5e - Arcane Archer Crafting Arrows

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Howdy all!

A player of mine is an arcane archer and also happens to be a revenant, and wants to spend some of the time he can't sleep doing something useful. For that reason, he wanted to start crafting arrows both magical and mundane.

A cursory look at the DMG and Xanathar makes crafting seem very arduous in terms of time and cost. And its unclear as to the # of arrows created. For that reason, we're trying to figure out a good spin on these rules.

I'm not worried about a tiny bit of power increase, I just don't want him to wildly outshine the other players and my monsters due to wacky inbalance. If it helps with decision making, there is very little "downtime" in my games with regard to players waiting around in a town for a week or anything like that.

I thought it would be possible to modify Xanathar's rules, and keep the 25 g.p. cost per day of work, but possibly modify that number with an appropriate Tool proficiency roll (since these tend to be left out). A DC would be assigned depending on the complexity of the arrow. And every increment above or below the DC could increase or decrease the cost/time of crafting appropriately?

This opens the door for the inclusion of "found reagents" as well. So if he finds a particularly useful stone/metal for a given arrowhead, possibly this can improve the potency or decrease the cost of the arrows he's crafting.

Last but not least, I'm befuddled as to how many arrows should be created in a given craft attempt. He suggested 1d10+5 arrows for anything CR 1-3 (see https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/46mypn/arrow_varieties_and_prices_of/), and 1d4+int mod for anything higher CR or magical?

Any input is greatly appreciated. I know the easy answer is to stick with the rules, but due to the lack of free time during the quests it'd be interesting to implement something with more wiggle room.

Thank you!

[Sparky McDibben]

I did something similar with a PC in another game. They found recipes as treasure during adventures which allowed them to craft certain arrows. I didn't go crazy with it - if they got acid (whether from an alchemist or harvesting it from an ankheg) they could try to make an acid arrow that did +3d6 acid damage. They only made 1 per long rest, it cost about 50 gp, and if they missed, it was expended. So there was a cost both in gold pieces and in opportunity, and each combat there was a decision point of "Am I going to use this?"

You could do something similar with alchemist's fire, and give them an action-denial arrow (because the foe has to use an action to put the fire out), a net arrow (more like entangling strike), etc. As long as you're not mimicking spell effects, I think 50 gp plus the cost of components and a long rest to create one arrow sounds reasonable for a low-level character.

[Lupine]

Well, the other thing to consider is that the Arcane archer weaves magic into their arrows, and get to choose when to use said magic. For example, their arcane shots allow the archer to choose after he hits or not. This makes it almost seem more like a wizard or druid spell. Now, thats not the only way to look at it, but it does give you an answer:

He chooses to fire his arrows in the heat of battle. He only uses magic, but does not understand it. It doesn't make sense that he could craft magic arrows.

I would say, however, that an alchemy system would probably be appreciated, and the reagents he finds would be possible to use as poisons.

[Randomthom]

When balancing homebrew, it's worth looking at existing systems that it will mimic.

Special arrows are not unlike spells. If you hit, they do their thing, if you miss, they do nothing but either way a resource is expended. In the case of a spell, the spell slot is expended.

Then compare the cost, lets use Melf's Acid Arrow as an example.
Lvl 2 spell takes 100gp of materials (inks etc.) and 4h for a Wizard to copy it into their spellbook. They must also find the scroll/other wizard's spellbook that contains it. Once learned though it only costs the spell slot.

To make an equivalent mundane arrow, I'd suggest a similar time commitment to make some*. It should probably cost less than 100g to make since this cost is required for every arrow, but more than 50g which would be the spell level below. It would definitely require some acid though so harvesting/purchasing that would be a separate issue. I'd probably allow the crafter a skill check. Intelligence (woodcrafting or alchemists tools) would be permitted. The result of the skill check would determine the number of arrows crafted before the materials/time is exhausted.
10-14 = 1
15-20 = 2
21-25 = 3
26-30 = 4

Side-note, it should probably not properly replicate the effects of the spell exactly or you're getting into dangerous territory when they want to make fireball arrows! For those, better to look at the alchemists fire or grenade items for a template.

If they were making poison arrows I'd allow poisoner's kit of course. I wouldn't recommend trying to get too rulesy about this, see what the player wants to do and make a judgement call. Allow the player to make suggestions but don't be too permissive. With the basic structure outlined above to keep to you

[Justin Sane]

If you're going to use special arrows to duplicate the effects of specific spells (a really Acid Arrow, for example), scrolls would be a good starting point.