Ammo

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:27 am

Question, if all magic ammunition is destroyed upon use, as per Book of Gears, how much should it cost?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:42 am

This much.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:57 am

*Looks at ignore button* No, one bad Austin Powers joke isn't enough.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:12 am

It's hard to answer, because BoG magic ammunition is not destroyed after use.

-Username17

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:33 am

Book of Gears wrote:The only kind of magic arrow that doesn't make us feel really bad about ourselves is the Spell Arrow, so that's the only one that exists...A spell arrow is not recoverable after the fact because the spell only goes off once

So, spell arrows, which are the only magical arrow that exist. Are destroyed upon use. But are some how recoverable 100% as per Races of War... How?

koz · Post by **koz** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:52 am

darkmaster wrote:
Book of Gears wrote:The only kind of magic arrow that doesn't make us feel really bad about ourselves is the Spell Arrow, so that's the only one that exists...A spell arrow is not recoverable after the fact because the spell only goes off once
So, spell arrows, which are the only magical arrow that exist. Are destroyed upon use. But are some how recoverable 100% as per Races of War... How?

I assume you mean Spell Storing arrows. Why are they destroyed upon use again? Nowhere does it state that this is the case.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:16 am

It says it on the Wiki page right under a bolded and underlined header. Somebody put it there. And My players want to know what to do with it because 1/10th the price of a magic weapon for something you'll use exactly once is unreasonable.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:30 am

Yeah, that is some how completely wrong.

Book of Gears arrows are supposed to be 100% recoverable, so you just pick them up.

So you can be Green Arrow as soon as you have access to Wish.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 1:41 pm

Why would you use a/the wiki when there is a compiled source of the actual text?

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48453

Anyway, the actual text also says its destroyed.

A magic arrow is indeed a special thing. The only kind of magic arrow that doesn’t make us feel really bad about ourselves is the Spell Arrow, so that’s the only one that exists. Every magical arrow (or crossbow bolt, or whatever) has one spell in it which is chosen when it is made and which will be cast when it is fired. A spell arrow is not recoverable after the fact because the spell only goes off once. In order to actually get a magical arrow to ”go off”, you have to spend a standard action firing it. Otherwise it’s just an incredibly expensive
arrow.

Magical arrows have the spell go off in whatever way would be most awesome looking. So if you fire an arrow which contains a touch ranged spell like cure serious wounds or incite love then the spell takes effect
on whoever gets hit by the arrow. On the other hand, if you have a spell with a cone or line area of effect like lightning bolt or color spray it starts the line right in front of the bow. Bursts or Emanations come from
wherever the arrow lands, and Personal or 0-range spells can’t be made into Spell Arrows at all. In any case, the arrow itself is completely consumed by this process and doesn’t do any actual damage (so curative arrows aren’t as stupid as they might sound). Hitting a specific target with a Spell Arrow is a ranged touch attack.

Makes me think they are destroyed.

Either way, it seems the consensus is that thats dumb and they should be reusable. So do that, and someone ought to change the BoG.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 3:58 pm

Spell arrows are Races of War arrows.

Book of Gears are presumably something else, but since there will never be a Book of Gears, we may never know.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 4:21 pm

I couldn't find that excerpt in the BoG dump in the unsorted material thread. Did someone just poke it into the wiki and contradict the ammunition rules for Tomes?

If I were to find such a contradiction, my rule of thumb would be to go with the more finished product (Races of War) rather than unfinished work or wiki entries.

RoW: Tools of the Trade

Ammunition
"The Black Arrow was forged by Thror the Dwarf, who was "King Under The (Lonely) Mountain", and ultimately was destroyed when Bard used it for target practice against a swallow, thereby dooming most of Middle Earth."

The ammunition rules are in need of adjustment. And that's not just because having a shuriken get destroyed permanently every time it hits is really dumb. It's almost balanced to have magic arrows cost about 1/50th of what a real magic weapon does and then explode when used like they were bullets or something. Almost. But it is also dumb, so we're putting our foot down.

Magic Arrows are supposed to be awesome. Some of them even have names. I cannot recall any story where an insipid adventurer went to War with 137 magic arrows and then called it a day when every one of them had been fired once. So here's the new rubric: the cost of enchanting a magical arrow is a mere 1/10th that of enchanting a weapon (move the decimal place over one place), and magical arrows are always recoverable. That's part of what makes them magic. Of course, just because it's recoverable, doesn't mean that you will actually recover it. If you shoot three arrows into a guy and then you run away, chances are good that he has your arrow.

Heck, even regular ammunition is way too fragile in D&D. Shuriken are fairly reusable even after you pull them out of the eye of a fallen foe. And we're fine with that. A good rule of thumb is that an item of ammunition is no longer usable if it inflicts more damage that it has hardness. And precision damage, such as Sneak Attack, Death Attack, and Sudden Strike, does not count. So yeah, Shuriken aren't going to break on impact with small children, happy birthday.

Naturally enough, there are still one-use arrows in the world. Alchemical arrows, such as fire arrows or poison arrows, are generally not as useful after they've been shot into an appropriate target. Those don't require magical forging however, and don't really count as magic weapons. One use ranged weapons should be marked as such (such as the vial of acid, hard to reuse that one).

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:19 pm

No, it's in the PDF version as well, I checked after looking at the Wiki. But yeah, I'll have them be reusable.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:45 pm

Out of curiosity, where did it come from to be incorporated into the PDF?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:34 pm

Races of War predates book of Gears. Races of war had magic arrows with enhancement bonuses (IE +1, +2, +5 etc) which were indestructible and cost 10% of the cost of an equivalent magic bow.

The Unfinished Book of Gears writeup introduced Spell Arrows, which were consumeable items that are always destroy after releasing a spell. It also retconned arrows with enhancement bonuses out because they didn't work with the slot system.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:43 pm

Orion wrote:The Unfinished Book of Gears writeup introduced Spell Arrows,

But, where? I search this entire forum for "Spell Arrows" and it's only mention that I get is in this ammo thread.

I am currently assuming someone other than Frank or K introduced it into the wiki & pdf, unintentionally retconning the Tome rules on ammunition.

[edit or was stuff inducted into the pdf by them without first being posted here? I didn't think that was the case, hence my confusion on the origin of that passage]

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:23 am

Single use spell arrows were first presented in the Unsorted Materials thread in the Book of Gears, and have been part of the pdf since (I think) v5.1

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:28 am

I don't know why that paragraph can't be found in that thread. According to my recollection Frank originally posted it in whatever thread had the 8 slot rule and the big list of special weapon and armor enchantments. Which I'm also not finding in the unfinished material thread.

Anyway, I very much doubt that it was an "unintentional" retcon. As the Tomes project progressed each new tome overhauled increasingly core aspects of the game. Earlier tomes were generally written assuming everything else in the system was intact, so the tomes were never intended to be entirely self-consistent. The Tome of Necromancy has PrCs that require feats and class features that, post Dungeonomicon and Races of War, no longer exist. Races of War has gold piece values for +5 arrows, even though Book of Gears gets rid of gold piece values for magic items entirely. By all appearances the arrow rules in Book of Gears were intended to replace those in Races of War, unfinished though they were.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 2:49 am

The way it was explained to me is that the thread was copied over from somewhere else and the character limit was different.

Now of course this is all secondary to what I should charge my players for Arrows of Cure Light Wounds.

johnDjoker · Post by **johnDjoker** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:49 am

hi i'm new here

i'm not yet familiar of this game
but i'm interested to learn how
is there anyone who can help me?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:15 am

erik wrote:I couldn't find that excerpt in the BoG dump in the unsorted material thread. Did someone just poke it into the wiki and contradict the ammunition rules for Tomes?

If I were to find such a contradiction, my rule of thumb would be to go with the more finished product (Races of War) rather than unfinished work or wiki entries.

RoW: Tools of the Trade

Ammunition
"The Black Arrow was forged by Thror the Dwarf, who was "King Under The (Lonely) Mountain", and ultimately was destroyed when Bard used it for target practice against a swallow, thereby dooming most of Middle Earth."

The ammunition rules are in need of adjustment. And that's not just because having a shuriken get destroyed permanently every time it hits is really dumb. It's almost balanced to have magic arrows cost about 1/50th of what a real magic weapon does and then explode when used like they were bullets or something. Almost. But it is also dumb, so we're putting our foot down.

Magic Arrows are supposed to be awesome. Some of them even have names. I cannot recall any story where an insipid adventurer went to War with 137 magic arrows and then called it a day when every one of them had been fired once. So here's the new rubric: the cost of enchanting a magical arrow is a mere 1/10th that of enchanting a weapon (move the decimal place over one place), and magical arrows are always recoverable. That's part of what makes them magic. Of course, just because it's recoverable, doesn't mean that you will actually recover it. If you shoot three arrows into a guy and then you run away, chances are good that he has your arrow.

Heck, even regular ammunition is way too fragile in D&D. Shuriken are fairly reusable even after you pull them out of the eye of a fallen foe. And we're fine with that. A good rule of thumb is that an item of ammunition is no longer usable if it inflicts more damage that it has hardness. And precision damage, such as Sneak Attack, Death Attack, and Sudden Strike, does not count. So yeah, Shuriken aren't going to break on impact with small children, happy birthday.

Naturally enough, there are still one-use arrows in the world. Alchemical arrows, such as fire arrows or poison arrows, are generally not as useful after they've been shot into an appropriate target. Those don't require magical forging however, and don't really count as magic weapons. One use ranged weapons should be marked as such (such as the vial of acid, hard to reuse that one).

Well shit. I had it reversed.