Deadly Archery

[Angelalex242]

I'm starting to like 'archery from any stance.' That A:Doesn't use hope at all and B:Doesn't favor one culture or the other. In fact, it just keeps elven archers from having to spend XP on a melee skill so they're not helpless when forced into melee.

[Falenthal]

Yeah, but they're mechanically the same: a -2 TN drop works the same as a conditional +2 bonus to a combat check. You deduct the one and add the other.

If I'm understanding Falenthal correctly, there is a significant difference... Hindrance the actual game term represents either a +2 to TN (Moderately Hindered) or +4 (Severely Hindered). As he points out, a +2 bonus to your total would apply even if no Hindrance was applied, whereas affecting the Hindrance effects would only apply if there's a Hindrance in the first place.

In my experience, Hindrance does not come up as often as it might should, and the existing language of the rule points strongly at this being a consideration.

That's right, zed. In all your points, including the fact that LMs don't apply Hindraces as much as we should. At least, I can talk for me, and that's the case.

Let me put an example:
The Fellowship encounters a group of orcs in the plains of the Nether Marches. There's plenty of line of sight and they do the Opening Volleys.
-With a plain +2 to Hit, the Mirkwood Elf with Deadly Archery would have a bonus to hit the Orcs.
-With a reduction to the Hindraces penalties, the ME with DA won't have any bonus to his Opening Volley, as the LM considers there aren't Hindraces to apply.

This takes to me to consider some circumstances where Hindraces should or could be applied:

A fellowship, consisting of a ME with a Bow and a Barding with a Great Bow, see a group of Orcs with Spears and Bows approaching them through the plains of the Nether Marches.
Personally, I would usually solve this as "the Barding, the ME and the Orcs with Bows have one Volley, and then they'll have a second volley along with the Orcs who throw their spears".

But it could also be done using the range modifiers, and that could benefit from the Hindrance reductions:
"The Orcs approach, and are at the Great Bow's Long Range. Barding, do you want to shoot with a +4TN before anybody else?
They get closer. Barding, you can shoot with a +2TN (Medium Range). Those with Bow can shoot at +4TN (Long Range).
Closer still. Barding, you can shoot without penalty (Short Range). Bows with a +2TN (Medium Range), Spears with a +4TN (Long Range).
Etc."

If used this way, for easiness of bookkeeping, I would advise to mantain the limit of 2 shots for Bows, 1 for Spears. The players and adversaries can decide when to shoot, though. Shoot before anybody else, but with a higher TN, maybe killing one enemy before it has the chance to shoot himself? Or wait to assure the shot, but allowing then the enemies to shoot themselves?

With this example, my proposed version of the Woodland Bow could fire under the same conditions than a Great Bow. Note that if the bonus were "reduce all Hindrance penalties (including range) by one level" instead of "the Bow can fire using the same ranges as a Great Bow", then in this example the ME still couldn't fire at the Great Bow's Long Range, and would start shooting at his usual Long Range, only that beginning with a +2TN instead of a +4TN.

[Falenthal]

I prefer to augment to chances to roll a 6 (and therefore, to succeed with a Called Shot), than to re-roll bad dice rollings. For example, if an archer was trying a Called Shot and rolled no 6s, but also no 1s, your rule wouldn't be of help. Mine would.

The single reroll is fine but the player can just take a Mastery Die or Dour-handed or some other quality in bows instead, and that's a whole new die. When I create a feature like this for a game I want it to give the player an edge or benefit he didn't have before, balance it with what that culture has, and hopefully make it do something different than what other features have done before.

I have to admit that I don't use the optional rule of Mastery Die, so I didn't have them in mind when thinking about de DA Virtue.
But, as I read it, the Mastery Die can only be taken for a Favourite skill. Therefore, a Lórien Elf couldn't take it (from the beginning, at least) as they have (Bows) as skill.
And it works different from what I propose. The Mastery Die (roll one more Success die, but only keep the higher results up to your skill ranks) and the "re-roll one of the Sucess die" can be used in addition, not instead.

Do you see a problem with that? Remember that my proposal is an extra benefit only applied to Called Shots (where you absolutely need that 6). The Mastery Die is a different benefit that would be applied to all Bow rolls.

[Insect King]

Do you see a problem with that? Remember that my proposal is an extra benefit only applied to Called Shots (where you absolutely need that 6). The Mastery Die is a different benefit that would be applied to all Bow rolls.

As long as you think it's cool for a player to stack them.

Why don't you use Mastery Die?

Cheers,

Chris.

[Deadmanwalking]

That's right, but that will happen with any effect of Deadly Archery. Therefore, I think that the effect of Deadly Archery should'nt relate to Damage or Injury, and limited in its applicability (i.e. no overall bonus to hit).

Agreed entirely, actually.

By the RAW, Mirkwood Elves get a better benefit than Lórien Elves: when they use a point of Hope, being Bow a Favourite skill, they get a higher bonus to hit (Favourite Body + Heart vs. Basic Body + Heart). This is compensated by the fact that Lórien Elves do have a higher Damage and Injury.

Actually, due to the probabilities of a large dice pool, bonuses added to a small number are better than those added to a big number on something like this. Going from 4 to 7 is way better than going from 7 to 10, since way more shots miss by between 5 and 7 than miss by between 8 and 10.

That almost doesn't matter since it's a pretty crappy Virtue either way, mind you, but it's true.

We could argue that, being based on Hope expenditure, and knowing that Lórien Elves have Virtues that allow them to recover more Hope than Mirkwood Elves, the RAW Deadly Archery will be used more often by Lórien Elves than by Mirkwood Elves (who also have Elven Magic to spend their scarce Hope points). So, as you see, I feel it's difficult or impossible to design a Deadly Archery Virtue that isn't a bit more useful for one Culture than for the other.

Sure. But that's not what I'm arguing against. I'm arguing that you need to look at what Elves of Lorien will look like with whatever Virtue you add as a balance concern with other cultures including Elves of Mirkwood.

So, with Woodland Bows as they are, the two cultures are about equal as archers (and roughly on par with other archers of other Cultures). Powering down Woodland Bows and vastly powering up Deadly Archery to compensate thus makes Lorien Elves vastly better archers than anyone else in the game. which is a balance problem and thus to be avoided.

I'm not arguing the Virtue needs to be equally good for both Cultures, just that it can't be unbalancingly good for either.

That's why I proposed an advantatge to hit with a Called Shot, but not to its effects. The Great Bow of Lórien won't help here at all. The new Woodland Bow could help under some circumstances (making the TN lower, but not helping with rolling a Tengwar either). As a Bow is weaker than a Great Bow if the Called Shot is succesful, this kind of compensates.

Huh? The post I responded to suggested -1 Protection die on Called Shots. And that's what I was responding to. That's definitely a huge bonus for a greatbow user. Way bigger than any other benefit any greatbow user gets, and thus seriously potentially unbalancing.

I have to admit that I don't use the optional rule of Mastery Die, so I didn't have them in mind when thinking about de DA Virtue.

Uh...Mastery Dice aren't optional. I mean, technically any rule is optional in your own game, but they aren't presented as a rules variant or anything. They're no more optional than the existence of a Men of Bree culture.

I'm not sure they're the way to go for this (though they do have the advantage of simplicity), but they're not optional.

[Falenthal]

That's why I proposed an advantatge to hit with a Called Shot, but not to its effects. The Great Bow of Lórien won't help here at all. The new Woodland Bow could help under some circumstances (making the TN lower, but not helping with rolling a Tengwar either). As a Bow is weaker than a Great Bow if the Called Shot is succesful, this kind of compensates.

Huh? The post I responded to suggested -1 Protection die on Called Shots. And that's what I was responding to. That's definitely a huge bonus for a greatbow user. Way bigger than any other benefit any greatbow user gets, and thus seriously potentially unbalancing.

That was my first idea, written in the post, but I changed it minutes later because of what you are saying (overpowered effect on Lórien Elves). You probably read it in those few minutes between my original post and the edit!

EDIT!!: Oooooops! I've checked and the post isn't edited as intended! I'll do it now.
My proposed change to Deadly Archery is "When attempting a Called Shot, you may re-roll one Success die and keep the second result."

Sorry about the confusion.

[Corvo]

(...)
My proposed change to Deadly Archery is "When attempting a Called Shot, you may re-roll one Success die and keep the second result."

Sorry about the confusion.

I don't have the books at hand, so maybe I'm remembering it wrong...
The mastery isn't "roll an extra dice, then discard a dice"?
Because "roll one extra dice and discard any one dice" is always better that "reroll one dice and keep the second result".

[Falenthal]

(...)
My proposed change to Deadly Archery is "When attempting a Called Shot, you may re-roll one Success die and keep the second result."

Sorry about the confusion.

I don't have the books at hand, so maybe I'm remembering it wrong...
The mastery isn't "roll an extra dice, then discard a dice"?
Because "roll one extra dice and discard any one dice" is always better that "reroll one dice and keep the second result".

Your memory serves you well
But I'm not proposing to use the mechanic of Mastery Dice for DA. In fact, the re-roll one Success die is the mechanic for "Made in Anvil Way", one of the Undertakings that appear in Erebor to do in Dale.

[Glorelendil]

1. I'd avoid duplicating the effects of the virtue that gives you a Mastery die.

2. I'd also avoid making Called Shot better. It's already the best choice in most circumstance at higher levels. Why make it better, if it just results in players doing the same thing they were going to do anyway? ("Because it's BETTER!")
If you're going to buff something, buff Prepared Shot, such that in some situations it's better. Ideally "some situations" is hard to quantify, so the players have to make educated guesses.

More (hard) choices == better game.

[Angelalex242]

Nuts. Nobody likes 'archery from any stance?' I thought it'd be a good answer. Prevent Mirkwood and Lorien elves from having to buy up a melee skill.