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Old 04-23-2017, 04:15 PM   #26
Kallatari
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Default Re: Balanced games for archers

Quote:
Originally Posted by lordabdul View Post
How far do you start your combats? It sounds like your archers would have to be at least 50 yards away when they start taking out NPCs running towards them?

And +1 to PK's comment -- you have one too many rounds spent loading the arrow. Without any custom things like perks and Fast-Draw(Arrow) and whatever, the basic rate of fire for bows is once every 3 turns (1 turn to draw the arrow, 1 turn to ready the bow, then 1 turn attacking without any accuracy bonus, but no penalty).
As to the 3 turns vs 4 turns, yep. I forgot I was using an optional rule from The Deadly Spring pyramid article which added an additional turn in the process. The Basic rules only require 3 turns.

As to range, yes. When my players get to dictate the range, they like to aim for just under 50 yards as it gives a range they can actually mostly hit, while making it unlikely for enemy archers to be able to hit back (due to range penalties) unless it happens to be a "boss-skill" enemy.

But even at closer range, say 15 yards. Assuming the enemy runs 5 yards/turn, it still takes them 3 turns to close into melee. That's 3 opponents per archer that will have an arrow in the face or vitals before they get into melee. With 3 archers in my group of players (well, 2 archers and a missile spell caster), that's 9 opponents down before melee starts when they were merely 15 yards away. Once you speed up the rate at which archers fire, it you got more than one, it can start chewing down your opponents quickly if they can't get behind cover (or have armor everywhere that is too tough for the arrows).

Even once the enemy is in melee, the archers continue to fire. They have high enough skill to pretty much still hit only the enemy, and even on the few bad luck results that do hit an ally, since they weren't aiming for their teammate, it's a random hit location, and it's highly unlikely to hit a spot where the melee warriors don't have good enough armor to ignore it. (my melee fighters are in heavy plate or magically enhanced armor to match, so the arrows usually don't go through it).

Enemy spellcasters with Reverse Missile became the GM's best friend for my game... or terrain that allows enemies to sneak up into melee without being sniped or otherwise remain in cover away from the archers. It's kind of interesting as the melee folk wind up in the middle of the battle field and archers stalk around the edges trying to get an advantage over the other side's ranged attacked. And of course, actual dungeon crawls tends to limit range and field of fire a lot as well... my archers prefer the outdoor scenarios.

While coming up with more challenging scenarios to keep my archers in check is additional work for me, I much prefer having that problem than having an issue where the archers feel left out with nothing to do or being unable to influence the battle at all.
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