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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greybar" data-source="post: 1438382" data-attributes="member: 4938">I'm with James, actually.Unless you're level 1 or 2 or so, that first arrow from the archer is best described as something that just rattled off your shield or helm.  Scary stuff.And I know that if something like an arrow or a dart hit me unexpectedly out of the darkness (the real me, not any D&D me) then I'd be jumping and twisting around like a mad dog from surprise.  If someone asked "where did that come from", I could probably give them a 90 degree arc at best.  Which is probably what I'd give my players, at least for the first shot or so.I think a good point was also made by someone that an arrow in flight is very fast, but not like a bullet.  While a gun-sniper might only be spotted by muzzle flash, the archer is potentially going to have a twang of a string, the sound of the arrow in the air, and a brief glimpse of the arrow moving into your vision.  So with the second shot you will get a progressively better feel for it.As often happens this is a real GM call and perhaps has more to do with what feeling he wants the scene to have.In a vaguely similar case, an archer firing at the PCs in my game was spotted on (I think) the third round of shooting.  The first round was a total surprise, but some of the arrows were lodging in a wall behind the PCs.  The second round was "he's up that hill somewhere" and the third round had a sharp-eyed ranger says "he's hiding in that tree 300 feet uphill just behind that ridgeline."  Note that arrows fired from a competent enemy large-size enemy ranger with a mighty composite bow can be deadly...That's when the charging and DDooring started.john</blockquote>

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