate...

Required
Rank* =Arrows/hour Notes
4+... = ~2............. Minimum necessary to take 10
10+... = 3
14+... = 4
17+... = 5
20+... = 6
24+... = 7,
etc.

*Rank + Stat -2 improvised tools circumstance penalty. Thus, 6 Ranks with INT 10 is a "4" for this chart's purpose.

All this is what I'd do based on an extrapolation of the Craft rules. It's completely up to the DM, of course, and he might require you to spend some additional time locating the resources to make the arrows in lieu of the capitol outlay.

While in an underground dungeon, our OoBI had the Sorcerer and Wizard using all our "Mending" cantrips to repair his broken arrows. You might look into that, also.

Hope that helps,
Greg

 

[dvvega]

I allow a player with craft(bowyer/fletcher) to make 1d4 arrows per day with a roll DC 15 (rolled once per week).

They can make arrowheads if they have time and materials, and i allow them to buy a "bag o' heads" to carry around as well.

Most archers can keep their 20 arrows "full" unless they have a huge battle day.

 

[Bastoche]

Thank you all for your replies, it was pretty helpful. I had a funny idea. Ask a wizard at a high enough level to be able to cast fabricate and the craft woundrous item feat and possibly craft(bowmaking) (an elf most likely). He could build a quiver of arrow building. All you would have to do is put a log and some metal in the quiver, wait 10 minutes and voilà ! New arrows .