D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Fanaelialae]

I didn't miss it. The text in the story that I quoted specifically calls out how the arrow never misses. That seems to be pretty significant. More than just a simple magic item. That is, that arrow is what allowed him to make the shot where no other arrow would have been possible, called shot or no.

If it was a magical arrow that always landed a kill shot, then why did Bard save it for last? Was he some kind of psycho who enjoyed seeing how high a body count Smaug could rack up? He certainly doesn't across as such in the book. It seems it was his trump card that he was saving, and had the Thrush not told him where Smaug's weak spot was, it seems unlikely it would have worked. Otherwise, why even include the Thrush in the book? Tolkien could have written that Bard blindly fired the arrow and like a heart seeking missile it just found its mark. That's not how he wrote it though.

I don't contest that the arrow likely helped him make the shot. However, if he had handed it to one of the fishermen and asked them to take the shot, I don't think things would have turned out as well. Give a high level fighter a reusable +5 arrow and I think you'd find that they consider it pretty darn infallible and make every effort to recover it too.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D has always allowed one or more party members to be fighters and other "mundane" classes. D&D has always allowed for the all fighter party (even if it isn't necessarily the optimal way to play).

TBF, yes, it has always allowed an all-one-class party, in that choice of class has always been equally weighted, even back in the day when there were stat preq and race limits, everyone could easily end up all playing one class.
Thing is, if that class wasn't cleric, there'd be new characters rolled up every session until you had one or two. And, while later editions expanded the list of classes that could step into that all-important if not exactly popular 'bandaid' role, it's never entirely made party composition irrelevant.
(even the usual exception, 4e, demanded a mix of roles, and thus classes - though all one Source was easily possible.)

There can be more, but nothing's more reliable than the race to 0 hit points. "The best status condition to inflict is dead" and all that.

Yeah, I've never found that convincing - it's trivially true, of course, until you consider how other conditions can figure into making that happen faster or safer for the party, or with fewer resources consumed.

If it was a magical arrow that always landed a kill shot, then why did Bard save it for last?

His player knew he wouldn't be able to retrieve it if he used it to kill Smaug.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. I feel the game would be better if there was a requirement or assumption of diversity in the party.

I agree. Hard to enforce though.

 

[Scribe]

I agree. Hard to enforce though.

Without the developers putting an actual focus on the balance and communicating their assumptions?

Yeah, pretty much impossible.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Which he actually doesn't. He says it never failed him.

Like I say my lucky silver dollar never fails me. Believe me, it's failed me time after time.

That's...a stretch. Why would Tolkien make a point to come up with a backstory for the arrow and have Bard explicitly state it's never failed him only to mean that's not what he really meant? No, it clearly means what it says. It's never failed him. And it's described in the same way pretty much every artifact is described in mythology and folklore. Tolkien doesn't do anything that isn't intentional.

I think it's a pretty big stretch to argue that "never fails" really means "sometimes fails". Seems like you're ignoring a lot of evidence that doesn't support your bias here. I won't argue with you further.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think it's a pretty big stretch to argue that "never fails" really means "sometimes fails".

That is not the point. The point is that 'never fails' is the same as 'trusty', and Tolkien as a linguist first would have known that.

Seems like you're ignoring a lot of evidence that doesn't support your bias here.

Says the guy who said 'never failed me' is the same as 'never misses'

I won't argue with you further.

Hooray!

 

[Tonguez]

I don't contest that the arrow likely helped him make the shot. However, if he had handed it to one of the fishermen and asked them to take the shot, I don't think things would have turned out as well. Give a high level fighter a reusable +5 arrow and I think you'd find that they consider it pretty darn infallible and make every effort to recover it too.

It should be noted that Wiglaf had Eanmund's sword. Once again, most of these stories of warriors defeating powerful monsters, they almost always have a significant magical weapon to help them.

The important thing about both Bards Black Arrow and Wiglafs sword is that they were Heirloom items handed to them by their fathers. They gain an emotional weight and importantly ties the weapons 'magic' to the Character themselves.

Bard says to the Black Arrow "You have never failed me" - the arrow isnt just a +1 arrow of dragon slaying, it is Bards Black Arrow, an heirloom with meaning and purpose.

I like heirloom magic items and I really like when it is the Fighters superlative skill that grants the masterwork item a bonus +1 rather than the item getting the credit...

"Arrow!" said the bowman. "Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!..."

 

[Dausuul]

There's a reason why it's pretty universally held that the black arrow is a special magical item among the fandom.

It is absolutely not "universally held" in the fandom that the black arrow was magical. Maybe in your bit of the fandom, but not in general.

"Never missed" does not mean "cannot miss." It only means that, in the limited number of shots he had taken with it over his life, Bard personally had never missed; and that suggests merely that it was the best-crafted arrow that he owned. When taking a shot that tests the skills of a master archer, even small flaws in the bow or the arrow can turn a perfect shot into a near miss.

Furthermore, since Bard valued this arrow, he would not use it when there was risk of losing it -- he even held it back against Smaug until it was the only arrow he had left. That would also tend to increase his accuracy, since he wouldn't be taking wild or hasty shots.

Tolkien's work is full of ancient weapons of superlative craft, which are far superior to others of their kind but display no overt magical properties. If you have an arrow which grants +1 to hit and damage, is it magic or is it just a masterwork arrow? D&D draws a sharp distinction between the magic and the mundane; Tolkien does not, and these weapons lie in that fuzzy borderland.

Which, as it happens, is also where high-level fighters ought to reside IMO.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Okay, so is Frodo's mithril shirt magic or made by craftsmen so awesome that it might as well be?

Because that's my understanding of Dwarf made items and things like the elven rope. Craftsmanship of old cultures is Just Better than modern stuff because that's how speculative fiction used to work.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It is absolutely not "universally held" in the fandom that the black arrow was magical. Maybe in your bit of the fandom, but not in general.

"Never missed" does not mean "cannot miss." It only means that, in the limited number of shots he had taken with it over his life, Bard personally had never missed; and that suggests merely that it was the best-crafted arrow that he owned. When taking a shot that tests the skills of a master archer, even small flaws in the bow or the arrow can turn a perfect shot into a near miss.

Furthermore, since Bard valued this arrow, he would not use it when there was risk of losing it -- he even held it back against Smaug until it was the only arrow he had left. That would also tend to increase his accuracy, since he wouldn't be taking wild or hasty shots.

Tolkien's work is full of ancient weapons of superlative craft, which are far superior to others of their kind but display no overt magical properties. If you have an arrow which grants +1 to hit and damage, is it magic or is it just a masterwork arrow? D&D draws a sharp distinction between the magic and the mundane; Tolkien does not, and these weapons lie in that fuzzy borderland.

Which, as it happens, is also where high-level fighters ought to reside IMO.

We know Tolkien borrowed heavily from existing myth and mythology. In some cases, nearly word for word.
Did you see that list of mythological items I provided earlier? The way Tolkien describes the Black Arrow, and the history behind it, are exactly the same way almost all of those items are described in mythology and folklore.

Those two things aren't an accident. Tolkien doesn't write accidents. There is a reason he decided to write the history and lore of the arrow in the same way as all of those other items were. I've even read somewhere that the black arrow was inspired by the sword Beowulf found in Grendel's lair. Ie., a specially enchanted weapon that is the only one to kill the big bad antagonist when mundane weapons fail. Since we know just about everything outside of the language in LotR/Hobbit were pulled from mythology, this is entirely plausible and probable.

There is every reason to consider the Black arrow a powerful magical item considering the above. I don't see how you (general you) can ignore it unless you have a bias to want to dismiss the fact that almost every hero in story relied on a magical weapon to defeat the monster.