How to track ammunition


Advice

1 to 50 of 121 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>

I'm about to play an archer character for the first time in my group's next campaign. Although I'm a little unsure of the best way to keep track of my character's stock of arrows. When it comes to special arrows like Bane or Dragon-Slaying, then it makes sense to track them individually. But to people who have DMed archer players in the past, did you make them track all their mundane ammunition as well? Or did you just assume they had enough mundane arrows with the each day?


Past level 2 or so, I just assume that everyone brings adequate arrows unless they're trekking to some super isolated location with no supply lines.

Unless you're at the point where a few gold for a few bags of arrows is meaningful, or you're having to carry so many things that every pound matters, there's just absolutely no reason to track arrows.


For mundane arrows I've never asked players to keep track of them as a GM, and I've never bothered to do it as a player. Yes, you might spend a few hundred gold on them over the course of a characters existence. It's not worth the trouble in my opinion.

Especially when you can buy durable arrows which aren't destroyed when used. Even better, you can buy durable arrows of special materials (like silver, cold iron, and adamantine). Though, it doesn't work on magical arrows.

Only arrows I've ever kept track of were magical enchanted ones.


Like the above posters I've never bothered with tracking unless something about the campaign made it particularly worth the effort, such as being very early on when wealth is an issue, remote or especially hostile to equipment (though often even there once the PC's indicate how they are dealing with the issue makes that moot). Only magical or unusual arrows were tracked.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
logan grayble wrote:
I'm about to play an archer character for the first time in my group's next campaign. Although I'm a little unsure of the best way to keep track of my character's stock of arrows. When it comes to special arrows like Bane or Dragon-Slaying, then it makes sense to track them individually. But to people who have DMed archer players in the past, did you make them track all their mundane ammunition as well? Or did you just assume they had enough mundane arrows with the each day?

Buy a giant bowl and put it on the table. Go to a candy store and buy m&ms sorted by color. Assign each arrow type a color. Count out the correct number of "arrows" and dump them in your bowl. As you use them, eat them.

Arrow tracking achieved!

Scarab Sages

BigDTBone wrote:
logan grayble wrote:
I'm about to play an archer character for the first time in my group's next campaign. Although I'm a little unsure of the best way to keep track of my character's stock of arrows. When it comes to special arrows like Bane or Dragon-Slaying, then it makes sense to track them individually. But to people who have DMed archer players in the past, did you make them track all their mundane ammunition as well? Or did you just assume they had enough mundane arrows with the each day?

Buy a giant bowl and put it on the table. Go to a candy store and buy m&ms sorted by color. Assign each arrow type a color. Count out the correct number of "arrows" and dump them in your bowl. As you use them, eat them.

Arrow tracking achieved!

I've never tracked arrows before but now I'm going to start.

Bonus points for tying it the other direction too:

"I full attack the friendly innkeeper."

"WHY?!?"

*mouth full* "Because my poor impulse control is synced between in and out of character."


Archers are powerful enough with out getting endless ammo for free. Make them track it!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Mulgar wrote:

Archers are powerful enough with out getting endless ammo for free. Make them track it!

This is the kind of response that is an over reaction. Do you make everyone keep track of their rations each day?

Normal arrows are 3 gp for 20, or 1.5 sp per arrow.

Alternatively, durable arrows (which aren't destroyed) are 1 gp per arrow. So...if you were the kind of GM who wanted to make a big deal about it, I would buy 20 or so durable arrows and reuse them every combat because I can. As my number of attacks grew I would purchase more. At level 10, 100 gold represents a extremely tiny portion of WBL but is 100 arrows which will last you through any combat.

My advice to you is don't do this. Because it's honestly just a way to make a player vindictive by trying to force minutiae.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I've never even considered asking the GM whether they want to track arrows or not. I just do. I don't see it as minutia, I consider it a valid concern of any archer. (Watching Age of Ultron yesterday I was worried about Hawkeye running out. He was carrying like 20 arrows, tops.) I've had some fun sessions where I've run out of arrows. It's a nice occasional complication that makes the game all the more entertaining.

But I agree that durable arrows are certainly the best way to go. It could even be fun to have to retrieve some during a prolonged fight so you can keep plucking away at the goblin horde.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Not track arrows!!! Arrows weight 15 pounds per hundred, not including special quivers, I'd love to be able to build an archer who doesn't need to track that much weight. As for durable arrows, they can be destroyed through things like hitting a fire-elemental (specifically mentioned) and are lost if the party cannot take the time to recover them. When even a level 3 archer can be shooting 3 arrows a round it does not take long at all to go through a quiver of 20 arrows.

Once I have a portable hole for carrying around supplies it makes sense to stop tracking all arrows owned, but even then arrows weigh enough to make me track the combat load, replenished from the arrow supply bought 1,000 at a time when I think of it and put in the portable hole.

The problem is not the cash, it is the weight and until weight isn't a problem you should keep track of arrows for that reason.


Claxon wrote:
Mulgar wrote:

Archers are powerful enough with out getting endless ammo for free. Make them track it!

Normal arrows are 3 gp for 20, or 1.5 sp per arrow.

It's not about cost; it's about weight.

Until the character invests in the appropriate equipment to make the weight largely irrelevant, I do require my players to keep track of their ammunition.

It's really not complicated to do so.


Some DM's track arrows some don't care. As a player I like to have an item that allows me to carry enough arrows that it doesn't matter either way.

If you are allowed to craft or buy custom magic items, my current archer uses a

Quiver of Abundant Arrows


It's incredibly annoying to do so. Complex is not the issue.

And weight is not a serious issue either. A pack animal cost 24 gold and can carry all the things the adventuring party wants to have, but not be encumbered by. Including extra arrows.

Seriously, it's just not worth it. Especially once an efficient quiver becomes available.

About the only type of game where it might be relevant is a low level survival game.


There's no reason to carry 100 arrows with you. Carry 40, have someone else carry the rest, top up between fights. You can also stash cheap, heavy items somewhere safe(ish) in the dungeon and go back as needed. It's not a requirement that you carry 100% of your belongings on your back at all times.

Liberty's Edge

Claxon wrote:

It's incredibly annoying to do so. Complex is not the issue.

And weight is not a serious issue either. A pack animal cost 24 gold and can carry all the things the adventuring party wants to have, but not be encumbered by. Including extra arrows.

Seriously, it's just not worth it. Especially once an efficient quiver becomes available.

About the only type of game where it might be relevant is a low level survival game.

+1 to this. I don't know why people seem adverse to buying a pack animal. For any character with handle animal as a class skill, you can tank Cha and have 1 rank to push you to +2 handle animal, enough to take 10 and control the animal outside of combat. Have them store all those things from the adventuring kit that aren't really useful but weigh a lot (torches, I'm looking at you) along with all those other useful adventuring items (at least at low level) like folding planks/ladders, 100s of feet of rope, battering rams, mining picks, Cold/Hot weather outfits, Rations. That and your resident archer's ridiculous supply of arrows, and possibly the Fighter/Paladins PJs (chain shirt or studded leather armor).


What about the hammer, pitons, and caltrops?

My guess is that most people assume the GM will kill the pack beast the instant it leaves the party's sight for a second, or will make it run off a cliff or into a pit trap the first time it gets scared.

Liberty's Edge

Jaunt wrote:

What about the hammer, pitons, and caltrops?

My guess is that most people assume the GM will kill the pack beast the instant it leaves the party's sight for a second, or will make it run off a cliff or into a pit trap the first time it gets scared.

Didn't want to make an exhaustive list of everything you could use, cause I would probably end up listing half the Gear section of Ultimate Equipment. But yeah, I wouldn't leave a spellbook, or really anything you couldn't do without. Also, there's nothing to say that pack animals are defenseless. 4 ponies/donkeys are a CR 3 fight if memory serves. 4 horses a CR 5. Or you could have a trained skunk to watch the animals, and who wants to steal animal/items that have been sprayed by a skunk? Just make sure the wizard knows prestidigitation if you go this route.

EDIT - Forgot to mention, the Stay trick. You can train an animal to stay put, in fact you can buy combat trained ponies that are already trained in the skill. If your Gm is using GM fiat to have a trained animal run off every time you leave them behind, s/he's just being a jerk.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Jaunt wrote:

What about the hammer, pitons, and caltrops?

My guess is that most people assume the GM will kill the pack beast the instant it leaves the party's sight for a second, or will make it run off a cliff or into a pit trap the first time it gets scared.

Pretty much this. Too many times have people played with jerk DM's who think it's hilarious to mess with players like this. Basically, if you bought something to deal with your low STR score aside from a belt of STR, then be prepared to lose it in the most inopportune manner and spend at least 20% of your face time with the DM arguing about how the kobolds knew exactly what rucksack had the alchemists fire, what's the AC to hit a rucksack attended by a pony, what do you mean there are no called shots in pathfinder?, what do you mean I can't sunder at range?, the pony is a perfectly valid target and way more interesting to the Kobold than the raging barbarian that just full-rounded his face, you're just a cheese-eating munchkin trying to get away with stat dumping and not having to realize the down side, take your Limburger and go home, in 2nd Ed there were rules against arguing with the DM, yeah there was too; you had to DM after he rage quit...

Wow, that went further than I intended, clearly I have some baggage...


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Ask your GM how he wants to handle it. Without the GM saying otherwise, the safe assumption is that you should track them, if nothing else so that you are prepared to do so when the game starts and don't need to handle it at the last minute.

As a player, if you have to count arrows, stock up. You cannot know when you will be able to resupply.

The first time I played an archer the GM asked me to track arrows (during character creation, this was not a surprise after we started). I was fine with that and thought "Oh, I'll just buy a second quiver of 20 arrows. That's 40 arrows total, more than enough." We were away from resupply for a while and before the end of the first set of adventures I was fighting with a borrowed sword. Don't let that happen to you.

When we hit town, I immediately went to three quivers of 20 arrows each and not long afterward to four quivers. It was soon not enough. Our adventures frequently kept us away from easy resupply and as soon as you start raising your number of attacks you will consume arrows at a frightening rate.

When our party could afford mounts, I asked the GM about commissioning a carpenter to make a barrel that held 200 arrows and kept that on my horse. It wasn't useful in combat, but between combats I could restocked and over a series of adventures it helped a lot.

As soon as I could afford it, I paid for a pack animal and another arrow barrel. I was the only party member with a pack animal over the course of the game. It was a horse, but I named him Pepe and called him my little mule. The GM never specifically messed with Pepe (or the other mounts).

Now, all that is game-specific of course. If your GM's adventures will not range too far from a source of arrow supply, then how many you carry might not matter much (or often). If your party is travelling the world exploring new lands, then be prepared or you'll wind up a swordsman with a bunch of archery feats.

Tracking arrows did not lower my fun with the character or game at all. The GM handled arrow recovery by telling me to track it presuming A) 50% of all misses can be recovered, B) if we don't hold the battlefield then I obviously don't get to recover arrows. In the end it wasn't a big deal.


For my two cents worth I always figured those that where bothered by the need to track ammunition etc. where really trying to take the "role playing" out of a "Role Playing Game". Tracking ammo and deciding which gear to bring etc. is all part of the fun and challenge otherwise it just becomes a video game without the graphics


2 people marked this as a favorite.
OldSmith wrote:
For my two cents worth I always figured those that where bothered by the need to track ammunition etc. where really trying to take the "role playing" out of a "Role Playing Game". Tracking ammo and deciding which gear to bring etc. is all part of the fun and challenge otherwise it just becomes a video game without the graphics

In my experience it takes the accounting out of my role playing so I have more time to roleplay.

That said, I don't really bother as a GM past 3rd level, or if they take ranks in craft:arrows then I don't bother at all. Anything after efficient quivers and durable arrows come into play and it is really just a number on a page.

As a player, I always put a rank or two in craft, get an efficient quiver and a handy haversack to fill with arrows, and get durable arrows as soon as possible.

That way I don't have to obsess over accounting for my 1/20th gp pointed sticks.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Would the appropriate Craft or Profession skill help mitigate the need for resupplying on long journeys? Assuming you have proper tools and materials, would there be a way to track spending your time during the night making arrows?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

BigDTBone wrote:
logan grayble wrote:
I'm about to play an archer character for the first time in my group's next campaign. Although I'm a little unsure of the best way to keep track of my character's stock of arrows. When it comes to special arrows like Bane or Dragon-Slaying, then it makes sense to track them individually. But to people who have DMed archer players in the past, did you make them track all their mundane ammunition as well? Or did you just assume they had enough mundane arrows with the each day?

Buy a giant bowl and put it on the table. Go to a candy store and buy m&ms sorted by color. Assign each arrow type a color. Count out the correct number of "arrows" and dump them in your bowl. As you use them, eat them.

Arrow tracking achieved!

Roll to recover each arrow (by default 50% chance). If successful, regurgitate the M&M and return it to the bowl.


BigDTBone wrote:
That way I don't have to obsess over accounting for my 1/20th gp pointed sticks.

They're 3/20ths gp pointed sticks. 3 arrows = eating for a day.


Endless Ammunition is a +2 Enhancement bonus for a missile weapon. It certainly seems that the game designers thought running out of arrows should be a big deal, or this enhancement wouldn't be in here, let alone being a pricey +2 value one. Of course, GMs can do whatever they like, but letting a player have unlimited ranged ammo is game-mechanics wise the same thing as letting a fighter apply Holy to any weapon he wields: A +2 value enhancement bonus for free.

I've printed out pages with a half-dozen little quiver shapes with 20 checkboxes in them to help with the tracking. That way you know how many are on your back, how many are in the Bag of Holding, and how many the Barbarian was carrying for you when he fell into the chasm.

If the problem is that you're just not into tracking the numbers, then that's OK, too. It can be a chore, especially at medium to high levels where you can easily be firing 5 or more arrows every time you go. Let the DM take over. They'll let you know when your quiver is "half empty","running low", "nearly out" or "down to your last arrow" whenever they feel it's appropriate.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I leave it up to the player. In my current game, the player has a little stack of tokens he marks off through the battle, then he randomly determines (somehow) what proportion he can collect. I've also had a player who bought a hundred arrows early on and every now and again rounded down his gold pieces "for arrows".

I think as DM the important point is to make it fun for the player, not for you. If they enjoy resource management to that level, track arrows. If they don't, let them account for it however they like. It's not really going to impact on your enjoyment as DM, is it (surely you've got much more to worry about)? So why stress?


RAuer2 wrote:
Ask your GM how he wants to handle it. --more--

People really seem to have no idea how much ammo an archer these days goes through unless they track ammo (at least I didn't, in 1st and 2nd eds a quiver of 20 lasted forever). The combat load for a level 11 zen archer I have in front of me (not mine, I borrowed it) uses two efficient quivers and a non-magical quiver and consists of 36 blunt arrows, 36 regular arrows, 6 silver arrows, 6 cold iron arrows, 6 adamantine blunt arrows, 6 slow burning arrows, 6 holy water arrows, 8 assorted magic arrows, and scrolls of abundant ammo & greater magic weapon. This is enough for 6 rounds of using blunt or normal arrows and one round of any other types (sufficient for filling the non-magic quiver and casting abundant ammo and/or greater magic weapon if there is time). Whether you're shooting 3 arrows/round (a level 3 full BAB with rapid shot and multishot), 4 arrows/round (a level 6 full BAB with rapid shot & ultishot), or 8 arrows/round (level 16 hastened zen archer) you need to carry a metric crap-load of arrows just to not run out during combat.


This might get complicated, but you could always try writing down the number of arrows you have, and then... when you shoot one, make a note of that. Then, after a fight, deduct the number you shot from your total amount.

Hear me out here... Let's assume you have a quiver that holds 20 arrows. When you shoot, you make a tally mark next to where you record your arrows. Assuming you haven't shot twenty arrows during the fight, when it's over you can count up those tally marks and either subtract that from 20 or ask your DM how many arrows are recoverable (and you'll have the amount that was fired so you can check for each one) and get your new total.

I've found this system to work consistently well even as the number of arrows a player has increases. See if you can follow along, let's say that you are carrying 21 (!) arrows. If you shoot six (6) then you will subtract 6 from 21 to get your new total. Let's say you have 700 million arrows! If you shoot six... you still subtract that number and you have a new total.


The best part is how you can't even be bothered to write out 699,999,994 arrows. Yeah, after three encounters, I too find myself also writing "new total" on my character sheet.


logan grayble wrote:
I'm about to play an archer character for the first time in my group's next campaign. Although I'm a little unsure of the best way to keep track of my character's stock of arrows. When it comes to special arrows like Bane or Dragon-Slaying, then it makes sense to track them individually. But to people who have DMed archer players in the past, did you make them track all their mundane ammunition as well? Or did you just assume they had enough mundane arrows with the each day?

You should ask the GM what he expects. Some expect it and others do not. I make mine track arrows or they can pay a tax fee of 100 gp and just assume they always have enough mundane arrows.

when you track them you actually have to be careful about planning ahead. I My GM did not put a limit on how many I could carry so i normally had 150 of them. I figured I could find more by the time I got to a low number.


Claxon wrote:

It's incredibly annoying to do so. Complex is not the issue.

And weight is not a serious issue either. A pack animal cost 24 gold and can carry all the things the adventuring party wants to have, but not be encumbered by. Including extra arrows.

Seriously, it's just not worth it. Especially once an efficient quiver becomes available.

About the only type of game where it might be relevant is a low level survival game.

It's not annoying to everyone. I have always tracked all types of ammo when I run a character.


Claxon wrote:
Mulgar wrote:

Archers are powerful enough with out getting endless ammo for free. Make them track it!

This is the kind of response that is an over reaction. Do you make everyone keep track of their rations each day?

Normal arrows are 3 gp for 20, or 1.5 sp per arrow.

Alternatively, durable arrows (which aren't destroyed) are 1 gp per arrow. So...if you were the kind of GM who wanted to make a big deal about it, I would buy 20 or so durable arrows and reuse them every combat because I can. As my number of attacks grew I would purchase more. At level 10, 100 gold represents a extremely tiny portion of WBL but is 100 arrows which will last you through any combat.

My advice to you is don't do this. Because it's honestly just a way to make a player vindictive by trying to force minutiae.

Do you make gun slingers track powder and bullets?


As a note. Assuming you don't tank your int and put 1 point into craft(bows) (which can be free if you use the new Background Skill system) you can have a +4 to craft(bows). You can take 10 and get a 14, which allows you to successfully craft mundane arrows.

20 arrows cost 1 gp. That is 10 sp. DC 12 * 14 (because you're taking 10) gives you a craft check of 168 sp. You pay 3 sp to craft each set of 20 arrows. Thanks to the rule about tripling or double and the time it takes to craft you can effectively craft in a week 320 arrows. Or about 40 arrows per day. For literally almost no investment.

As long as you have down time, you can do this. So even, while in the deep deep dungeon you can make arrows.

So really, it's not worth it to force a character to keep track. Because if you tell me to do it, I'm going to put one skill point into craft and have as many as I need pretty much anytime.

If you by chance have a +2 int, you don't even need the skill point. You can simply craft the arrows by taking 10. You only end up being able to make about 34 arrows each night though.

Seriously, what does tracking ammunition add to the game?

If wraithstrike was my GM, I would tell him that at level 1 I (obviously) can't afford the 150 gp to have the "unlimited option" but you best believe that by level 2 I would be using that.

And it's not because I "just don't wanna! wah!" It's seriously because during the course of a fight I as player am going to forget to write it down. It's incredibly easy to do. It's the last thing on my mind as I'm trying to think of what is best tactically for the group, assessing penalties and bonuses to my character. Examining firing lines to targets. By the time the battle is over I've realized I don't know how many arrows I fired. And what are the reasons to worry about it? Encumbrance and costs. Both of which are incredibly easy to mitigate.

If you want to be a stickler about it, that's fine. More power to you, I'll just be happy that I don't play in your game.

Do you honestly make everyone track the trail rations too? Or how much soap they have? Or pots and pans? To me, there is no added enjoyment from these sorts of things and it's not worth the time and attention it takes.

Silver Crusade

Absolutely not, this is right up there with tracking spell components pointless minutia


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I have to disagree. Tracking spell components would be the equivalent of tracking the amount of resources available to craft arrows.
As the components are put together to make the spell that does the damage. So does the crafting material get put together to make the arrow that does the damage.
So tracking arrows = tracking spells


For levels 1-3, a single quiver of 20 arrows will usually last for an entire combat, because you're only firing 2 arrows a round.

At 4th level, a Zen Archer can fire 3 arrows a round. That's 6 rounds per quiver.

At 6th level, most archers are firing 5 arrows a round, 6 with haste, for 3-4 rounds per quiver.

If combat lasts more than 5 rounds, you have to run over to the pack animal and grab another quiver.

An efficient quiver holds 60 arrows, or 3 quivers. Even with an efficient quiver, your archer will only have enough arrows to get through 3 encounters before running out, maybe 4 encounters if they get lucky on the recovery rolls. (Efficient quivers are not the old school "quiver of abundant/endless ammunition" that everyone thinks it is.)

Also, arrows that hit are automatically destroyed. You only get the 50% recovery rate on arrows that miss. So not only are you throwing out more arrows per round as you level up, your hit percentage increases, so you lose more arrows. (Durable arrows are a godsend, but they are 1 gp each.)

From the GM's point of view, ammunition tracking is part of the game balancing mechanism. Feel free to ignore it, but then don't complain when your ranged specialists overpower your bad guys.

From the archer's point of view, nothing is worse than reaching into an empty quiver. Second worst is reaching for a special material and not having the right kind (damage reduction destroys archers, because they depend on lots and lots of lower damage attacks).

You'll definitely want special materials or at least weapon blanches to punch through DR, so you need to track those separately, too.
When fully stocked, my Zen Archer carries:
- 20 cold iron durable arrows
- 10 cold iron durable arrows with silver weapon blanch
- 10 cold iron durable arrows with ghost salt weapon blanch
- 10 cold iron durable arrows with adamantine weapon blanch
- 20 blunt arrows for skeletons and non-lethal damage
- 20 normal arrows (usually handed off to another party member along with my back-up bow)
- 7 regular adamantine durable arrows (for things with hardness)
along with an assortment of trick arrows like thistle arrows, pheromone arrows, tanglefoot arrows, raining arrows filled with holy water, whistling arrows, slow burn arrows, grappling hook arrows, etc.

When she runs out of the durable cold iron, she starts dipping into the silver blanched or the blunts (because they're the cheapest). Next time she gets some money, she'll double the silver and ghost salt blanches and add another 10-15 cold iron ones.

And yes, I track every single shot. Always.

The Exchange

As a side note, we have a house-rule in my group that spell component pouches only have enough materials for 20 spells. Much like a quiver of arrows. However, if people have craft: Bows, Craft: Arrows, or Survival, different mundane arrows can be made. On the flip side a combination of Survival, Knowledge Nature or Knowledge Arcana can help one find spell components that aren't normal in the wild. (You might not find a tiny shovel for Expeditious Excavation, but this pebble has the same magical signature.)

This has led to some interesting implications and more use of the Eschew Materials feat. Overall, it's actually been more fun for my group as we tend to attempt super-dungeons where half the challenge is resupplying while inside.


Well I can see this is a personal opinion thing.
But in all the tabletop games I have run and any I remember playing
wizards/clerics tracked spells
Ranged builds tracked ammo
Potions tracked by any who had them
everyone tracked rations, torches etc.
Does that look boring and annoying on the surface, yes to some but it as often as not made for some very memorable game play with sometimes exceptionally unique and entertaining solutions

1 to 50 of 121 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / How to track ammunition All Messageboards