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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kwiqsilver" data-source="post: 1435809" data-attributes="member: 17421">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.A weapon from a massive launcher, such as a ballista bolt or an arrow fired by a storm giant, could knock the target back without pushing back the launcher, since the launcher has several times the mass of the target.What would most likely happen is the target would flinch from being hit. So if you could get out your surveying equipment and line up the projectile before he took cover, your guess at an incoming angle would be off by 5-10 degrees (at least). If the archer is back 100 feet, a 10 degree margin of error would mean you can narrow the direction of the attack to an arc 35 feet long.So at best, you'll get a general direction of where the arrow came from, which you can probably get from a DC 20-30 spot check (depending on how nice the DM is) as the arrow comes in.I've noticed players prefer to be the ones launching the ambush, not the ones being ambushed. And guys like this archer show why: a well prepared ambush is deadly. In the D&D world, where hit points and saving throws make instant death from a single arrow pretty much impossible, it's not quite as dangerous as it could be, but it's still pretty bad. If you put a group that's a decent challenge for the PCs in a position to ambush the PCs, then the PCs need to either roll much better or you need to cheat for them to survive.</blockquote>

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