Deadly Archery

[Angelalex242]

Also, I imagine few Mirkwood elves will want to use great bows anyway, as it's a waste of XP and doesn't function with Woodland Bow, which they'll want to use if they're an archer build to begin with. Volleys are awesome, and at their best in skirmish battles, which is what Fellowships typically have. And I figure the elf will stack woodland bow with keen and fell. (Stinging Arrow, nice as it is...the less you have to pay for it because the action dice does it for you, the better.)

[Michebugio]

Ok, here's round one: Roc's built versus a Cave Troll. If Hope could be spent to turn a miss into a hit, it gets spent. And then if the hit is not a Pierce, Hope is also spent for Stinging Arrow.

Glor, I don't think this kind of test would really make sense, because we're not considering Hope economy.

If we're allowing a character to spend all of his Hope on a single encounter, it's pretty obvious that Hope-reliant characters will have an edge. What actually happens is that players save their Hope for future encounters, unless they really risk a TPK and even then, they will be crippled for any future encounter.

I mean, I believe that it's not in any party's experience to spend 9 Hope points per combat... evaluation must be made on the overall character's proficiency, not just for an "all-out" encounter.

[Glorelendil]

Round 2....

I used the same background (Noble Blood) and only gave favoured Body +1. Spent my 16 XP on Fell Woodland Bow, and Bow: 4 (Assuming starting with Bow: 3 from Background XP.) Clearly I could have used Favoured Body of 9, but I wanted to test it with Roc's background first.

Black Uruk:
Average Rounds to Kill: 3.33
Average Hope per Kill: 0.42

By changing background for a Body of 6(9) this becomes:
Average Rounds to Kill: 2.86
Average Hope per Kill: 0.41

So in both cases a it takes longer to kill, up to twice as long, but 1/6th of the Hope is spent. Cave Troll next.

Cave Troll, 6(9) build:
Average Rounds to Kill: 14.76
Average Hope Spent: 1.14

So clearly it takes a lot longer to get that magic pierce with Injury of 16 instead of 18, but on the other hand you're only spending about 1 Hope per Cave Troll, rather than 10.

Next up: Barding.

[Glorelendil]

Ok, here's round one: Roc's built versus a Cave Troll. If Hope could be spent to turn a miss into a hit, it gets spent. And then if the hit is not a Pierce, Hope is also spent for Stinging Arrow.

Glor, I don't think this kind of test would really make sense, because we're not considering Hope economy.

If we're allowing a character to spend all of his Hope on a single encounter, it's pretty obvious that Hope-reliant characters will have an edge. What actually happens is that players save their Hope for future encounters, unless they really risk a TPK and even then, they will be crippled for any future encounter.

I mean, I believe that it's not in any party's experience to spend 9 Hope points per combat... evaluation must be made on the overall character's proficiency, not just for an "all-out" encounter.

I agree. I'm trying to demonstrate just what the cost (Hope) vs. benefit (Kill Time) ratio of this build is.

[Falenthal]

I'm ( I think) with Angelalex on this one.
Regardless of numbers and specific situations, a Virtue that:
a) is considered to be useful only with a weapon that is NOT one of the cultural weapons
b) is not useful (to some extent) to all or most backgrounds of said culture

is either a bad Virtue or the Culture itself is badly designed (which I think is not the case).

Wood-elves are designed by the game to use short bows, not long bows. Their virtues and rewards should make short bows shine, not long ones.
Deadly Archery does not allow the archer to control anything: if the hit is a great or extraordinary success, or a Piercing blow (which is not the same as a Wound, remember) still dependes on the luck of the dice rolled. Nothing to do with the Virtue.

[Glorelendil]

Barding results vs. Cave Troll:

average rounds: 9.52
average hope spent: 0.74

Slower than Roc's build to kill, but less than 1 Hope per kill spent.

One tweak I'd make to the strat is to not start using Called Shots until the Troll is Weary. Maximize damage output until then.

[Rocmistro]

I'm ( I think) with Angelalex on this one.
Regardless of numbers and specific situations, a Virtue that:
a) is considered to be useful only with a weapon that is NOT one of the cultural weapons
b) is not useful (to some extent) to all or most backgrounds of said culture

is either a bad Virtue or the Culture itself is badly designed (which I think is not the case).

Wood-elves are designed by the game to use short bows, not long bows. Their virtues and rewards should make short bows shine, not long ones.
Deadly Archery does not allow the archer to control anything: if the hit is a great or extraordinary success, or a Piercing blow (which is not the same as a Wound, remember) still dependes on the luck of the dice rolled. Nothing to do with the Virtue.

Falenthal (and all else) I don't necessarily think my Great Bow build is the only one, though. You could potentially double pump favored bow AND heart score for some truly juicy consistant hitting too. I actually think musical legacy 5(8)/4/5 also works with it to be honest.

I can hear Mich and Glor right now. "Double expertise???? What is he, frekking crazy???"

Now you have a +12 to hit. Weary, high parry, long distance opponents (remember that medium/long range = moderately/severely hindered thing that I'm sure a lot of people forget ); no problem.

P: "I should get an opening volley, right?"
LM: "They are too far away"
P: "Really, I have like over 100 feet of range..."
LM: "Ok fine...but it's like...also through trees and bushes and stuff...and in the dark"
P: "Keen Eyed."
LM: "Ok fine, severly hindered, +4 to TN. And they get double shield bonus against opening volleys, so your TN is...24 for the Orc Guards and 21 for the Orc Soldier"
P: "And since it's Woodland Bow I actually get 2 shots..."
LM: "Fine."
P: [rolls dice and if necessary (and it may very well be) adds +12 to roll.]

[Rocmistro]

Barding results vs. Cave Troll:

average rounds: 9.52
average hope spent: 0.74

Slower than Roc's build to kill, but less than 1 Hope per kill spent.

One tweak I'd make to the strat is to not start using Called Shots until the Troll is Weary. Maximize damage output until then.

Right. In a real world scenario, I'm not going to spend any hope to force protection tests against those frekkin trolls until or unless they are weary. If they come naturally by the dice, awesome. If not, I'll wait until he's been knocked down to 0 endurance.

[Rocmistro]

Round 2....

I used the same background (Noble Blood) and only gave favoured Body +1. Spent my 16 XP on Fell Woodland Bow, and Bow: 4 (Assuming starting with Bow: 3 from Background XP.) Clearly I could have used Favoured Body of 9, but I wanted to test it with Roc's background first.

Black Uruk:
Average Rounds to Kill: 3.33
Average Hope per Kill: 0.42

By changing background for a Body of 6(9) this becomes:
Average Rounds to Kill: 2.86
Average Hope per Kill: 0.41

So in both cases a it takes longer to kill, up to twice as long, but 1/6th of the Hope is spent. Cave Troll next.

Cave Troll, 6(9) build:
Average Rounds to Kill: 14.76
Average Hope Spent: 1.14

So clearly it takes a lot longer to get that magic pierce with Injury of 16 instead of 18, but on the other hand you're only spending about 1 Hope per Cave Troll, rather than 10.

Next up: Barding.

Interesting information. As much as I want my build to do well, I don't know that high armor foes are the right targets of opportunity for it. I think it's more about lesser foes who need to go down, such as:

-The Orc who's about to chop off the fair maiden's head.
-The Uruk who's about to fling himself at the gunpowder bomb with a flaming torch "Bring him down, Legolas, bring him down".
-The Orc Chieftain is a good one because his 3d armor is not favored.
-The tip-top mook who is threatening to kill one of your battered comrades.
-Attercops and Great Spiders; they can do nasty things like poison, seize victim and dreadful spells, but are kinda squishy.

And that's why I don't know that the build can be accurately guaged by your model, because you can't really model for those occassions. But the reality is that they happen all the time in RPGs.

[Glorelendil]

Ok but with that build (skill 2) you are hardly ever going to hit without spending hope. Which means longer until weary.

Your double expertise scenario would be amazing when it happened, but the opportunity cost of that build...in the hope that it might happen some day, is really high.