Review of Play: The Saga of the Westmarch DF Game

[Harald387]

Is it better to shoot an armored, homogeneous target with a bodkin arrow or a normal arrow? Stuff like that.

It wasn't really a question of 'which was better'; I was just confused because the first arrow (7 imp vs. DR 3) caused a 1-point shock penalty (my assumption having been that I dealt 1 damage after DR), but the second arrow (9 pi(2) vs. DR 8) caused no shock penalty at all.

It got clarified when Emily mentioned the rule that I'd (forgotten/never known) about shock penalties being tied to HP - if the big guy had 20+ HP, then the first shot (dealing 2 injury) would have caused -1 shock but the second shot (1 injury) wouldn't have.

That said, with DR 8 the bodkin really is the better choice - it'll deal 1 injury on anything but a minimum-damage roll, whereas a standard arrow needs to roll max damage to penetrate DR in the first place.