Arrows, spell components, and Expensive spell components

[Magic Myrmidon]

How do you guys handle them?

Since arrows are so cheap, I basically told all of my players in my campaign that they could just spend something like 10 gold and they'd be good for arrows forever.

Spell components are a spell component pouch.

The expensive ones are tricky. I never had a PC use one. Do you force spellcasters to check every single spell they have for spell components that cost money, and make them buy them before-hand? Or do you allow them to just spend the gold to cast it at the moment they cast it, as if they had bought it in the past?

[Snake-Aes]

How do you guys handle them?

Since arrows are so cheap, I basically told all of my players in my campaign that they could just spend something like 10 gold and they'd be good for arrows forever.

Spell components are a spell component pouch.

The expensive ones are tricky. I never had a PC use one. Do you force spellcasters to check every single spell they have for spell components that cost money, and make them buy them before-hand? Or do you allow them to just spend the gold to cast it at the moment they cast it, as if they had bought it in the past?

We don't use nonexpensive spell components, nor a component pouch. Mundane arrows are not accounted for. Special arrows (magic, mithral/cold iron/adamantine, masterwork, plot McGuffin) are accounted individually. Expensive components and foci are accounted normally.

[OMG PONIES]

Mundane ammunition is unlimited in my games, until someone tries to pull shenanigans (Launch bolt hijinks, telekinesis stunts, etc.). Likewise, non-expensive spell components are entirely ignored. On the other hand, I make my players track any material components with listed prices.

Some bookkeeping is part of the fun of D&D. For my group, that doesn't extend to checking how many arrows are left, restocking a fanny pack, or making sure we've correctly calculated how may days' rations we need for a cross-country trek.

For other groups, this may be different.

[Thrantar]

When I DM, you can either buy expensive material components spontaneously for double cost or purchase them ahead of time for the standard cost. This comes up most often with characters, such as rainbow warsnakes, that cast off of exceedingly large lists.

[Lev]

I use my difficulty system, so there are 3 different ways of handling it, easy medium and hard, easy is you have free eschew materials, medium is that it costs double, hard is no special bonus... gotta have it.

[Zhalath]

I go ammunition is unlimited, but if the PCs are away from civilization and a way to make ammo, they start getting hard limits (to prevent the ranger from machine gunning everything for two weeks in a desert).

Material components are flavor, and are treated as such. Yeah, you can talk about it, but if you don't want to, you don't have to.

Expensive material components require you to have the thing. Luckily, my PCs love psionics.

[Kantolin]

Spell components = spell component pouch. You are fine unless you are without pouch, in which you are not fine.

Expensive spell components are tracked via gold piece value. You can go to the store and buy '500gp worth of silver dust', and then cast as many consecrates as you feel like out of that pile until you're at 0gp.

Arrows are 'subtract some arbitrary amount of money like 100gp and you now have infinite arrows'. When we have a DM who complains, I usually buy one thousand arrows and then don't bother to pay attention to them.