D&D General Retrieving Arrows after a Combat

[el-remmen]

Anyone got a page number for where the 50% rule is (any edition)? Thanks

 

[bedir than]

One of my favorite custom creatures is the Retriever (not always a dog) that turns that 50% into 100%, and sometimes even allows recovery in the water.

 

[Mort]

Anyone got a page number for where the 50% rule is (any edition)? Thanks

I'm AFB, but per D&D Beyond (so 5e) it is the Player's Handbook - Equipment - Weapons - Weapon Properties - Ammunition

Section. Hope that helps.

Edit: Also says you can recover the ammunition if you take 1 minute to search the battlefield. That actually seems pretty fast to me, but then I've never tried to look for arrows after a combat before.

 

[Lord Shark]

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).

The 3.5E rule was a bit less forgiving: projectiles that hit were always considered destroyed, while projectiles that missed had, as noted, a 50% chance of being destroyed. See here. Of course, that makes ammunition bookkeeping even more tiresome, since you have to keep track of hits and misses as well as projectiles fired.

 

[tetrasodium]

Anyone got a page number for where the 50% rule is (any edition)? Thanks

phb146

Personally I think tracking ammunition pointless and stupid in most types of games so throw it out the door & replace the count with an ammunition die.

• Ammo die is different from damage dice & completely unrelated as long as it's not zero
• You might have a d6 d8 or whatever anmo die.
• Any time you do something that uses ammunition (ie fire a bow or whatever) you roll your ammunition die hit or miss, the rest of the attack proceeds as normal from this point,
• If your ammo die is anything but a 1 your done here till you shoot again
• If your ammo die is a 1 then it drops one die size d10->d8->d6->d4->1->0
• an ammo die of one means it's your last shot since 1d1 is obviously a 1. An ammo die of 0 is worse in that you have no ammo.

This works great & extends well to magic ammunition players remember to use & actually use rather than throwing it in their inventory till the campaign ends waiting for a more dangerous situation with more on the line

 

[el-remmen]

I have seen those kinds of dice systems before for ammo but not sure why remembering which die you're on (or marking it down, especially when it may not change for several sessions if you're lucky) is any easier than a tick mark next to "Arrows (24)" on your sheet or whatever.

 

[doppelganger]

This works great & extends well to magic ammunition players remember to use & actually use rather than throwing it in their inventory till the campaign ends waiting for a more dangerous situation with more on the line

I don't see how tracking the ammunition die is any easier than tracking the actual number of shots available.
Tracking ammo that way also seems to lead to unexpected ammunition shortages.

 

[el-remmen]

phb146
View attachment 134559

Oh and thanks!

 

[tetrasodium]

I have seen those kinds of dice systems before for ammo but not sure why remembering which die you're on (or marking it down, especially when it may not change for several sessions if you're lucky) is any easier than a tick mark next to "Arrows (24)" on your sheet or whatever.

it's not about ease so much as unpredictability & the resulting drama. How many times have you seen a character save a bullet with history or one that misfired for later or regardless of need bite their nails over the dwindling ammunition they have on them?
@doppelganger that's the point. Ammo is cheap, lightweight & easy to carry large amounts if you are tracking individual arrows. This way can also be used to represent the use of arrows off screen like moving from interesting fight A to interesting fight B

 

[aco175]

When I tracked this, it was half plus 1d4 per minute. This allowed most arrows to be found in 5 minutes. I also had bad guy arrows be acceptable to use for the PCs. I even had arrows and bolts be interchangeable at one time.