Ammunition

[BrainMuncher]

I have a few points I'd like to make regarding how ammunition has been handled in games I've played, what I liked, what I didn't like, and how I think things should be done.

 

 

I believe the various types of magical/enchanted/special ammunition had some problems, most of them caused by a single problem: they were overpowered. Hitting for double or in some cases triple the average damage of a normal arrow obviously wasn't something the devs wanted you to be able to do all the time, so there were various ways these things were limited:

• Cost

   

  The ammunition was made very expensive, tens of thousands of gold for 20 or so arrows/bolts/bullets, because they are overpowered and allowing a plentiful supply might trivialise the content. This means I never actually purchased them from a shop but made a fortune selling them off, leaving me with way more money than I probably should have had, all the best (non-ammo) equipment money could buy, and plenty of cash to spare. When you know that each arrow you fire is 2000 less gold in the pocket, there's not much incentive to ever actually use them instead of selling them off.

  You might think this becomes less of an issue as the game progresses and players accumulate more wealth, but the opposite can actually happen. As your level climbs higher and you start discharging many arrows, a stack might only last a handful of rounds. On top of that, since all those extra attacks are at progressively lower chances to hit, there's a good chance a lot of those arrows will go to waste.

   

• Immunities

   

  On the odd occasion when you actually run into some villain that seems worthy of your Ultimate Arrows of Carnage, it's most likely the case that the guy is always making a saving throw to negate their effect, or just completely immune to them, since they only have a +1 enhancement and any villain worth his salt will of course laugh at anything less than a +2 weapon (or whatever). This is necessary of course, because being able to actually use these overpowered items that players have been hoarding might trivialise this encounter of many portents.

   

• Scarcity

   

  "Those arrows of irresistible permadeath are pretty powerful, but if we only give the player three of them, then it should be ok."

  The problem is when you only have three of them, how many foes are worthy of such an arrow? You certainly won't be using them on some goblin that can already be dispatched with no more than a dirty look. Maybe I'm just a compulsive hoarder but I seem to always finish these types of games with inventories choked full of begging for a worthy foe that isn't immune to them.

Some games have included special bows or quivers with unlimited ammunition. I'm not really fond of these either because if it's unlimited, then it's not special anymore. All it really does is set a new baseline below which everything else is worthless. If your bow produces infinite amounts of +2 +1d6 flame arrows then every other bow is suddenly obsolete. Not to mention that now this is the new baseline that you need to balance the monsters around, probably getting resistance or immunity to +2 flame arrows or something.

 

 

So what can be done about all this?

 

Firstly, for those things that you want to be plentiful, make them less powerful. Instead of +2d6 fire damage, reflex for half, how about just +1 or +2 with no save?

Since they're not so powerful they can be cheaper, meaning players will be more likely to use them.

Since they're not so powerful you don't need to worry about them trivialising boss monsters, meaning they will be useful when the players need them most.

Since they're not so powerful there's no need to make them scarce, meaning players won't be compelled to hoard them and never actually use them.

 

But if the ammo is plentiful and not terribly powerful, it's not very special then is it. So how do you make very powerful ammo that is also balanced and not disappointing? There are a couple of ways I'd like to see this done:

• Magical/special quivers that can enchant x amount of arrows per day. Toggle your fiery quiver's ability and those normal arrows you shoot become fire arrows, until you reach the daily limit. If you use +2 arrows, then you'll be shooting +2 fire arrows.
  • Since the arrows are enchanted as you draw them from the quiver to fire them, this avoids any abuse of creating arrows every day and selling them, or just accumulating a huge stock over time to bypass the daily limit.
  • Since the supply is inexhaustible as long as you have some normal arrows, players will be more liberal with their use
  • Since the supply is limited, you don't need to worry about players being at full power at all times as soon as the quiver becomes available.
  • Players would be much more likely to buy something like this from a shop as it represents lasting value. High buying prices would make sense and not be prohibitive, while high selling prices wouldn't be borderline abusive.
  • It scales effortlessly throughout the game, since it's enchanting whatever arrows you're firing. A standard infinite fire arrow quiver might become obsolete once most enemies require +x ammo to hit them, while this would continue to work.
• The other (perhaps even better) way is to have rare special arrows that are indestructible. By this I mean they can always be recovered from the ground or a corpse afterwards. Now you can have that dungeon with the single arrow of divine destiny up on a pedestal, and have the player actually thrilled to find it. Such an arrow would essentially become a 1/encounter ability, unless you went and retrieved it mid-battle.

   

  Similarly, you could increment out indestructible "medium-strength" arrows throughout the game. So maybe at level two you find a single fire arrow, but by level ten you've managed to hoard 8 of them, letting you shoot eight every encounter.

  • This is the most reasonable balancing mechanism I can think of that actually allows overpowered arrows to exist without having them suck for one reason or another. You could have the saving throw if needed, and if the monster makes the save, it's no big deal. I might actually make use of that 1 arrow of dispelling instead of saving it for that scenario that never eventuates.
  • Getting more than one is actually good. If you already have a quiver of infinite flame, then you don't have much use for a second one. But finding a second, third, or even twentieth indestructible arrow of flame will probably be very welcome.
  • Unlike the inexhaustible quiver idea, this makes finding and collecting arrows more fun. And you actually get the arrows, instead of some magic quiver. I'm not sure why but there's something about actually seeing the arrows themselves there in your inventory that is somehow better than a magical quiver, or bow of arrow manufacturing.

That's all for now, thanks for reading and please share your thoughts and criticisms.

[JerseyP]

This is a good post. I like the idea of finding cool individual arrows that can be used over and over. I don't think it will work. What happens when your shot misses? The arrow goes flying far away and you have to tediously search for it after the battle, or if you have to retreat it will probably become lost forever. Still, good ideas.

[Larkaloke]

I actually do prefer ammunition to be limited, and truly unlimited ammunition to be rare (I've nothing against Quivers of Plenty and such at higher levels). I've also nothing against an indestructible arrow or two at high levels. Ammunition recovery, however -- although not in the case of guns -- is something that I think makes sense, mitigates the cost of arrows and the desire to never use the special ones, but does not eliminate entirely the necessity of replacing ammunition. Better crafted or more highly enchanted arrows could be more likely to be recoverable after being fired, which would be another incentive to stock up on those as opposed to basic arrows.

 

As for bullets (gun bullets, not sling bullets), well, guns are likely damaging and powerful enough that not being able to recover their ammunition would be a reasonable drawback.

[BrainMuncher]

The thing about % chance based ammunition recovery is that it doesn't really achieve anything in terms of mechanics or balance. At the end of the day, there is very little functional difference between having 90 non-recoverable arrows, and having 60 arrows that can be recovered 50% of the time. In both cases you'll on average have 90 arrows to use. So you may as well just give 90 non-recoverable arrows and be done with it.

So all you've really achieved by adding recoverability is to add some randomness, and the possibility that players can get either screwed or rewarded by RNG.

 

If you're doing it for increased flavour/realism, that's fine, and does make a lot of sense especially for things like throwing axes and daggers. But functionally, it's basically no different than an availability increase or price drop.

[Larkaloke]

Realism and flavour is the main reason I would want such a system. I realise that there is no mechanical difference between that and a price drop or such, but I would rather have the experience of recovering arrows than of purchasing more cheaper arrows. Honestly, considering that being shot with an arrow is just as lethal as being hit with a sword and can be done from a far greater distance, my general inclination is that archery needs to be balanced with disadvantages rather than advantages, so I consider having to deal with ammunition in some form a positive in that respect.

 

It should also be said that I enjoy having limited resources to work with. I like having to make the decision of whether or not to use those special arrows in a fight, or for that matter whether or not to use the potion or scroll or what that I've been saving. If nothing else, I do believe that ammunition should remain a limited resource on the higher difficulty modes, and certainly on Path of the Damned, where one must always take into account that you need to win the fight the first time. I could see it being unlimited on low difficulties; that would make a fair amount of sense.

 

As for throwing axes and daggers, returning enchantments on those make a great deal of sense to me, so that's my preferred solution to having to buy lots of them (at higher levels, at least; I don't like seeing too many enchanted things show up at low levels).

Edited March 9, 2014 by Remmirath

[Mr. Magniloquent]

A NWN persistent server called Montlethia Under Siege had a recoverable arrow mod installed. Arrows could only be stacked in bundles of twenty or less, and their weight was increased mildly to reflect their cumbersome/bulky nature. Arrows which successfully damaged an opponent were recoverable from its corpse. This included non-mundane arrows. However, all arrows had a 15% chance of being irretrievable either due to "breaking" or "becoming lodged". Misses arrows were lost as well.

 

The server was a hardcore rules server with a major survivalist bent, but the system worked incredibly well. The system reduced the overwhelming power of ranged weapons for the server's (generally) low-level scenarios, while allowing them to be practical. The use of enchanted arrows became practical as well. Furthermore, the system provided incentive to utilize the crafting systems.

[zain3000]

Honestly, I never liked the idea of "limited" quivers in the original IE games. My archers would have inventories full of arrow bundles and I'd never use the good arrows for fear of needing them for a more difficult encounter.

 

The system should just be streamlined so that a quiver of arrows is treated like a simple item buff. It should provide unlimited arrows that provide +1 to hit or +1 fire damage, etc.

[rjshae]

Honestly, I never liked the idea of "limited" quivers in the original IE games. My archers would have inventories full of arrow bundles and I'd never use the good arrows for fear of needing them for a more difficult encounter.

 

The system should just be streamlined so that a quiver of arrows is treated like a simple item buff. It should provide unlimited arrows that provide +1 to hit or +1 fire damage, etc.

 

Yup, my suggestion was to provide something like an abstracted ammunition "pipeline" that you purchase from a merchant and can then place in a slot. You're basically buying an "all you can use" contract--in effect, the storekeep is gambling that you will die before he takes a loss on the supplied ammo.

[600lbpanther]

I am for limited quivers (in general) as arrow management is now important and a little more realistic to the ranged character. 

 

However, I also realize that some people do not even want to deal with this minor issue as it may prove more of an annoyance than adding any fun factor. 

 

That is where magic quivers (unlimited arrow quivers) come into play so long as rare arrows are still of the limited quiver kind.

[Woldan]

Just an idea - what about ammunition that cannot be bought but only crafted? From a realistic point of view it makes a lot of sense, what are the odds that backwoods shopkeeper #14 has arrows in stock with exactly the spine, shaft diameter, length and tip weight required for your magical bow?
Or bullets for your muzzle loader that fits the bore perfectly? Back in the day before muzzlelaoders became standard on the battlefields calibers weren't standardized and varied greatly so guns came with their own bullet molds.

Buy lead, powder and wood from a shop and make your own ammunition. The rare crafting materials also drastically limits ammunition quantity. 

[alanschu]

I'm not sure if I could handle another game where I spend more time at the ammo crafting bench than anywhere else!!! (FONV)

 

(This is a statement of endearment as I gobbled up that crafting aspect)

Edited March 10, 2014 by alanschu

[AGX-17]

• Cost

   

  The ammunition was made very expensive, tens of thousands of gold for 20 or so arrows/bolts/bullets, because they are overpowered and allowing a plentiful supply might trivialise the content. This means I never actually purchased them from a shop but made a fortune selling them off, leaving me with way more money than I probably should have had, all the best (non-ammo) equipment money could buy, and plenty of cash to spare. When you know that each arrow you fire is 2000 less gold in the pocket, there's not much incentive to ever actually use them instead of selling them off.

  You might think this becomes less of an issue as the game progresses and players accumulate more wealth, but the opposite can actually happen. As your level climbs higher and you start discharging many arrows, a stack might only last a handful of rounds. On top of that, since all those extra attacks are at progressively lower chances to hit, there's a good chance a lot of those arrows will go to waste.

   

Overly nonsensical. How exactly does one balance a world economy in which wood, iron and feathers are worth gold in amounts orders of magnitude greater than their own mass? Every huntsman and archer would have to be filthy rich before the battle and every fletcher would be a king after the battle. Arrows were not difficult to mass-produce.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

 

 

It'd be fine for some sort of one-of-a-kind magic arrow granted to a mortal by a god with the power to always pierce the heart of whomever it was fired at (not in the metaphorical way;) you could only believably justify that to be worth an entire nation's treasury.

 

Then again, what's the value of gold if any schlub mercenary can acquire tens of thousands of solid gold coins if they keep at it long enough? If a world were so rife with gold, they would use gold for plumbing and mountains of gold would be a form of hazardous terrain. Bandits would take advantage of gold's luster to ambush travelers carrying precious carts laden with firewood. People would fear the Golden Pass, where brigands would take advantage of its softness and weight to use gold chunks as weapons by dropping them on passing merchants.

 

....Sorry, that was kind of a little bit of a tangent.

Edited March 10, 2014 by AGX-17

[Jarmo]

I'm leaning towards streamlining stuff as much as possible.

Managing/hoarding/shooting/collecting arrows seems more like a bother than a realistic touch.

 

I'd prefer something to the tune of infinite normal arrows in the main inventory but you go to battle with 50,

and then a limited number of special arrows.

 

Maybe later on, you'd get a source (keeps upgraded armory?) that provides infinite non-resellable +1 arrows.

The mount and blade type with self-restocking special quivers would also be fine.

[Lephys]

I don't think the finite-or-not ammo question is really a question of whether or not to require management on the player's part. You don't have to buy spell ammo, as a Wizard, but you still have oodles of management.

 

Ammo could very much work similarly to the spells-per-day/encounter system, only with differently adjusted numbers.

 

I mean, you're already going to have oodles of various attacks with whatever ammo you're using, so the ammo type is only one layer of the results of an attack.

 

But, yeah, as much as it's great for flavor/simulation, I don't think requiring each and every arrow to be accounted for is really adding anything to the functionality of combat that can't be achieved through abstracted/pseudo-automatic means.

 

Say your quiver holds 15 arrows. Maybe you buy something that fits into your quiver (or get it enchanted/modified in some way) to produce 3 fire arrows. Now, maybe that costs... I dunno, 5 gold. And if you were to have to buy 3 individual fire arrows, maybe they'd cost 15 silver a piece. Well, the cost and limits work quite similarly, the major difference being that you don't ever run out of fire arrows and need to take time out to go make another purchase just to be able to use them again.

 

Want to use more per-encounter? Buy an upgraded/additional socketed gem/attachment/enchantment/whathaveyou, for like 5 more gold. It's functionally similar to buying more arrows.

 

The only difference is, you can't fire 30 fire arrows in one encounter, then have none to fire in the next 6 encounters in sequence

 

Or, another option: Have some kind of quiver modification that, when activated/toggled, essentially turns your arrows into fire arrows when nocked/fired. You could buy different ones of different strengths, and each would lose "juice" at a different rate. Maybe you could even get them recharged, or maybe they even recharge on their own slowly if you don't use them for a while.

 

I realize that in terms of number of fire arrows you have at your disposal, that's functionally almost identical to just buying them individually, but, it's still more streamlined and less manage-a-bunch-of-ammo-counts-just-for-the-sake-of-simulation-y than having to carry around 200 fire arrows in your pack and re-load your quiver all the time, and worry about how many you have left, etc. Plus, it gets around the whole "It'd be preposterous to carry around that many arrows!" limitations of verisimilitude.

 

*shrug*

 

Basically, I like those spiffy simulated aspects of roleplay as much as other people (I like the aspect of durability, darnit!), but, when you're managing an entire party of 6, I'm much less concerned with representing the exact process of management of all the little things my characters are dealing with and more concerned with simply making sure the management of those factors is represented. I mean, I don't think "Just make all things infinite and call it a day" is a good solution. That would just be ignoring the management aspect entirely. But, I'm entirely fine with things that make the "OMG, make sure you have enough individual arrows in your pack, and then move those to your quiver, and then retrieve some after the battle, etc." aspects a little more automatic is fine with me. It's not like my character's not still doing it. I just don't need to manually do all that, any more than I need to aim his bow for him to properly fire at his target, or have him lace up his boots before leaving a tavern, or separate various coins into various coinpurses so they don't all get mixed together, etc.

 

It's not about kicking ammo management to the curb. It's just about not having the player manually manage 6 different characters worth of exact ammo quantities of a bunch of different types.

[BrainMuncher]

I'm not really a fan of unlimited ammo, especially the special types, for normal ammo I don't really care as you'll probably always have enough anyway if PoE is anything like the IE games, which seems to be the goal.

But this thread wasn't supposed to be about that. What I really wanted to discuss was POWERFUL ammo, the types that you don't want to be plentiful, how to make these types better to avoid those disincentives I listed in the OP, such as:

a. the high purchase prices

b. the unwillingness to use them due to the high selling prices

c. their ineffectiveness against targets worthy of their price, needed to keep encounters challenging

 

Case in point, in many of the old games, you'd find at some point some really nice returning throwing weapons, usually being +2 or better, and with some elemental damage or other special effect on top. Suddenly your tanks are also powerful ranged combatants with unlimited special ammo, the strength damage bonus, and even their melee weapon proficiencies and specialization bonuses to boot, all while using a shield. Clearly powerful items, and the non-returning equivalents would cost a fortune, making them returning was the only way anyone would use them because of a b & c listed above.

 

What I'm getting at is that surely there is a middle ground between prohibitively consumable and unlimited, or so cheap and plentiful to be practically unlimited. Everyone seems to agree that % chance to recover setups, while nice for flavour, are basically functionally equivalent to a price drop and/or availability increase, so that doesn't really address what I'm getting at.

Having these high power ammo types instead be indestructible and non-returning/infinite would be a more sane solution, you'd still get to throw a couple to open the fight and gain a little advantage, or use them mid-engagement to help snipe some dangerous foe who is out of melee reach, without being able to just sit there and hurl away all day such that everything dies before it even gets close.

 

Similarly for bow ammo, having special ammo unlimited eliminates any tactical consideration from using it. Having it inexhaustible, but limited somehow on a per-encounter or per-day or per-whatever basis both:

a. removes the fear of "wasting" it on an easy encounter

b. prevents the buying & selling price issues, and

c. stops you from blowing your whole load at once, ensuring specific challenging encounters can remain challenging without resorting to monster immunities

 

I hope that clarifies what I'm trying to get at here

Edited March 11, 2014 by BrainMuncher

[zain3000]

How about an unlimited quiver with three "buff" slots into which you could place specific quiver upgrades? Perhaps the upgrades could grant a limited amount of specal arrow types per engagement, similar to a mage memorizing spells. The balancing would have to be tinkered with during play-testing, but the system offers a good balance between quiver management and incentivizing use of resources in the "now" as opposed to some hypothetical future battle which may never come.

[AGX-17]

From a "duh" or "no brainer" perspective, simply limiting the amount of ammunition a character can carry into a fight is what makes the most sense.

 

 

How about an unlimited quiver with three "buff" slots into which you could place specific quiver upgrades? Perhaps the upgrades could grant a limited amount of specal arrow types per engagement, similar to a mage memorizing spells. The balancing would have to be tinkered with during play-testing, but the system offers a good balance between quiver management and incentivizing use of resources in the "now" as opposed to some hypothetical future battle which may never come.

Why would a quiver change the properties or composition of an arrow? If it did, why wouldn't a sheath change the properties or composition of a sword?

 

If turning junky handmade driftwood arrows with flint heads into godslaying arrows of might is a matter of simply dipping it into a bucket you carry on your back, then why shouldn't fighters be able to turn every rusty iron sword they come across into the One True Sword of Divine Might, and then carry their pile of 15 One True Swords of Divine Might back to town and sell 14 of them, thus obtaining enough money to buy the entire town?

[rjshae]

From a "duh" or "no brainer" perspective, simply limiting the amount of ammunition a character can carry into a fight is what makes the most sense.

 

How about an unlimited quiver with three "buff" slots into which you could place specific quiver upgrades? Perhaps the upgrades could grant a limited amount of specal arrow types per engagement, similar to a mage memorizing spells. The balancing would have to be tinkered with during play-testing, but the system offers a good balance between quiver management and incentivizing use of resources in the "now" as opposed to some hypothetical future battle which may never come.

Why would a quiver change the properties or composition of an arrow? If it did, why wouldn't a sheath change the properties or composition of a sword?

 

Magic.

[Lephys]

Why would a quiver change the properties or composition of an arrow? If it did, why wouldn't a sheath change the properties or composition of a sword?

 

If turning junky handmade driftwood arrows with flint heads into godslaying arrows of might is a matter of simply dipping it into a bucket you carry on your back, then why shouldn't fighters be able to turn every rusty iron sword they come across into the One True Sword of Divine Might, and then carry their pile of 15 One True Swords of Divine Might back to town and sell 14 of them, thus obtaining enough money to buy the entire town?

I dunno... why doesn't a whetstone give a blade a sharp edge FOREVER?

 

The arrows have to be in the quiver, because the enchantment from the quiver can only sustain itself on an arrow away from the quiver for a matter of seconds. *dusts off hands*

 

Also, maybe a scabbard/sheathe does bestow power to a sword. How many swords do you carry in a sheathe? Oh, that's right... 1. So, does it really matter if the enchantment's source is the sword or the sheathe? As long as you've always got both for every sword, who really cares?

 

"What if the HILT bestows the enchantment?" I dunno. Maybe that's a fascinating point, too.

 

 

 

@Brainmuncher, I understand what you are trying to discuss, but that whole limitation aspect of "how do we control/balance the potency of these special ammo items?" ties directly into the component of how to limit.

 

My point was, I'm not really against you technically having an unlimited quantity of arrows (as in, you don't have to go buy more arrows because you fired 30 of them and didn't retrieve any, etc.), so long as the limitation is handled in another, albeit more abstract, way (you can only fire so many arrows in a given amount of time -- per rest, per encounter, etc.).

 

Functionally, it's still handling special ammo. It's just doing it in a different way. But, yes, it all comes down to limiting the availability of such things.

 

I just don't think having to physically account for quantities of arrows is the fun part of management/limitation. That's all I'm getting at. I couldn't care less if you technically never ever have to count out your arrows and buy them all at a shop. As long as you have to account for/purchase the capability to effectively use however many arrows in whatever span of time.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Lephys

[Fatback]

They said that we would have buffs that add fire damage to attacks so I would assume that we can add other things to like maybe a per rest that would dispell magic or a silence

 

So there might not even be special arrows like that

 

Sorry for no punctuation doing this on phone at work

[JFSOCC]

I really like the idea of having your quiver determine the quality of your arrows. Arrows don't change in quantity or quality, but your quiver will.

 

And you could potentially upgrade your quiver with various effects. The cost of arrows wouldn't change, but the cost of the quiver would be on par with melee weapons of equal power.

 

And you could make choices, do I want to have a quiver with twenty +1 arrows per encounter or the quiver which allows for 8 +2 arrows per encounter? (with all arrows over the limit being plain)

 

Perhaps I want a decent quiver with the returning upgrade, providing a chance to recover any arrow that misses (or hits). etc.

 

great idea!

[Jarmo]

What I was going for, but probably didn't deliver too clearly.

 

In addition to having special arrows (or rather self restocking quivers of special arrows),

you'd be able to upgrade your baseline "normal" arrows through some upgradery in the fort or something.

 

So after spending all the special arrows, you wouldn't drop down to standard wooden pointy sticks,

but maybe to +1 (or 1d3 fire damage) , or maybe to armor piercing bodkins or something.

[rjshae]

I really like the idea of having your quiver determine the quality of your arrows. Arrows don't change in quantity or quality, but your quiver will.

 

And you could potentially upgrade your quiver with various effects. The cost of arrows wouldn't change, but the cost of the quiver would be on par with melee weapons of equal power.

 

And you could make choices, do I want to have a quiver with twenty +1 arrows per encounter or the quiver which allows for 8 +2 arrows per encounter? (with all arrows over the limit being plain)

 

Perhaps I want a decent quiver with the returning upgrade, providing a chance to recover any arrow that misses (or hits). etc.

 

great idea!

 

It's the contagion aspect of so-called sympathetic magic--anything that comes in contact with something else continues to act on it, even at a distance. A magical effect could thus be bestowed through the quiver, a cup at the bottom of the quiver, the archer's glove, a material on the archer's fingers, or the bow itself.

[Suburban-Fox]

Archery is always a problem in RPGs. You have the problem of balancing damage, hit chance, and believability, together with making it practical at higher levels.

 

The D&D approach has always been excessive HP bloat, making archery useless at higher levels. To compensate, CRPGs have traditionally given characters ridiculous numbers of arrows, so that they're not having to run to the fletcher every few minutes. I'd rather they didn't do that, if possible, and I'm certainly not in favour of infinite arrows (unless it's for a special magic bow of which only one or two exist in the entire game and are very hard to get).

 

If possible, it'd be nice if arrows could be recovered, though I realise that may be difficult, at least in the case of those that miss - those that hit can simply be taken from the target's inventory when dead, as if you're pulling them out of the corpse, but how does a game let you go looking for spent arrows that embedded somewhere in the ground? In tabletop games, this isn't a problem - we usually grant characters a spot/perception/intelligence/whatever roll per arrow to see how many they can recover, but this might not work so well in a CRPG.

 

As for damage potential at higher levels...I don't know how damage is being handled in this game, but two possible ways to deal with this are: 1) reduce the hitpoint bloat (I'd be in favour of this - it always bugged me how higher level characters had such ridiculous amounts of hitpoints, so I'd be happy if HP progression was curbed a bit), and 2) increase damage as you level up, which would make archery (and melee weapons in general) continue to be useful at higher levels.

[Lephys]

The thing is... in BG, for example, you already had 3 ammo slots. Which your character automatically changed between (whenever one ran out). So, what... you're just jogging around with a hip-quiver, and a quiver slung over each shoulder? That seems like it'd be pretty cumbersome. And why can you only put 1 type of arrow in each slot? I think it's decently feasible to have two quivers (ready-to-go, I mean, without having to stop in the midst of combat, dig another quiver out of your pack and/or refill one with arrows), but what happens when you want to put 20 regular arrows and 5 fire arrows in one, and 20 armor-piercing arrows and 5 lightning arrows in the other? Quiver management starts getting a bit ridiculous. And, even then, let's say you partake in a very attrition-like fight, and your character's completely focused all his offensive prowess into bows. You fire 50 arrows, and now you're useless. Oh, you can pull out that longsword, with which you have like 10/100 skill, but you're pretty much useless.

 

So, really, what it comes down to there is, what's more important: Having bows be just as feasible a main/focus weapon as any other in the list, or simulating bows and ammo down to a T?

 

Even IF we're accounting for each and every individual arrow used, It's still not really worth it to simulate the whole "there are only this many arrows in your quiver" aspect, especially when you start throwing in a bunch of different types of spiffy arrows. Which is exactly why BG just abstracted that whole quiver-swapping aspect into "you just have 3 ammo slots."

 

At the very least, I think it should be handled something like that. Maybe you just have ammo type slots, and maybe you can buy individual arrows of any type beyond basic arrows (basic arrows could just be "infinite", abstractly -- you're never actually going to fire infinite arrows, so it can just be assumed you stock up and/or retrieve arrows whenever you get the chance -- and will probably scale in base effectiveness pretty well with your bow skills/talents/abilities).

 

Maybe you get both options: A quiver upgrade/what-have-you that will enchant X number of arrows per-encounter (or per-rest) into a certain type of arrow, OR just buy the arrows individually. Individually, they'd be cheaper up-front (because you're not getting special ammo multiplied by every encounter you'll ever have), AND you'd be able to use those without worrying about your per-encounter limit from the quiver. And the quiver would cost more, but you'd be limited per-encounter (if you didn't also buy some backup ammo).

 

Same with bullets and an ammo pouch, etc., for guns.

 

It could honestly be the weapon itself, too, instead of the quiver/ammo container.

 

But, yeah, I'm not too fond of the "you have a quiver, which holds 25 arrows, and that's it" approach. There was an SNL skit about that with Jeremy Renner, playing Hawkeye from the Avengers film, that went something like this:

 

(Avengers): "Hawkeye, behind us!"

(Hawkeye): "Sorry guys... I'm out."

(Avengers): "... What?"

(Hawkeye): "I'm out of arrows."

(Avengers): "How many did you bring?!"

(Hawkeye): "Like 20. I can stuff a few more in there if I try, but that can become problematic when I'm trying to draw them."

(Avengers): "... There are like... thousands of aliens attacking the city!"

(Hawkeye): "And I killed 20 of them... you're WEL-come!"