Simple Improvements - Power to the Archer

I like archer characters. Over the weekend, I had a chance to binge-watch a couple of episodes of Hawkeye and a few of The Arrow. Both shows are obviously based on bow combat. 

In virtually all RPGs, archers are limited to how many arrows they have. Once the quiver is empty, they aren't an archer anymore. They lose the deadly ability to strike at a distance. 

I wrote about making fighting men and spell casters more powerful without adding die rolls or wildly different mechanics. Archers can be similarly empowered. 

Looking at the first Avengers movie, Hawkeye doesn't miss so much as not hit his target. 

Loki is a trickster and should have seen this coming. Now let's look at Hawkeye missing a target. 

This time Hawkeye misses because something got in his way. He didn't see it coming and lost an arrow because of it. His second shot is also a miss because Quicksilver threw him down and the arrow was knocked out of reach. Then there is a third attempt, the one I want to simulate. Quicksilver simply disappears, leaving Hawkeye with no target. Technically, that is his third miss. 

This last miss is easy to simulate. When a shooter ATTEMPTS a shot, sometimes the target moves in such a way that the archer can't follow. In this case, the miss means the archer never loosed an arrow. This is actually a very powerful thing for someone with a bow. In not loosing the arrow, they keep it for later. Since running out of arrows will put the archer out of action, not losing an arrow in every round of combat is powerful. 

(Good lord, my spell checker hates the difference between loosing and losing.) 

A DM could declare that on certain missed rolls the archer has released the arrow and on others, they retained the arrow and didn't shoot. Since 1 is odd, I would rule that every odd-number missed attack means the archer really did let the arrow fly and it's gone. On every even-numbered missed attack, they didn't let it go. They kept it. 

I have a simple rule for collecting arrows after combat. If the characters have fled the battle, they lost all of the arrows they shot. If they keep the battlefield, then they can look for them. Even better, if the enemy was shooting, they could possibly recover those, too. 

If a player shoots x number of arrows, I select a die with fewer sides than the arrows fired, hopefully within one. If an opponent was also using arrows, I have PC archer roll a second of the same die. They may end up with more arrows than they started. This is in addition to whatever is taken as treasure. 

You can also amuse yourself with the possibility that two archers keep missing each other until each has to resort to picking up the arrow just fired at them. This is more likely to happen with spears and javelins, which is why the Romans used pilums. Pilums have a soft tip that bends to prevent it from being thrown back. It seems to be a 400 BC solution to a much older problem.  

Let me know what you think in the comments. 

Simple Improvements - Magic Spells

A lot of times magic use feels like a machine gun in a knife fight. And then there are days where it doesn't work out like that. 

I have one simple improvement for magic users of all stripes that doesn't involve dice throws. It is a clarification of my house rules. 

First - To loose and/or lose a spell it has to be prepared. This is usually part of the rules of the game. One word to improve this rule is "completely", as in "completely prepared". 

Adding this one word completely changes the dynamic of spellcasting. 

Let's say a wizard or cleric selected a complex spell. They start to prep it then they are hit in the face. "Completely prepared" switches the result from "I lost a spell" to "I have to start over". They weren't done prepping. That seems kind of fair as the player and the character pays a cost in terms of frustration but doesn't actually lose anything else. 

They need a better plan, but they can use that spell later. 

The next modification to spell casting for simplification is: to allow the character to pull back unused spells. I can't tell you how many times I have had a player prep a fireball in the last round of combat and simply lose it. It seems reasonable to me that a player should be able to undo that action if nothing else is happening. Perhaps it takes the same amount of time to put the spell away as it does to prep it. Seems reasonable to me.  

A third simplification is what I call "spell coast". On Monday, a cleric prays for three spells  - Light, Purify Food and Water, and Bless. He has only one opportunity to cast the Purify Food and Water spell on Monday. On Tuesday, decides to replace that one spell with Cure Light Wounds. Being a small-town adventure, nothing happens until Sunday night. If the cleric is happy with his spell choices, he doesn't have to study every day. He coasts along with the 2 spells he prayed for on Monday and third, he prayed for on Tuesday. 

The less time the players spend memorizing spells, the better. I had a diabolical DM that would take people's memorized spells away the moment they lost consciousness. 

All of these things together make spell casters more powerful while also providing more role-play opportunities.  

Simple Improvements - Raise Shields! Part 1.

Shields lower AC by one in D&D. Or if you like the other kinds of AC, they are a benefit of one. I don't know why people do this THAC0 or ascending AC. It totally invalidates the statement: "contains 36 illustrations, tables, and charts".  

There is a historical reason for descending AC for those over 50 or so. Back in the 50s and 60s, math education changed methods, to "New Math" which is conceptually different from what was taught before. Chances are, if you are under 55, you know nothing but New Math where descending AC doesn't make sense. Older people learned the other way. Ironically, someone reskinned the song "New Math" by Tom Lehrer with My Little Ponies. It makes it look like an objection to Common Core as opposed to what was taught 50 years ago. Click the link and you'll see what I mean.  

Anyway, shields represent a benefit to the holder in all versions of the game. The basic idea is someone has a plank between them and someone with a weapon. It makes things difficult for an attacker. 

I have noticed there is a tendency to homebrew rules to make shields less effective, usually by breakage or sundering them. That's cool, but shields are more of a benefit than consumable. I don't discount the whole "sunder shield" school of thought, but I find spending time reducing a one-point or number difference in effective protection to be misguided. 

If you are willing to accept that shields can and should be smashed to bits, then let us consider making shields more powerful. 

Let's look at what a shield does. It blocks incoming attacks from many angles, and the shield can be used to block or push someone around. D&D gets blocking right and this is also where people become inclined to say shields can be smashed apart. Having sparred with a shield for years, that is very unlikely. It is more likely that you will have the shield ripped from your grasp. 

The second part is pushing someone around with the shield. This is actually fairly easy to do, people naturally avoid having something pushed into their face so they move away from it. Add in other natural barriers like walls or furniture, and you can see the obvious advantage of moving an opponent around without touching them. Let's ignore the idea of actually shoving with a shield for the moment. 

In D&D, there is this basic idea of a "Fighting Man", which can be extended to Clerics, Elves, and Dwarves. These are the guys who get to use shields. Everyone else in Basic D&D either doesn't get a shield or sucks at combat. 

I have a house rule for shield use by people not trained to hold a shield. They hold it in two hands and it gives them a -2 to AC. It is "effective", but they have the thing in front of their face, they can't cast spells, hold a weapon, etc., all of which is the definition of not doing it right. It amusingly ties up an opponent in combat that one cannot win. It is a stalemate until a friend rescues them. 

So if that is doing it wrong, what does doing it right look like? Holding it one-handed so you can stab someone in the face with your weapon. 

Going back to hoplites, they added in the idea of a phalanx. There is a wall of shields with a pokey bit sticking off on the right side and the left side was a wall of shields. In fact, castles and towers use this concept. The stairs spiral to the left when viewed from the bottom. The attacker's shield is on the left where all of the free space is and their weapon is stuck up against the right-hand wall. It's like having a phalanx without the extra people. 

Here is the entry point for changes to combat. We don't want to change the shield's basic advantage of one, I would like to do something different which also supports smashing shields. 

When two or more Fighting Men are side by side, the guys on the right can't be flanked because their friend's shield is in the way. The guy on left can't be flanked because his shield is in the way and the guy to right also has one. The only way to go through is around the far right end where a weapon is waiting. This is a strong advantage without modifying the basic shield rules AND also gives good reason to try and sunder. 

Under these terms, Fighters, Clerics, Dwarves, and Elves can guard a friendly's flank when fighting side by side. I'd qualify that a tiny bit more. Fighters and Clerics can guard any other Fighting Man's flank while Dwarves and Elves can only guard other Dwarves or Elves' flanks. This is due to the physical nature of Dwarves and Elves' fighting style. Dwarves are short and stocky while Elves tend to cast spells in combat. So it makes sense that Clerics and Fighters can fight side by side and provide an advantage. Clerics and Fighters are trained to guard the flanks because it's the only good trick they have. The Dwarves and Elves get an advantage by having these guys next to them, but can't extend the same.

This makes shields wildly more advantageous, while not messing with the AC value of the user. Not being flanked with worth so much. For example, you can't be backstabbed and if one Fighting Man flees (not a fighting withdrawal), then the other eliminates any bonus to strike at the one who took flight. The attack still can land but without the bonus, because someone stuck out a weapon or shield to hamper it. 

It is all very situational without modifying AC or causing extra die rolls (except if you roll for sundered shields).