Deadly Archery (another fix)

[Insect King]

I am in the middle of reading a whole lot of Tolkien as part of research for what looks like an increasingly possible The One Ring campaign set in the Fourth Age. This led me to doodle and scribble out house rules for problems I encountered as a player. And one problem was my Mirkwood Elf's Deadly Archery Cultural Virtue. I bought it without understanding the significance of the mechanics.

But rather than rearrange it or swap it out with another power or ability, I tried playing around with what it be as a initially poor but increasingly fearsome ability with a patient player who wants to play the elf with the nearly magical expertise with a bow.

Deadly Archery

Deadly Archery stays the same when initially bought: Spend a point of Hope add your basic Heart Attribute to your regular Body Attribute boost (favoured or not). You can buy subsequent Deadly Archery specialisations in the same order of their listing.

First Specialisation: Shot from the Heart
As an undertaking, a player may spend a point of experience and get the basic Heart Attribute as a bonus to all bow attacks. But if you spend a point of Hope, you add your character's favoured Heart Attribute to the Body Attribite boost.

Second specialisation: An Arrow of Wicked Cunning
As part of an undertaking, a player can spend two experience points and roll the Feat die twice for one bow attack in a round and take the best result.

The player can take Cunning Arrow twice and can roll Feat die twice for a second Bow attack in one round but no more.

Third Specialisation: The Keenest of Eyes
The player can spend three experience points as part of an undertaking and if he rolls a Rune or Tengwar on an bow attack, he can roll another bow attack immediately afterwards, rolling a feat die with another success die for every Rune or Tengwar rolled. The character cannot roll more dice than he has in his weapon.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Glorelendil]

I general I really like Virtues that you can expand on during Fellowship Phases, and "fixing" Deadly Archery by giving it more useful features rather than changing its base description has a good feel to it.

I'm still not a fan of replicating Fair Shot, for reasons discussed in the big Deadly Archery thread (for which the opportunity to expand to ever-greater new heights was missed out upon by starting a new thread). The mechanics you suggest would become really quite powerful when combined with Woodland Bow. Imagine two shots in an opening volley each getting two feat dice, and then each of them also triggering another attack...

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, the big problem with this idea is that it makes Deadly Archery the best combat virtue in the game. By, y'know, a lot.

Replicating both Fair Shot and a Bow of the North Downs in a single Virtue is...pretty overpowered, even with limitations (some of which don't look like they'll come up a lot). And even if you did power it down a bit, any major enhancement of Wood Elf archer combat prowess in terms of direct numbers (as opposed to options) is a serious issue, because the current options other than Deadly Archery (specifically, the Woodland Bow) are so good that powering them up more makes them by far the nastiest combat characters in the game. A title currently very much not held by anyone (though Men of Minas Tirith come closest), and certainly not held by anyone with non-combat advantages as good a Elves of Mirkwood get (the non-combat options of the Men of Minas Tirith are lackluster and their Wisdom and Valour cost more to raise).

Now, Deadly Archery is pretty worthless, and there are situations where the Woodland Bow isn't super helpful (creatures with Great Size and really long combats being the main ones), and that leaves some room for a version of Deadly Archery that helps in those situations specifically, or mostly only helps then...but a general upgrade? As discussed in the other thread, probably too powerful.

My current thoughts in terms of a Deadly Archery fix are tied in with the new combat options in the Adventurer's Companion. My first (discussed in the aforementioned other Deadly Archery thread) involves a serious upgrade to the Seek A Mark action, and my second (come up with as I wrote this) is to allow those with Deadly Archery to use the Break Armor or Maiming Strike Called Shots (normally restricted to Axes and Swords) when using a Bow.

Those tow options could maybe be combined in some way...though my ideas for that are still a bit nebulous.

[Insect King]

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm revising the set up and will post as soon as I'm able.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Insect King]

Deadly Archery (Fix)

Here is my revised Deadly Archery fix.

Deadly Archery stays the same when initially bought: Spend a point of Hope add your basic Heart Attribute to your regular Body Attribute (favoured or not) boost.

First Specialisation: Shot from the Heart
As an undertaking, a player may spend a point of experience and get the basic Heart Attribute as a bonus to all bow attacks. If you spend a point of Hope, it becomes your character's favoured Heart Attribute.

Second Specialisation: The Keenest of Eyes
The player can spend two experience points as part of an undertaking and if he rolls a Rune or Tengwar on an bow attack, he can roll one other free bow attack immediately afterwards, rolling a feat die with another success die for every Rune or Tengwar rolled. The character cannot roll more dice than he has in his weapon skill. This cannot be used as part of the double opening volley of Woodland Bow.

Third specialisation: Arrows of Wicked Cunning
As part of an undertaking, a player spends three experience points and gets an extra Bow Mastery die. He or she rolls the extra die with the pool and removes the lowest rolling die.

The player is allowed to buy a second Skill Mastery die in his bow even though it is normally forbidden meaning the player can buy a second Skill Mastery die for his bow as described on page 114 of the Adventurer's Companion.

[Deadmanwalking]

Those are still basically numerical advantages (bonuses on attacks, bonus attacks, etc.)

Which remain sorta a problem for the reasons I went into earlier.

[Insect King]

What exactly is the problem with numerical advantages?

C.

[Deadmanwalking]

What exactly is the problem with numerical advantages?

C.

At the moment, most equally combat focused/optimized builds of just about every Culture are equally effective at combat, at least offensively (and Elves, with high Wits are among the better ones defensively among archers, too). They're all around equally good at killing things. Yes, really, all of them (Men of Minas Tirith are a bit of an exception, but they have higher xp costs and mediocre to bad non-combat options in compensation). There's a slight exception where creatures with Great Size are concerned (those with Great Spears or Great Bows do better there).

Thus, adding serious numerical advantages to Elf of Mirkwood archers makes them the best combat characters in the game by quite a bit (again, possibly except for the Men of Minas Tirith, and the elf winds up vastly superior to them outside combat). Which is bad for the same reason making one type of character flatly mechanically superior to all others is usually a bad call.

Now, Deadly Archery does indeed suck and need to be powered up (most of the unique combat advantage Elves of Mirkwood get is in the, statistica.lly amazing, Woodland Bow)...but powering it up in ways that add to the flat numerical power of an Elf of Mirkwood? Not a great plan.

[Insect King]

>At the moment, most equally combat focused/optimized builds of just about every Culture are equally effective at combat, at least offensively (and Elves, with high Wits are among the better ones defensively among archers, too). They're all around equally good at killing things.

Deadly Archery is a combat-focused reward that currently provides too little for its cost.

>Yes, really, all of them (Men of Minas Tirith are a bit of an exception, but they have higher xp costs and mediocre to bad non-combat options in compensation). There's a slight exception where creatures with Great Size are concerned (those with Great Spears or Great Bows do better there).

If I play a Mirkwood elf, I don't get other cultures cool shit. If I did I would have given my elf that cool hobbit ranged weapon 2fd bump.

>Thus, adding serious numerical advantages to Elf of Mirkwood archers makes them the best combat characters in the game by quite a bit (again, possibly except for the Men of Minas Tirith, and the elf winds up vastly superior to them outside combat).

You said this before without specifying how this makes them these weedwhackers in battle. How does my current version of Deadly Archery do this?

>Which is bad for the same reason making one type of character flatly mechanically superior to all others is usually a bad call.

My 55-experience point Mirkwood elf with 4d in favoured Bow and using Woodland Bow, is not as powerful to the newbie hobbit with rolling 2df shooting arrows. Claiming there's some sort of balance among the cultural rewards and virtues is laughable.

>Now, Deadly Archery does indeed suck and need to be powered up (most of the unique combat advantage Elves of Mirkwood get is in the, statistica.lly amazing, Woodland Bow)...but powering it up in ways that add to the flat numerical power of an Elf of Mirkwood? Not a great plan.

What does "powering it up in ways that add to the flat numerical power of an Elf of Mirkwood" even mean? I've been playing the same Mirkwood elf for more than three years. His basic 3d longsword is more effective in combat than his Woodland Bow double opening volley 4d favoured bow attack.

You see, you keep saying that boost Deadly Archery with numerical advantages that increases combat effectiveness is "not a great plan" yet you still haven't laid out a cogent argument detailing your position.

Once again, which part or parts of my current version of Deadly Archey -- a combat-focused Cultural virtue -- makes Mirkwood elves too powerful in combat?

C.

[Corvo]

Hi Insect King,

your ideas are interesting, yet are apparently met with some skepticism.
I know this can baffle you, but it's just because there are been already a *lot* of discussion on the topic.
Once upon a time, the Munchkin called Glorelendil provided us with a simulator that yelded surprising results.
Among other thing, we discovered that a lot of cultures are basically balanced, our personal experiences notwithstanding (small statistical sample etc).
That said, there is consensus on some things:
1-Deadly Archery is useless
2-Woodland Bow is very strong
3-Hobbit virtues and rewards are fearsome, and cannot be taken for comparison.

So we are stuck with the problem of making Elves comparatively better than Hobbits at archery, without overshadowing the other cultures archers.

Personally, I would add a 4th point: Bardings are awesome, but two of their three rewards are almost useless