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2097
2019-05-05, 10:32 AM
I already posted this to my blog and to reddit and to Story Games but I really wanted to hear what you Giants thought of this, kinda complicated house rule. As always, one of my faults as a DM is that I overload the game with houserules until the game is as cumbersome and heavy as GURPS. Otoh I want to support cool things & unusual actions & compentent archers&casters who don’t spend round after round “missing” ♥

Ammo recovery in the RAW

I had an old house rule for recovering arrows that didn’t work very well. Let’s go back to the RAW! That means,

AFTER battle, you get back half of your ammo (arrows, daggers, javelins, darts etc) rounded down and it takes a minute of searching.

When I wrote my old house rules (which these obsolete -- I can't link to them here on GITP because my post count is still too low), I was unaware of that rule; it’s easy to miss (it’s under “Ammo” in the weapon properties list).

House rule №1: Aiming rolls

Aiming is a new, house-ruled combat action!

You can spend an attack to instead aim! (So if you have “extra attack”, or “action surge”, or whatever, you can translate any number of those attacks to be Aiming instead of attacking, for example you can aim & attack in the same round if you have two attacks.)

YOU HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR AIMING in a cool way to be allowed to aim!

Spending an attack in this way gives you an aim point. You can have any number of aim points, but whenever you gain XP, or rest, you lose all aim points.

Whenever you do a ranged attack vs AC, you can spend aim points to make extra attack rolls vs that same target.

The benefits of aiming are that you save ammo and that you look cool. The downsides of aiming are that you might end up wasting aim points, and that you might not be able to spread out your attacks among a large amount of lower-powered enemies.

It’s especially appreciated if you describe your aiming on a specific enemy, but the aim points aren’t mechanically tied to a specific enemy, since taking your time steadying your ground, focusing your breath etc is beneficial even if you change your target.

Aiming Example

Jenny has +5 to hit with her shortbow and she deals 1d6+3 damage.

Let’s say she spends two rounds aiming at a skeleton (AC 13, HP 13). Both rounds she says a sentence or so about her aiming. Then, when she finally lets go off her arrow, she gets to make three rolls vs that AC 13, and for each hit she gets to roll the damage and add it all up. Let’s say she rolled a 9 (+5 = 14), a 4 (+5 = 9) and a 12 (+5 = 17). Two hits. So that one arrow deals 2d6 + 6 (that’s two rolls of 1d6 + 3) damage to that skeleton. That’s brutal!

House rule №2: Charging up spells

(This doesn’t really have anything to do with ammo recovery but it works similarly to aiming so that’s why I put it here.)

You can charge up your spells by spending the casting time (for example, one action) and components (V, S, and/or M—with the benefit of spellcasting focus or component pouch as usual) of the spell. Each spell & slot level combination has its own pool of charge points, for example you might have one for Eldritch Blast, one for level 1 Sleep etc. You lose all charge points whenever you gain XP and when you rest.

YOU HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR CHARGING UP THE SPELL in a cool way to be allowed to do it.

Then when you cast the spell, you can spend charge points (and extra slots, if the charged spell wasn’t a cantrip) to cast multiple copies of the spell.

The benefit is that you can work compress (sleep is an example of a spell that is unusually effective), and that you might save slots in case you end up not using the spell after all, that you avoid drawing aggro and that you look cool & powerful. The downside is that you might waste actions and components if you end up losing the charge points, and that it’s a hassle af to track so many charge points.

Spell Charging Example

Jenny wants to charge up a level one sleep spell. She spends two rounds charging it up, saying the magic words (v component), the gestures (s component) and brandishing the rose petal (m component) for two charge points, and a sentence or two describing how she is charging up the spell. Those charge points are specific to “level 1 sleep” and can’t be used for other spells of the same level, like “level 1 chaos bolt” or for other levels of sleep, like “level 2 sleep”. Then on the third round she casts the spell, spending two charge points and three separate level 1 slots to cast the sleep spell three times consecutively. Nighty-night, little angels!

House rule №3: Mending!

Mending, the most under-powered and crappy cantrip of all time! By the RAW, it doesn’t do jack to help you find or fix arrows but let’s change that.

When you’re searching for ammo, up to two pieces of ammo that would’ve been lost can instead be broken & mending-mendable.

Mending Example

Jenny throws three daggers. By the RAW, searching the battlefield would’ve given her 1 dagger and then 2 would’ve been lost. With this house rule, she finds one non-broken dagger and two broken ones.

RedMage125
2019-05-05, 11:27 AM
Jenny throws three daggers. By the RAW, searching the battlefield would’ve given her 1 dagger and then 2 would’ve been lost. With this house rule, she finds one non-broken dagger and two broken ones.

Ammunition recovery doesn't apply to daggers. They do not have the "Ammunition" property. A dagger is a melee weapon with the thrown property. So assuming that it doesn't get lost over a cliff or into a pit (or any other specific reason it should be unreachable), all daggers are recoverable after a battle.

JackPhoenix
2019-05-05, 11:32 AM
First, ammo recovery doesn't affect thrown weapons. Those aren't ammo, and you can always get them back.

Second, both actions are either completely pointless (if you do it in combat) or overpowered as ****. I can spend arbitrary amount of time before combat "aiming", then one-shot anything once the combat starts. And it's even worse for spells. It breaks action economy HARD either way.

Mellack
2019-05-05, 12:41 PM
I agree totally with what Jack said above. It makes any ambush a one-hit kill for any archer. Aim while in hiding for a dozen rounds or so and people will be killing anything. "Hey, we stumbled across the sleeping terrasque. Give me an hour of aiming and I will kill it."

2097
2019-05-05, 02:28 PM
This is great feedback! Much appreciated♥

I had totally missed the thrown vs ammo thing so I obv picked very stupid examples, will go rewrite rules accordingly. Thank you!♥

I hadn't realized the snipe thing either, I didn't think of that at all tbh (this was meant to be used in combat); isn't it kinda cool though? Assassination♥

I could add "charging up spells reveals your position" and "aiming reveals your position; unless you have an ability that lets you Hide as a bonus action, such as Cunning Action or Nimble Escape, or if you are invisible. If you do, you can stay hidden while aiming and then once you spend aim points, you need to make one Dexterity (stealth) check vs the targets Wisdom (perception) for each aim point you spend; you need to succeed on them all or the shot misses."

Sound good?

Not sure how to address the rogue's Reliable Talent feature.


Second, both actions are either completely pointless (if you do it in combat)

They are cool! And you save ammo. I want the heroes to be able to be focused & calm & competent.

Mellack
2019-05-05, 02:39 PM
Ammo is rarely an issue, so making a complex system because of it doesn't seem worthwhile. I personally don't like your "aim points" that can somehow be saved up. Why does my aiming at that first guy who just got killed help me shoot this next guy? It could have even been that last encounter if we haven't rested. That just doesn't feel right.

Sadly, for archery at least it is still useless or OP. For in combat use you would be better off using each attack separately. That way you have less chance of wasting damage by overkilling. For out of combat is is either a waste for anyone not highly skilled, or overpowered for those who are such as your reliably talented rogue.

I would go with much simpler: you can give yourself the help action to aim. Spend an action aiming to give advantage on your next attack.

JackPhoenix
2019-05-05, 03:16 PM
I could add "charging up spells reveals your position" and "aiming reveals your position; unless you have an ability that lets you Hide as a bonus action, such as Cunning Action or Nimble Escape, or if you are invisible. If you do, you can stay hidden while aiming and then once you spend aim points, you need to make one Dexterity (stealth) check vs the targets Wisdom (perception) for each aim point you spend; you need to succeed on them all or the shot misses."

Sound good?

Sounds incredibly annoying (you now have to make twice as many rolls, which means your turn will take much longer at the expense of other players- see summoning and other ways to get minions) and even more useless (the more rolls you make, the better chance you'll fail at least one of them, making normal attacks that don't suffer from this houserule a better choice in pretty much any situation).

Not that revealing your position matters, as written, an archer can spend half a day "aiming" at one of the party members, hoarding aim points, then unleashing them on enemies (because you apparently can divide the aim points between many different targets) hours later as long he didn't get any XP or took a rest in between.


They are cool! And you save ammo. I want the heroes to be able to be focused & calm & competent.

Ammo is rarely a problem. And I don't see what does that houserule has to do with being "focused & calm & competent". The first two are roleplaying thing independant of any rules, and the later is done through proper character building.

2097
2019-05-05, 03:29 PM
Here is my first draft for “sniping”

“Aiming reveals your position, unless you are invisible or you have an ability that lets you Hide as a bonus action, such as Cunning Action or Nimble Escape. If you do, you can stay hidden, but don’t roll those stealth checks until you release your shot; once you do you need to make one Dexterity (stealth) check vs the target’s Wisdom (perception) for each aim point you spend; you need to succeed on them all or the shot misses. You can only use the rogue’s Reliable Talent feature or a Pass Without Trace bonus on one of these rolls, and you need to make these rolls even if you used an invisibility spell or similar to stay hidden.”


Ammo is rarely an issue, so making a complex system because of it doesn’t seem worthwhile.

The reason I really want to make this work is that I see HP as more of a “death clock” or pacing mechanism than just “liters of blood”; I don’t like the image that a monster is like a big timber tree that you need to fell “gradually” with many small chops.

I want even someone who has hundreds of HP to be able to be shot, a dragon or a really high-level king. Pointing an arrow at someone and saying “come with me if you want to live” is ridiculous to a high-level character.

That is the issue I want to address; saving ammo is more of a carrot to motivate the use of aiming.

I want to strike the balance so that it makes ranged (both ammunition and thrown) weapon attacks slightly better but not like “the tarrasque is a joke now”.

I lost a player early on (when 5e was new; I’ve been running it since the starter set was first released) when his character, an archer, he had invested a lot of emotion into making “this one shot” at his nemesis, a dragon. A shot that dealt like five damage and the dragon just laughed it off. He was hoping to, like, blind or kill the dragon.

Another anecdote was with another player; some pirates kicked down her door and threatened her with arrows; she “played along” to their threats & demands [to help them escort/return a kidnapping victim pretty much; a pirate underling had kidnapped her withou the main pirate queen’s permission and the main pirate queen had fired the underling and wanted to undo the kidnapping somehow] but in reality if they had released those arrows the PC could’ve shrugged off the damage. (She might not have survived the fight but she could’ve survived the initial volley.) I like how every round of talking the “temperature” rises with more & more “aim points”; a la the stand-off scene in Reservoir Dogs.

(“Charging up spells” I don’t really need to make work; I want to focus on making aiming with weapon attacks work first & foremost.)


Why does my aiming at that first guy who just got killed help me shoot this next guy?

As I wrote, I was thinking that was because you’ve spent the time steadying your bow, focusing your breath etc. I don’t actually know a lot about real archery or real fighting tbh so that was just trying to find out a sort of reason why it worked. If you feel aim points should be target-specific, maybe that’s better, but that would make aiming too underpowered.


I personally don’t like your “aim points” that can somehow be saved up. […] It could have even been that last encounter if we haven’t rested. That just doesn’t feel right.

But you would’ve gotten XP at the end of the last encounter, right?

Maybe I should expand the lists of what you can/can’t do. The intent is that you might take a few steps or even spend an action dodging and still keep your aim points, but if you put your bow away you lose them. !!! I should write that! “If you move more than 100 feet, or put your bow away, gain XP, or rest”.


Sadly, for archery at least it is still useless or OP. For in combat use you would be better off using each attack separately. That way you have less chance of wasting damage by overkilling.

You’re probably right that the carrot is too small rn… :/


For out of combat is is either a waste for anyone not highly skilled, or overpowered for those who are such as your reliably talented rogue.

I would go with much simpler: you can give yourself the help action to aim. Spend an action aiming to give advantage on your next attack.

I don’t want accuracy to go up (a la aiming in GURPS), not only because emulating the notoriously underpowered cantrip True Strike isn’t great, and I don’t want to mess with bounded accuracy, but also because I specifically want it to affect HP. I want the arches to be able to kill with a lot fewer shots.

My old rule was based on the idea that aiming was an attack in all ways except name. You made an attack roll instead of racking up “aim points” So the target lost their HP right away; representing the rogue aiming at a goblin cornering it so that the fighter could kill it with one chop.

This was hard to explain to players, the idea that HP is “meat points” is hard to shake off.

I guess could go back to some variant or tweak on that idea. Not sure what the carrot would be since ammo isn’t really a big problem.

2097
2019-05-05, 03:47 PM
We crossposted;


Sounds incredibly annoying (you now have to make twice as many rolls, which means your turn will take much longer at the expense of other players- see summoning and other ways to get minions) and

Out of combat, it’s not really a “turn”. It’s more of a push your luck, how much aiming you want to “bet”; “From my hiding place, I aim for three rounds” “OK, then you’ll have to make three stealth checks”.

In combat, there’s no rolling on the aiming turns and then once you unleash your shot (if you’ve been hidden) it’s no more rolling (total) than what there would’ve been if you had been shooting & use Cunning Action to rehide every round.

We usually handle these situations rolling a ton of d20s at once, so summoning (and fighting large hordes of skeletons etc) haven’t been a problem at our table. We would save time compared to the shoot+Cunning Action every round case.


even more useless (the more rolls you make, the better chance you’ll fail at least one of them, making normal attacks that don’t suffer from this houserule a better choice in pretty much any situation).

So it went from OP to UP; I want to find the right balance where it’s just Good.

There are plenty of “design knobs” here – for example, making it so that a failed stealth check wastes just that aim point, not the entire shot; that makes it OP vs sleeping/static enemies (if you have 30 aim points it doesn’t matter much that 20 of them are wasted due to failed checks) so that’s obv not the way to go.

(OTOH so many DMs just let you go “and then we slit the throats of all the sleeping enemies” so balancing it vs sleeping enemies isn’t the biggest concern in the world. Remember, this is still single target damage.)


Not that revealing your position matters, as written, an archer can spend half a day “aiming” at one of the party members, hoarding aim points, then unleashing them on enemies (because you apparently can divide the aim points between many different targets) hours later as long he didn’t get any XP or took a rest in between.

Ammo is rarely a problem. And I don’t see what does that houserule has to do with being “focused & calm & competent”. The first two are roleplaying thing independant of any rules, and the later is done through proper character building.

Please see my reply to Mellack for answers to both of these two points; about adding in more ways to lose aim points & about why I want to make this houserule work.

Again, thank you for all your advice & help so far♥

2097
2019-05-05, 04:08 PM
This is what I have now, it fixes some but not yet all of these concerns :smallfrown::

Aiming is a new, house-ruled combat action!

You can spend an attack to instead aim! (So if you have “extra attack”, or “action surge”, or whatever, you can translate any number of those attacks to be Aiming instead of attacking, for example you can aim & attack in the same round if you have two attacks.)

YOU HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR AIMING in a cool way to be allowed to aim!

Spending an attack in this way gives you an aim point. Aim points are specific to a particular enemy; if you lose sight of your target (or you have another reason to want to change target, for example if your target is killed or similar), you only have one round to find the target again, or change to a new target, or your aim points are lost.

If you do manage to change targets, the time you’ve taken steadying your ground, focusing your breath etc is still beneficial.

Whenever you do a ranged attack vs AC, you can spend aim points to make extra attack rolls vs that same target.

The benefits of aiming are that you don’t have to use ammunition or thrown weapons while aiming, and that you look cool. The downsides of aiming are that you might end up wasting aim points, and that you might not be able to spread out your attacks among a large amount of lower-powered enemies.

Sniping

If you were hidden when aiming, you need to make one Dexterity (stealth) check vs the target’s Wisdom (perception) for each aim point once you spend them; you need to succeed on them all or the shot misses. You can only use Reliable Talent, Pass Without Trace, invisibility or other special spell or feature on one of these rolls; you can use proficiency or expertise on the checks, however.

2097
2019-05-05, 04:14 PM
Maybe if you got inspiration after you hit a target with aim points? (Maybe with a stipulation that you've spent at least a turn aiming; not if you were using Extra Attack to aim & shoot in the same turn.)
IDK, or maybe some other carrot is better.

2097
2019-05-05, 04:21 PM
We usually handle these situations rolling a ton of d20s at once, so summoning (and fighting large hordes of skeletons etc) haven’t been a problem at our table. We would save time compared to the shoot+Cunning Action every round case.

Normally, we have to do "target number, minus bonus", for example we go "ok, so every die over 11 is a hit" or similar; but in this "make six [or w/e] stealth checks" case it's easier since you have to make them all, because you just look at the lowest die

Mellack
2019-05-05, 04:25 PM
Why do you want to make shooting more powerful? It already is generally considered slightly better than melee (safer, don't generally risk losing attacks because too far to move). I don't see any difference between needing a ton of arrows or the guy getting stabbed by a sword a dozen times and still being fine. If your basic problem is with Hit Points this does not seem to be the way to go about fixing it. It seems you want to find ways to instantly kill. The game is specifically designed to avoid that, because nobody likes having their character dropped without even being able to act.

JackPhoenix
2019-05-05, 04:36 PM
All right, those posts deserve longer response, alas, I don't have time for that, and won't for some 16 hours, so I'll address just few things.

Hit points are explicitly not "meat". PHB is pretty clear about that: "Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile."

If metagaming around HP and damage is your problem, the houserule won't solve that. You won't get enough time to aim to take down dragon with hundreds of HP with one attack in combat situation, and frankly, the idea of killing physics- and biology-defying, bus-sized monster covered with scales harder than steel that's also moving around with a single arrow is riddiculous, unless that "arrow" is actually the size of a small tree and shot from a ballista. Yes, yes, Bard killing Smaug may be iconic, but it's also pretty unrealistic. (and yes, I'm aware of the irony of using realism when dragons are involved). And for the second situation, the metagaming will merely moves a little: instead of knowing that you have enough HP to withstand few arrows, you'll know it's in your best idea to attack the enemy immediately, before the potential damage gets high enough to threaten you. IMO, it hurts the game even more, because now it's in everyone best interest to NOT let the enemy talk at all when you're held at arrowpoint.

It also only affects ranged combat, without doing anything for melee, which is worse than ranged already, and you'll still have to deal with the idea that the enemy can be killed with one well-aimed arrow, if the shooter has more time to aim than he should ever get, but can withstand dozens of hits from sword or an axe (if HP are indeed viewed as meat and not as a way to avoid being killed, as they are)

I don't really see how this houserule could be balanced. The way you want it to work, it'll always be either overpowered or underpowered, with no middle ground.

Oh, and Mending is anything but crappy or underpowered. It's not combat cantrip, but it's one of the best utility options. The houserule isn't needed: it's up to the GM to decide which arrows were lost and which were broken and could be fixed already, and it can also be used to recover pieces of ammunition that hit, not just the ones that mised.

2097
2019-05-05, 04:38 PM
If your basic problem is with Hit Points this does not seem to be the way to go about fixing it. It seems you want to find ways to instantly kill.

I like the pacing of combats and the probabilities & pacing of the AC/HP interaction a lot; mechanically the fights are great. If I could find some sorta best-of-both-worlds between those mechanics but a narration that's more "insta-kill" that would be great.

For swords… there are two models I like: chanbara films where there's one rapid chop (maybe after some tense staring each other down) and the other person is dead; and swashbuckling films where there is a lot of clang clang clang until there's a "touché" and the other person is dead.

What I don't like are slasher style films where there are many bloody chops until the person finally dies.

I love HP as a way to represent fatigue, position, fate, hope, destiny, luck, pacing, "death clock" etc, — and I do love that the higher level you are, the bigger of a threat it takes to kill you— but I don't like HP as "meat points".

You are right that these aiming houserules have some issues that I haven't worked out yet.

2097
2019-05-05, 05:00 PM
All right, those posts deserve longer response, alas, I don’t have time for that, and won’t for some 16 hours, so I’ll address just few things.

Thank you for the time you’ve taken already, I appreciated it a lot.


Hit points are explicitly not “meat”. PHB is pretty clear about that: “Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck. Creatures with more hit points are more difficult to kill. Those with fewer hit points are more fragile.”

Yes, that’s great; that’s why I think my goals here are achievable… somehow.


If metagaming around HP and damage is your problem, the houserule won’t solve that. You won’t get enough time to aim to take down dragon with hundreds of HP with one attack in combat situation, and frankly, the idea of killing physics- and biology-defying, bus-sized monster covered with scales harder than steel that’s also moving around with a single arrow is riddiculous, unless that “arrow” is actually the size of a small tree and shot from a ballista. Yes, yes, Bard killing Smaug may be iconic, but it’s also pretty unrealistic. (and yes, I’m aware of the irony of using realism when dragons are involved).

But isn’t it still cool that a well-aimed arrow means a seriously bigger jump on the dragon’s “death clock”? But you’re right, in this situation it’s kind of useless. You don’t gain enough by gathering “aim points” to make it worth it.


And for the second situation, the metagaming will merely moves a little: instead of knowing that you have enough HP to withstand few arrows, you’ll know it’s in your best idea to attack the enemy immediately, before the potential damage gets high enough to threaten you. IMO, it hurts the game even more, because now it’s in everyone best interest to NOT let the enemy talk at all when you’re held at arrowpoint.

Great observation and I agree; this is where the old version of the rule (where spending an action “aiming” actually meant rolling vs AC and then decreasing HP) worked much better to “turn up the heat” a little more gradually and reasonably than the more scary “a new aim point every six seconds”.


It also only affects ranged combat, without doing anything for melee, which is worse than ranged already, and you’ll still have to deal with the idea that the enemy can be killed with one well-aimed arrow, if the shooter has more time to aim than he should ever get, but can withstand dozens of hits from sword or an axe (if HP are indeed viewed as meat and not as a way to avoid being killed, as they are)

Well, for me and the way I see the fights, swords&axes aren’t that big of a problem because I can see them as clang-clang-clang-touché already (swashbuckler style) or as stare-shift-feet-stare-shift-feet-chop (chanbara style) already. But when players saying “I shoot them” and then scratching arrows, it’s not as easy. (Yeah, supressing fire, but that’s not enough, I still get a sort of “pin cushion” visualization.)


I don’t really see how this houserule could be balanced. The way you want it to work, it’ll always be either overpowered or underpowered, with no middle ground.

I’m open to making pretty radical changes to it.

Obviously the older version (where “aiming” was just a way to describe attacks; you still rolled vs AC and decreased HP; the decreased HP representing you cornering them) was neither overpowered or underpowered. It was exactly as good as normal shooting, you just saved some ammo (and you could use it to “subdue”; which you normally in 5e only can do with mêlée attacks). That version had the problem that it made every nocked arrow a killing blow, which might be too much, IDK. I kinda like that. Maybe it’s back to the drawing board to make some sort of new iteration on that older version.


Oh, and Mending is anything but crappy or underpowered. It’s not combat cantrip, but it’s one of the best utility options. The houserule isn’t needed: it’s up to the GM to decide which arrows were lost and which were broken and could be fixed already, and it can also be used to recover pieces of ammunition that hit, not just the ones that mised.

Wait, what, can’t you normally recover ammunition that hit? It says “half your expended” ammunition; that mean a mix of hits&misses. Normally you get half back without mending and the other half is not found (unmendable).


The houserule isn’t needed: it’s up to the GM to decide

The DM can decide from case to case; a houserule is my way to make that kind of decision. I like setting up rules for myself when I DM, that makes the game more fun for me.

2097
2019-05-05, 05:04 PM
What I mean is something like

“You can spend an attack to aim; aiming, just like a normal attack, means rolling vs AC and decreasing their HP, representing them being cornered. If they go down to zero HP, or use a monk ability to catch the arrow, you have to let the arrow go.” and then putting in a big carrot; maybe making a more serious difference in ammunition usage, or something else.

Kane0
2019-05-05, 05:04 PM
You can spend an attack to instead aim! (So if you have “extra attack”, or “action surge”, or whatever, you can translate any number of those attacks to be Aiming instead of attacking, for example you can aim & attack in the same round if you have two attacks.)

YOU HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR AIMING in a cool way to be allowed to aim!

Spending an attack in this way gives you an aim point. You can have any number of aim points, but whenever you gain XP, or rest, you lose all aim points.

Whenever you do a ranged attack vs AC, you can spend aim points to make extra attack rolls vs that same target.

Firstly, please don't use roleplaying to gate mechanics. Describing things well should be encouraged at the social level around the table, not the rules level in the book.
Secondly, please don't tie XP gain to the mechanic. Not everybody uses XP and it's a mechanic that the character doesn't interact with in the same way as the player.
Thirdly, all attack rolls are made against AC, and the wording would be cleared up a bit but that's fine.

Now, on to the mechanic itself.
It serves little purpose. You choose to give up an attack roll NOW to make the same exact roll LATER, whether that be another action or another attack if you have extra attack. 5e doesn't have DR in the sense that 3.X had, so piling up all your hits into the same damage roll doesn't really do anything, and ammo really shouldn't be a concern if you get ANY coin at all. If you don't have ammo, that's almost assuredly because the DM intended for you to not have it as part of the experience.
The only time it may be important is if you happen to have very limited shots of something really powerful, like a good poison covering your arrow. You could get far, far more benefit from a limited resource than you were supposed to.
Which runs into the bag of rats problem. Because it's reset by rest (i'm excluding XP gain), you can 'aim' at whatever you like for as long as you like then wait until the next fight and use all those points (there's no limit to how many you can have at once or use per attack/turn) to demolish whatever stands in your way.

A very simple solution to the same intent has already been suggested: Sacrifice an attack to grant advantage on your next one, ala helping yourself. Word it like the PHB Shove and DMG Disarm rules in regards to interacting with the extra attack feature and whatnot. This also gets rid of you having to track extra 'points' and the bag of rats problem.



You can charge up your spells by spending the casting time (for example, one action) and components (V, S, and/or M—with the benefit of spellcasting focus or component pouch as usual) of the spell. Each spell & slot level combination has its own pool of charge points, for example you might have one for Eldritch Blast, one for level 1 Sleep etc. You lose all charge points whenever you gain XP and when you rest.

YOU HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR CHARGING UP THE SPELL in a cool way to be allowed to do it.

Then when you cast the spell, you can spend charge points (and extra slots, if the charged spell wasn’t a cantrip) to cast multiple copies of the spell.

The benefit is that you can work compress (sleep is an example of a spell that is unusually effective), and that you might save slots in case you end up not using the spell after all, that you avoid drawing aggro and that you look cool & powerful. The downside is that you might waste actions and components if you end up losing the charge points, and that it’s a hassle af to track so many charge points.

Again, flowery descriptions falls to the people at the table, not the rules. 'Rule of cool' is different to homebrew.

Conceptually, charging up a spell already has a mechanic tied to it: Upcasting. The ready rules also explain how a spell can be held so these two items can be extrapolated on.
How about when you cast you can choose to hold the spell (concentrating on it) and on subsequent turns expend additional spell slots in order to upcast the spell when you release it. Say each spell slot increases the casting by 1 spell level to a maximum of the highest spell level you are capable of casting plus half your prof bonus.

For example you want to power up your Sleep spell as a level 2 wizard first turn you cast and hold, then second turn if you haven't lost Concentration burn a second 1st level slot to make it a Sleep as if from a 2nd level slot. You can't go any higher with your +2 prof bonus so you let it fly.
Another example, Level 7 Wizard wants to power up some Scorching rays so starts with a level 2 version then next turn adds in a 3rd level slot, here we would have to decide how it works. I would argue it would be brought up to a 4th level slot and not a 5th but you can playtest and see what works best, seeing as it's two spell slots and two actions worth of casting.

Just my 2cp

2097
2019-05-05, 05:27 PM
Thanks for the input, Kane0! Much appreciated.


Firstly, please don't use roleplaying to gate mechanics. Describing things well should be encouraged at the social level around the table, not the rules level in the book.

That's a philosophy I share in general, and you're right that demanding it be described "in a cool way" is a misstep. But the problem I've had with my last iteration of aiming (our house rule for the last two years) was that one of two things would happen. Either they would only *after* combat say "of course, those arrow attacks was me 'aiming' so I don't use any arrows", or they would describe their attacks in a way that made fun of the idea "and I'm waving my bow menacingly at them huh huh huh" kind of dissing me and dissing the idea that HP isn't just "meat points".

So what I was going for was: you to get the benefit of aiming, you need to describe yourself aiming & not make fun of the idea of aiming.


Secondly, please don't tie XP gain to the mechanic. Not everybody uses XP and it's a mechanic that the character doesn't interact with in the same way as the player.

I wanted it to mean "when the fight is over" but as you might've seen in my later posts, I changed the point where you lose your aim points to when you lose sight of the target, removing the reference to XP.


Thirdly, all attack rolls are made against AC, and the wording would be cleared up a bit but that's fine.

You're right; this came about because we use the "Players make all rolls" UA (with the math fixed) and not all players are completely familiar with the difference between a spell attack and an STC (a saving thow check) since both work similarly on their end (rolling their spell attack value vs a target number in both cases; except you can't crit or use halfling luck on an STC).


Now, on to the mechanic itself.
It serves little purpose. You choose to give up an attack roll NOW to make the same exact roll LATER, whether that be another action or another attack if you have extra attack. 5e doesn't have DR in the sense that 3.X had, so piling up all your hits into the same damage roll doesn't really do anything,

You are right; the carrot is too small :smallfrown:


and ammo really shouldn't be a concern if you get ANY coin at all. If you don't have ammo, that's almost assuredly because the DM intended for you to not have it as part of the experience.

I run a very brutal resource based game (including using the market class rules from ACKS to find out what is available to buy in a given town) and sometimes they make very long expeditions very far from any shop. Fletching is a great skill in the wilderness (XGE p 85) but deep in the dungeon or underdark it's hard to find wood. They have now been 129 days since they last was in town and six days since they last was above ground, with access to trees.

I want there to be rules that mitigate archer's dependency on arrows (compared to cantrip-using classes) while it still being an interesting, non-handwaved part of the game. Fiddling around with things like water, arrows etc may seem like a waste of time but when done right it can really add to a sense of presence.


The only time it may be important is if you happen to have very limited shots of something really powerful, like a good poison covering your arrow. You could get far, far more benefit from a limited resource than you were supposed to.

That's not hard to fix; maybe you could apply your poison just once even with aiming.


Which runs into the bag of rats problem. Because it's reset by rest (i'm excluding XP gain), you can 'aim' at whatever you like for as long as you like then wait until the next fight and use all those points (there's no limit to how many you can have at once or use per attack/turn) to demolish whatever stands in your way.

Already addressed upthread



A very simple solution to the same intent has already been suggested: Sacrifice an attack to grant advantage on your next one, ala helping yourself. Word it like the PHB Shove and DMG Disarm rules in regards to interacting with the extra attack feature and whatnot. This also gets rid of you having to track extra 'points' and the bag of rats problem.

This too. I know that I write kind of a lot and it gets hard to sift through. I appreciate all the feedback though.

As far as the "charging up spell" works; I have to fix aiming first; then maybe charging spells could be patterned after it or that idea could be dropped.

Mellack
2019-05-05, 05:37 PM
Well, for me and the way I see the fights, swords&axes aren’t that big of a problem because I can see them as clang-clang-clang-touché already (swashbuckler style) or as stare-shift-feet-stare-shift-feet-chop (chanbara style) already. But when players saying “I shoot them” and then scratching arrows, it’s not as easy. (Yeah, supressing fire, but that’s not enough, I still get a sort of “pin cushion” visualization.)



Really that is just a visualization problem, not a mechanics problem. That "clang-clang-clang-touché " is actually a bunch of mechanical hits. Why can you not accept the same with ranged attacks? If an axe mechanical hit is just a "clang" against armor or a weapon, just have the same for the shots. No rules change needed.




Obviously the older version (where “aiming” was just a way to describe attacks; you still rolled vs AC and decreased HP; the decreased HP representing you cornering them) was neither overpowered or underpowered. It was exactly as good as normal shooting, you just saved some ammo (and you could use it to “subdue”; which you normally in 5e only can do with mêlée attacks). That version had the problem that it made every nocked arrow a killing blow, which might be too much, IDK. I kinda like that. Maybe it’s back to the drawing board to make some sort of new iteration on that older version.



So if it is mechanically the same as shooting the arrow, why not just shoot the arrow? I guess I don't see what is being gained out of this except more record-keeping.



I run a very brutal resource based game (including using the market class rules from ACKS to find out what is available to buy in a given town) and sometimes they make very long expeditions very far from any shop. Fletching is a great skill in the wilderness (XGE p 85) but deep in the dungeon or underdark it's hard to find wood. They have now been 129 days since they last was in town and six days since they last was above ground, with access to trees.


Arrows don't need to be made from trees. Often they were made from reeds or bamboo, which either they or similar might be found in the underdark. They could even be made from other materials, such as hollow metal tubing, possibly some bones or giant spider legs. It is a world of fantasy, they don't have to be limited to mundane materials.

Mellack
2019-05-05, 05:43 PM
I wanted it to mean "when the fight is over" but as you might've seen in my later posts, I changed the point where you lose your aim points to when you lose sight of the target, removing the reference to XP.



Note this still wouldn't stop someone from aiming at a party member, or perhaps that untrustworthy familiar the wizard has.

Kane0
2019-05-05, 05:57 PM
That's a philosophy I share in general, and you're right that demanding it be described "in a cool way" is a misstep. But the problem I've had with my last iteration of aiming (our house rule for the last two years) was that one of two things would happen. Either they would only *after* combat say "of course, those arrow attacks was me 'aiming' so I don't use any arrows", or they would describe their attacks in a way that made fun of the idea "and I'm waving my bow menacingly at them huh huh huh" kind of dissing me and dissing the idea that HP isn't just "meat points".

So what I was going for was: you to get the benefit of aiming, you need to describe yourself aiming & not make fun of the idea of aiming.

It seems you are describing a player problem, not a game problem. You cannot fix player behaviour with mechanics, you need talk to them about it and reach some sort of compromise.



I run a very brutal resource based game (including using the market class rules from ACKS to find out what is available to buy in a given town) and sometimes they make very long expeditions very far from any shop. Fletching is a great skill in the wilderness (XGE p 85) but deep in the dungeon or underdark it's hard to find wood. They have now been 129 days since they last was in town and six days since they last was above ground, with access to trees.

I want there to be rules that mitigate archer's dependency on arrows (compared to cantrip-using classes) while it still being an interesting, non-handwaved part of the game. Fiddling around with things like water, arrows etc may seem like a waste of time but when done right it can really add to a sense of presence.

Potentially, this is a solution to a problem you have made for yourself. If you make ammo so hard to get of course your players will start trying to circumvent that restriction. Instead of providing a way to avoid using so much ammo, how about trying to provide alternate means of acquiring it?
Sling bullets can just be rocks, and the archery fighting style works just fine with slings. Arrows don't have to be made with wood and feathers, the world could have all sorts of materials that would work just fine as stand-ins. An eldritch knight or Hexblade could cheat and have a few 'unlosable' arrows by stretching their weapon bond abilities. Also don't forget that you can create spells as well, a 1st or 2nd level spell that makes arrows (even temporary ones) with an appropriate material component would encourage teamwork between the mage and archer. If you're playing a survival-mode game, make survival interesting and rewarding for the players!

2097
2019-05-06, 12:27 AM
Really that is just a visualization problem, not a mechanics problem. That “clang-clang-clang-touché” is actually a bunch of mechanical hits. Why can you not accept the same with ranged attacks? If an axe mechanical hit is just a “clang” against armor or a weapon, just have the same for the shots. No rules change needed.

The way they describe their axe and sword attacks work OK (maybe I could find a rules tweak for them as well) but the way they describe their arrow shooting hasn’t worked as well. It either has retcons, or is silly, or both.


It seems you are describing a player problem, not a game problem. You cannot fix player behaviour with mechanics, you need talk to them about it and reach some sort of compromise.

That hasn’t been my experience so far; we’ve been playing for five years and I have applied mechanics to all kinds of cat-herdery things, including scheduling games, arriving on time, agreeing on where to go, keeping track of inventory, determining who the monsters attack first etc.

If people’s instinct is to do one thing, even after you’ve asked them to try the other thing, then chances are that the circumstances makes doing the thing your asking into an uphill ordeal. Changing the circumstances (the game rules) to make the asked thing more rewarding, easy, or fun is often a good idea.

That said, in this particular case (shooting and recovering arrows), I might be completely out to sea. Searching for info about this (as I said, I don’t know anything about real-life fighting) it’s just as unusual for each arrow to be lethal as it is for the enemies to withstand hundreds of arrows.


So if it is mechanically the same as shooting the arrow, why not just shoot the arrow? I guess I don’t see what is being gained out of this except more record-keeping.

You might be right.

The ultimate goal here is something that fillls in the “fuzziness”, the “murk” around each round spent with the bow; both hits & misses, from nock to recovery. And to make it less something that we retroactively have to make sense of (“Uh, let’s say I was just aiming for most of that battle”).

Similar improvements for swords&axes would be great too, something rewarding that makes the clang-clang-clang or the stare-stare-stare more explicit and fun, while still differentiating [beating their AC & causing them to lose HP] from [rolling under their AC].


Note this still wouldn’t stop someone from aiming at a party member, or perhaps that untrustworthy familiar the wizard has.

I’m not sure how to phrase it to prevent that. Any ideas? The intent in combat is aiming at one enemy and then if that enemy goes down, quickly change to another; and the intent out of combat might be to aim at a posted guard, even through a guard rotation.

Maybe the rule should be that you can only switch target if the target goes down.


Potentially, this is a solution to a problem you have made for yourself. If you make ammo so hard to get of course your players will start trying to circumvent that restriction. Instead of providing a way to avoid using so much ammo, how about trying to provide alternate means of acquiring it?

I’ve tried that; the old rule I had made them able to recover arrows much more plentifully than the RAW.

And, even if you can recover/replace ammo & thrown items after the fight, there’s still the question of running out during the fight.

2097
2019-05-06, 12:59 AM
So going back to the drawing board…

we have a couple of parameters.

Wounded / Fresh / Fatigued Beat AC / Miss AC Big HP loss / Small HP loss Arrow hit wall / Arrow stuck in enemy / Arrow still drawn & being aimed Sword parried / Sword evaded / Sword hit flesh

Trying to figure out some way to retain the current math & class “balance”, just changing some of the way we describe things (by putting in those descriptions as explicit mechanical options or outcomes) so that we don’t have as much contradicting detail.

2097
2019-05-06, 02:50 AM
Thank you for moving the thread, much appreciated! Still finding my way around here♥

Part of the problem is that the words “hit” and “miss” are very overloaded right now, confusingly so. “Hit” as in hit the monster in the SIS, “hit” as in “my number hit the target number”, and “hit” as in “hit point”.

Maybe the verbs “wound” or “hurt” can help.

This is just me brainstorming kinda desperately rn, throwing things on the wall pretty much:

Oh, injury!

(we’ve already use the wound threshold house rule rule for PCs for a while; wound threshold for monster is new.)

everyone has a particular HP value that’s their wound threshold. Hobos can set any non-negative value lower than their max HP. The default (if you haven’t set anything) is 1. For monsters (my pretties…), it’s twice the HD if a HD is listed.

“Wounding” means inflicting HP loss on someone so their HP goes from above the threshold, to equal to or below it.

When you (a hobo) is wounded, if you didn’t also go to zero, you gain inspiration. Then regardless if you went to zero or not, you roll on the lingering injuries table.

When you wound a monster, if it didn’t also go to zero, instead of a random lingering injury, you get to say how the monster is damaged. You have three choices of mechanical effect: a one-time advantage when attacking it; a one-time advantage when defending against it; or its speed is halved for one turn. For example, you might damage their vision, or their sword arm, and get advantage on defending against them, or damage their legs and slow them down.

To get this benefit use words like “maneuver”, “aim”, “threaten”, “assess”, “frighten”, “corner”, “parry”, “charging up a spell” and similar when describing your each of your non-wounding attacks on that monster, as you make them (whether hits or misses – this is your chance to make misses look cool!). If you do, you get an additional benefit: ammunition or thrown weapons aren’t expended for non-wounding attacks. Spell slots are still expended regardless.

Describing your attacks in this way lays the groundwork for hurting the monsters; the DM will say “you can hurt the monster” when its HP goes to the wound threshold or lower. Regardless, the DM will say “you can kill the monster” when it goes to zero or less HP. (In the latter case, you can also choose to subdue or capture the monster.) Describing your answer to this prompt doesn’t cost an action, it’s outside the turn order. This prompt, whether hurting or damaging, is a perfect to release that arrow or throwing knife. If you decline to kill or subdue the monster it is still going to be alive & awake at zero HP until the next time someone makes a successful attack at it.

Example flow:

Jenny: I try to find a window to hit the skeleton!
DM: OK, AC 13.
Jenny: [Rolls] 6 bludgeoning damage!
DM: That’s 12 damage with his vulnerability. You can hurt him!
Jenny: I smash his sword arm with my mace.. crrrrrush! Imposing disad on his next attack.

or,

Jenny: I aim my bow at one of the stirges!
DM: OK, AC 14.
Jenny: [Rolls] not enough yet… I’m still holding my aim steady.
[later that same… uh, evening]
Jenny: Still trying to find that perfect shot on the stirge… [Rolls] six damage!
DM: That’s more than enough! You can kill it!
Jenny: I let the arrow fly, piercing it!

If you don’t describe your attacks in this way, you need to expend your ammunition or thrown weapon as normal and you can’t get the benefit for hurting a monster. You are still given the option to kill the monster when its HP goes to zero.

The wound threshold doesn’t affect healing or regaining HP; it’s not a special kind of HP, it’s just a special amount of HP.

2097
2019-05-06, 02:58 AM
Uh, I need to clarify that it's not about flowery description (a la Wushu rpg or Exalted stunting), instead it's about what word you use for the attack; calling it an "aim" instead of a "shot" for example.

Breccia
2019-05-06, 12:51 PM
If I had to make a rule about Aiming that everyone could use without special class/Feat training, it would be "spend your Action to Assist your next attack, getting advantage".

It would save on ammo and rogues would probably like it, but it would be a net downgrade for multiple attack archers who spam arrows like they're going out of style.

It's personal preference, but, I have never liked "Charging" for spells. The magic isn't coming from you, after all. It fits a super hero/anime thing where they are putting more of their own energy into an attack all at once, but other than that, I'd say "play a sorcerer and use metamagic, or else the spell's energy isn't increased, because grunting and twitching your eyes doesn't make flame strike any more divinely granted". I'd probably let them Aim the ranged attack, of course.

2097
2019-05-06, 04:11 PM
If I had to make a rule about Aiming that everyone could use without special class/Feat training, it would be "spend your Action to Assist your next attack, getting advantage".

It would save on ammo and rogues would probably like it, but it would be a net downgrade for multiple attack archers who spam arrows like they're going out of style.

A couple of people have suggested this True Strike like option; it's also similar to how GURPS does aiming. Which I never liked; I don't want to mess with the HP/AC pacing that works so well.


It's personal preference, but, I have never liked "Charging" for spells. The magic isn't coming from you, after all. It fits a super hero/anime thing where they are putting more of their own energy into an attack all at once, but other than that, I'd say "play a sorcerer and use metamagic, or else the spell's energy isn't increased, because grunting and twitching your eyes doesn't make flame strike any more divinely granted". I'd probably let them Aim the ranged attack, of course.

This came from when I was a player and I was disappointed that my Eldritch Blasts weren't doing jack most of the time.
We were fighting orcs (we were doing the Forge of Fury from TotYP); I was OK with the fact that it'd take me on average... hmm, I had +5, and I don't remember my level but I still had one beam of agonizing blast at 1d10 +3... I hit on an 8 or higher; which means average damage per round of .65 * 8.5 or 5.52 so around three rounds to defeat these fellers. I was ok with it taking me on average three rounds, often much more; what I didn't like was how dumb I looked while doing so. "[Patron name], grant me your power!" [followed complete whiff]. Same thing round after round. It felt much cooler when I was describing it as "OK, I'm still working on the incantation" rather than my magic, that I had paid such high price for, was doing absolutely zip&zilch.

Mellack
2019-05-06, 04:27 PM
A couple of people have suggested this True Strike like option; it's also similar to how GURPS does aiming. Which I never liked; I don't want to mess with the HP/AC pacing that works so well.



This came from when I was a player and I was disappointed that my Eldritch Blasts weren't doing jack most of the time.
We were fighting orcs (we were doing the Forge of Fury from TotYP); I was OK with the fact that it'd take me on average... hmm, I had +5, and I don't remember my level but I still had one beam of agonizing blast at 1d10 +3... I hit on an 8 or higher; which means average damage per round of .65 * 8.5 or 5.52 so around three rounds to defeat these fellers. I was ok with it taking me on average three rounds, often much more; what I didn't like was how dumb I looked while doing so. "[Patron name], grant me your power!" [followed complete whiff]. Same thing round after round. It felt much cooler when I was describing it as "OK, I'm still working on the incantation" rather than my magic, that I had paid such high price for, was doing absolutely zip&zilch.

You are trying to find a mechanical solution to a personal visualization problem. You say that you are fine with the amount of damage and attacks that are required. The only problem seems to be your own feelings about how it looks. That is just fluff and is the easiest thing to alter. No rules required. Try imagining that instead of 3 different blasts, it is one long blast more like Palpatine in Star Wars, which even then wasn't killing. Perhaps consider them more like lots of little darts that are flying at them. I don't quite understand why you assume one blast needs to drop an enemy.

2097
2019-05-06, 05:00 PM
Try imagining that instead of 3 different blasts, it is one long blast more like Palpatine in Star Wars

Yes, this is a really good idea, thank you. You make me realize just how much the “turn”-based nature was also tripping up my visualization.


I don’t quite understand why you assume one blast needs to drop an enemy.

If I call on magic to hurt the enemies, it looks dumb if then nothing at all happens (because I rolled under their AC).


You are trying to find a mechanical solution to a personal visualization problem.

I am trying to adjust the left facing arrows a little (http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/859); making mechanical interactions enable and support the kind of visualization I want. Instead of fighting with the game to visualize inspite of the game, the game could be helping me visualize it in a cool way.

D&D is my favorite game, I’m not trying to slag it. I don’t believe the changes are going to be particularly big. Just some minor tweaks to the IIEE flow. Maybe things that a lot of tables (that aren't experiencing these visualization problems) are already doing.