Running an impromptu archery contest in game?

[NewJeffCT]

Then score the match very simply:

Three misses (of the entire target), and the archer is eliminated. Three (maybe two) heart-shots, and the archer is victorious. In a set-up like this, the superior archer is very likely to win (less skilled archers will often need natural 20s for heart-shots, if you calibrate high based on the superior archer), but there's always the possibility of the less skilled archer getting lucky. More importantly, with the victory conditions (and a low AC for the target as a whole) a less skilled archer is likely to compete closely, at least from all appearances, which is what you want.

That sounds interesting as well. Thanks

 

[NewJeffCT]

Off the top of my head:
Not only is the cleric vying for recognition, but the pcs need a favor from the elves.

The Archery contest gives the other pcs time and a reasonable distracting to do something they need done. For example, a good time for the rogue to get his thieve on.

Let the other pcs have some sort of aid another to cheer on the cleric -- this might steal too much of his limelight though.

Well, the elves will have a favor to ask of the PCs... they've been using most of their manpower (or elfpower, I should say) to repel increased attacks from the orcs in the nearby mountains and have not been able to adequately investigate a growing evil that seems to be eminating from a nearby human town that had recently been over-run and torched by these same orcs (unknown to the elves, an evil cleric had recovered a powerful, but dormant, evil artifact from the town... and the orc raid was meant to cover that)

 

[mach1.9pants]

I tend to do these sort of things out of combat without the d20. The d20 is good for the chaos of combat but too random for such controlled situations IMO. I would use 2d10, 3d6 or even 5d4 to reduce randomness.
then use whatever format you like, all the ones above are cool....yoink

 

[NewJeffCT]

I tend to do these sort of things out of combat without the d20. The d20 is good for the chaos of combat but too random for such controlled situations IMO. I would use 2d10, 3d6 or even 5d4 to reduce randomness.
then use whatever format you like, all the ones above are cool....yoink

thanks - I still want to have some randomness, but want to see what I can do to mitigate it.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Update

I didn't need to worry about helping the party cleric out - her first three rolls in the contest were 19,20 and 19. With her BAB and Dex bonus, it had her hitting the AC:26 bullseye three times in a row.

The NPC cleric, rolled 15, 8 and 15 - so, even with the NPC's better overall attack bonus (+10 vs +8) she just missed the bullseye twice and hit the outer ring once.

So, the PC had 15 points after three arrows, while the NPC had 7 points and was almost impossibly behind in a 5 arrow contest. (the bullseye was 5 points, middle ring 3 points, outer ring was 1 point)