Blunt Arrows.

[whitehawk74]

After just running Delaras with my AA, I felt pretty useless because arrows are piercing and they do nothing against skeletons.

I would like to see blunt arrows brought into the game so that Rangers arnt left out of certain battles.

[Grenada]

Perhaps a sling would work? Maybe it would work like a bard's instrument, where you always have a sling. Then it would just be a matter of getting magic stones for it (or maybe collectibles...).

[Ystradmynach]

They have those in the game. They are called throwing hammers.

[Malky]

They have those in the game. They are called throwing hammers.

Ever tried to fire a throwing hammer with a bow ?

[justhavinfun]

I ran an AA to level 20. You receive the feat TWF for free. Just because you are an AA do not be afraid to carry some swords, maces, clubs, etc. You are still a form of melee. You will not be the best DPS but at least you can contribute. Part of being a good AA is knowing when to put down the bow and pick up the sword. If mobs are resistant to piercing grab a slashing or bashing weapon and help out.

[Mr_Ed7]

I ran an AA to level 20. You receive the feat TWF for free. Just because you are an AA do not be afraid to carry some swords, maces, clubs, etc. You are still a form of melee. You will not be the best DPS but at least you can contribute. Part of being a good AA is knowing when to put down the bow and pick up the sword. If mobs are resistant to piercing grab a slashing or bashing weapon and help out.

Not the reply the OP was looking for, but it is sound advice.

I added to my pnp campaign : BLUNT ARROWS.

I also changed some things that D&D also changed....

I changed Hide & Move Silently to SNEAK ...sound familiar?

Also I changed infravision to DARKVISION...I just could not picture a civilization living underground with heat-vision only.

[HanseShadowen]

Hmmm sound like you need a Boxing glove arrow...not a bad thought since a rangers get alot of there bonuses for archery and lose them in melee. Could have blunt arrow get item bonuses as throwing hammers and other blunt weapons..

I can see Pumpkin grendade, Skull grenade and other "Esotaric" arrows. maybe even a pirate grenade-arrow...

[Grenada]

Also I changed infravision to DARKVISION...I just could not picture a civilization living underground with heat-vision only.

Playing AD&D? V3 changed infravision to darkvision. Still nice to see some people playing with the more original editions.

[Ystradmynach]

Also I changed infravision to DARKVISION...I just could not picture a civilization living underground with heat-vision only.

The one problem I've with infravision was that you would be blinded by the infrared heat coming off your own body. To really use infravision, you'd pretty much have to be cold blooded, which elves and dwarves aren't. In fact, the one real life example I can think of for natural infravision are snakes.

But as to civilizations living underground, I believe most of them have normal vision on top of infravision, so that part wouldn't be a problem.

[Chai]

Not the reply the OP was looking for, but it is sound advice.

I added to my pnp campaign : BLUNT ARROWS. .

How many of these can fit into a quiver?

I never liked the whole blunt arrow concept. It makes it so people dont have to deal with the dilemma aspect of D&D where a character isnt always in a stars aligned situation. The idea of smashing a skelly with a blunt object is not the same to me as not having a piercing tip on an arrowhead, because archery has always used PSI to deliver damage. Even if the arrow head is blunt it will likely still pierce the target, unless it has a large blunt area, which destroys the entire PSI concept. Rangers can swing weapons like everyone else, including maces, heh.

I also changed some things that D&D also changed....

I changed Hide & Move Silently to SNEAK ...sound familiar?.

Didnt like this change. The ability to hide in an environment and the ability to move while being as silent as standing still are two different things. Sometimes only 1 is needed but not both.

Also I changed infravision to DARKVISION...I just could not picture a civilization living underground with heat-vision only.

There are races which have dark vision in D&D and then there is infravision (HZ less than red) and ultravision (HZ more than violet) - even though humans dont see this, those wave forms are still there. It makes sense to me that a race that lives underground with no "light" source as we know it has some form of perception that doesnt rely on the frequency at which "light" as we know it vibrates, or the ROYGBIV frequencies. It also makes sense that they would rely on something else.

[Ystradmynach]

There are races which have dark vision in D&D and then there is infravision (HZ less than red) and ultravision (HZ more than violet) - even though humans dont see this, those wave forms are still there. It makes sense to me that a race that lives underground with no "light" source as we know it has some form of perception that doesnt rely on the frequency at which "light" as we know it vibrates, or the ROYGBIV frequencies. It also makes sense that they would rely on something else.

I would think echolocation would be ideal for that situation. There have even some blind people in real life who have developed a primitive version of echolocation, there is no doubt an underground civilization could become quite accurate with such a sense.

Infravision is a problem for warm blooded creatures as I mentioned above, and ultraviolet light is likely to be even rarer than normal lightwaves underground.

[Zachski]

A rock-tipped arrow wouldn't exactly sail through the air majestically.

Still, I understand the sentiment. After all, Arcane Archers do their best damage during Manyshot, so having this option would be nice and make them more relevant.

How about this. Rock-tipped arrows, but they have about half the range of a Sorcerer's ray and Precision doesn't work with them.

[Zachski]

A rock-tipped arrow wouldn't exactly sail through the air majestically.

Still, I understand the sentiment. After all, Arcane Archers do their best damage during Manyshot, so having this option would be nice and make them more relevant.

How about this. Rock-tipped arrows, but they have about half the range of a Sorcerer's ray and Precision doesn't work with them.

Actually, let me amend that. They should still have precision, after all, they can still go through an enemy's body ("piercing" them if you will) but still dealing that important blunt damage. Think of it as smashing through their ribcages or something like that.

[BOgre]

On the one hand I agree with you 100%. Real world martial archers used arrow heads of all shapes and sizes for all kinds of special uses. Blunts, flu-flu's, amror-piercing, mechanicals, and so many more were available to medieval archers. Seems to me that adding blunts to our arsenal is a natural. so Signed.

On the other hand, we get so many free feats and twf and such, and the advice already mentioned about knowing when to put down the bow is completely valid. It has taken me a while to grow into my ranger, and I'll be building my next one quite a bit differently, but we DO do decent dps. In fact I think the best thing about a ranger is his versatility. Self heals, resistances, TWF, Ranged, ...

I'm reminded of the scene in Fellowship, the Amon Hen fight, where Legolas stabs the one uruk with an arrow before whipping out his twin khopeshi. Yeah, I know, he stabs like ONE guy with them and then you don't see them again till the Warg fight I think, but still... pretty cool. And again, on the OTHER other hand, after that one panic khopesh strike he goes right back to point-blanking with the bow...

Can you tell I'm undecided about whether or not DDO rangers suck? I want our Rangers to be better archers for sure, so I guess bottom line is

SIGNED

[whitehawk74]

Well I imagine it would have a limited range. Half the distance of a normal arrow perhaps.
I went through Delaras with 2 longswords, and sometimes used my dual oozebanes, but really I felt like I wasnt contributing much on the bones.
I know AA Rangers take a while to pay off. She's only 7 and will be a super killer at 9 - 10.

[vVAnjilaVv]

There is absolutely no reason at the very least Deepwood Snipers and Arcane Archers who specifically specialize in ranged combat with bows should not be allowed blunt and slashing arrows.

Honestly this is something that should have happened already.....but I guess it makes sense seeing as how ranged combat hardly ever gets look at for improvement.

[ShadowFlash]

I dunno, I duo with my girlfriend ( an AA ) and she didn't have major problems in delera's. In fact, it was ( and still is ) her favorite chain. Force Arrows rock against all the ghosts, and with a holy undead bane bow and FE undead, never really noticed the piercing handicap. Sure, skellies may have been a little tough, but not obnoxiously so. And with the amount of zombies, ghouls, ghast and ghosts, it's not like there's nothing else to shoot at.

[stille_nacht]

unless you made the tip so big that it would not actually fly like arrows, a blunt arrow would be infeasible in "real" life if it was meant to kill skeletons (EG, a metal sphere, etc. on the tip of an arrow is going to do same/less damage than an arrowhead to something that doesnt have flesh).

maybe on a crossbow you could have shatterbolts, but i dont think blunt arrows should be included...

[licho]

Meh, i must agree with OP.
If for somebody spot is a dump skill: we have magic bows, whith projectivies exploding with fire, and returning to quiver after hit... there is a lot of magic in the game, and when we have magic at our disposal making moon shaped arrowheads, or fistlike able to fly and hit is low-magic.

Even if the make them magic arrows, which you get from favor vendor.

The idea of throwing weapons would be accurate if:
- ranged and throwing weapons was described as same category
- melee classes could benefit from the (most)feats with any dmg type
- there was stable and easy to acquire amount of decent throwing weapons*

Example: If you are playing barbarian with IC slashing, u can swich from GAxe to Maul and still benefit from: Rage/GTHF/PA/Whatever.
If you swich on AA to throwing you cant imbue slaying hamers, nor you can manyshot them.

*Actually if somebody knows a quest with end reward of good throwing weapons tip would be priceless.

Or if majority cant agree for blunt arrows, lets just introduce "pure force arrows" ( yeah, just teasing) which will change dmg type to force.

Sidenote: (delera specific)
- Get o good aligned bow, now u can spank ghosty sceles.
- Imbue Force is nice against spectres/wraiths
- If you are ranger swich to maces/axes/kukris.
- If you are not ranger ranged accustome that devs hate you.

[vcntmnd]

I'm sorry this is going to sound harsh, but... somebody needs to say it. You ran a dungeon and it was hard, change the whole game? My (dex based) archer kicks the **** out of skellies, get a new bow. Rogues need blunt rapiers before rangers need blunt arrows. Blunt rapiers would be a hell of a lot more realistic, too. While we're removing all the variations that make this game interesting, can we give my fire savant an ice spell-like ability? I suck in Taming the Flames.