D&D General Retrieving Arrows after a Combat

[el-remmen]

In every edition of D&D I have run or played in at the end of basically every battle the missile weapons users look to the DM and say, I look around and retrieve any arrows I can to replenish my quiver (replace arrows with sling bullets, darts, etc as applicable - but let's stick with the most common, arrows/bolts, for the example).

How do you handle this?

Note: If your answer is "to not keep track of ammo" keep it to yourself, that is not what I am interested in.

For my part I have spent 35ish years of running D&D just kinda fudging this.

Sometimes the results are easy, if arrows were being shot off a boat or at a target at the edge of a cliff, then they're probably all lost.

But in a dungeon room or forest clearing, I might respond with my own question: How many did you fire? And then decide what makes sense ad hoc. So if I PC fired 12 arrows in some large shadowy dungeon chamber I might say they get back half + 1d6-1 (so you are always gonna lose at least one, but never more than half). If something in the environment makes it seem more likely arrows would be lost or broken I'd tweak the numbers down (maybe 1/4 + 1d8-1 in the example above) or tweak them up if for some reason I think the opposite. Sometime I just say half.

But as you can maybe tell, these are made up numbers meant to let them get something back and move on. So I am not necessarily looking for a "right way" to do to this (though I will eagerly read other people's approach to see if there is one I like better) but am interested in hearing how people cover what to me is a very common D&D experience that I have never come across (that I can remember) rules for handling.

So what do you do?

 

[cbwjm]

I think the game says that you can recover half of your expended arrows so I just do that. There would be exceptions like your example of shooting off a boat in which case none get recovered.

 

[Xetheral]

If the party has access to Mending (and most seem to) then I let them recover all arrows or bolts as long as they weren't shot somewhere inaccessible.

 

[Xeviat]

I think the game says that you can recover half of your expenses arrows so I just do that. There would be exceptions like your example of shooting off a boat in which case none get recovered.

5E states this. I don't remember the rest.

 

[Lidgar]

I think the game says that you can recover half of your expenses arrows so I just do that. There would be exceptions like your example of shooting off a boat in which case none get recovered.

This is what we do - in general, you are able to recover half the arrows you fire in battle, unless there are some unusual circumstances as noted by the OP.

 

[Mort]

I think the game says that you can recover half of your expenses arrows so I just do that. There would be exceptions like your example of shooting off a boat in which case none get recovered.

50% is what we do as well. Subject to circumstances (Aerial battle for example).

 

[Voadam]

I found the 50% round down rule of 5e reasonable and easy to use and have gone with it. So the single arrow of slaying is a one shot, but there is benefit to recovery that does not slow the game.

 

[Mannahnin]

IIRC, the 50% round down rule of 5E is a streamlined version of a 3E rule. I think in that one each fired arrow or quarrel had a 50% chance to be recoverable, unless circumstances specified otherwise (like a battle high in the air, or over a lava field or something).

 

[jgsugden]

Unless there is a specific reason that getting additional arrows would be difficult, I usually tell the players to keep track - but never check on it. If they end up someplace where getting additional arrows would be hard, I let it be a challenge for a very short bit and track the arrows, but that type of challenge gets old quickly, so there is usually a solution to be found quite readily in those situations.

 

[iserith]

If the campaign is focused on resource management as in a distant dungeon delve or hexcrawl (because places to resupply are limited or distant from the adventuring location), then I have the players track with a 50% recovery rate. They can resupply when they get back to town.

If the campaign takes place in and around civilization where it's easy enough to access markets, then I tell them not to bother tracking it and we say that lifestyle expenses covers it.