Having been reading the henchman thread in General as well as thinking about this in my own play group and wanting a more 'narrative' style for combat than 1 shot = 1 arrow AND not wanting my players to have to keep track of every shot BUT wanting the tension of potentially running low/out I thought this might be worth posting and throwing about as an idea.

Narrative Ammunition Idea

These weapons replace the ammunition recovery rules in the WHFRP rulebook.

Instead of tracking each individual arrow/bolt/shot fired, especially when it’s completely possible multiple shots/arrows are fired in the space of a ‘ranged attack’ when playing a more narrative campaign the following ammunition tracking rules can be used:

Each ranged weapon has a progress tracker for a ‘load’ of ammunition (12 as listed in the rulebook). There are three spaces on the tracker: full (default), half, and empty. Each time one or more chaos stars are rolled during the attack the tracker shifts one step toward empty. If the character has multiple ‘loads’ of ammo, simply construct a load tracker per load and carry the counter into the next tracker when one exhausts. When an encounter is over a character can attempt to recover arrows, roll 1 expertise die. On a comet shift the tracker one step back toward full, but never more than the current tracker (i.e. a character with two loads of arrows who managed to roll 3 chaos stars during an encounter could not move his marker back onto the first load's tracker). A character can spend a Fate Point to reroll the die if they so choose.

Once a tracker is empty and ammo is not recovered for it, remove it from play.

So a character with 24 arrows would construct a tracker like this [ ][ ][x][ ][ ][x] where the [x] is the empty point (use an event slot for this) or however makes sense for the player.

If the player buys more ammo, keep the marker where it is but add new 3-step ammo trackers to the right of the current ammo tracker.

Obviously if there's a consensus 3 steps is to small, add on additional steps.

I really like the idea, though I would simplify it a bit more (yeah, those of you starting to know me; I like rules to be simple, straightforward and dislike bookeeping).

I wouldn't put multiple trackers (or longer lenght trackers).
You just need to buy 1 "bundle" of whatever ammo you need for your weapon. Even if you buy multiple bundles, you still have a 3 step tracker.

I would name the 3 steps otherwise (so you don't have "full" ammo even after multiple fights when no chaos star turns up) : plenty, low, out

You cannot advance the tracker more than once per scene (so you don't expand all ammo in two rounds if you get unlucky enough to get 2 chaos stars in a row). It also gives the opportunity to seek resupply without cutting you totally from using your weapon. I wouldn't let character get ammo back from those shot during the fight (it's unrealistic, most ammo would be lost or broken anyway) but it's up to the DM to give the means to resuply (ennemies' quivers, trading caravans on the road, abbandonned guard post, etc).

For those who don't want to mess with additionnal trackers, you could use the same system but only narratively. It's easy enough to remember : plenty of ammo, running low or completly depleted. Thinking about it, I will probably go without the trackers.

Nice.

the only reason for the multiple trackers in my mind is that the character just 'buys 12 arrows' when he's out. I like a bit of that crunch feel, but it sounds like you want it simpler and more narrative (I buy 'enough' arrows). Works either way, really.

Or, simply add a space between full/some or some/none per 'load' (for those who like that crunch). So one load of arrows = the 3 space tracker. two loads = a 4 space tracker (add the spot either before or after 'some'), 5 would have a spot on the remaining side and so forth.

keltheos said:

I think this is a better idea than the "double the tracker lenght" idea! It's definatly great!

Had an epiphany while reading yours. Here's updated with that thinking:

Narrative Ammunition Idea

These weapons replace the ammunition recovery rules in the WHFRP rulebook.

Instead of tracking each individual arrow/bolt/shot fired, especially when it’s completely possible multiple shots/arrows are fired in the space of a ‘ranged attack’ when playing a more narrative campaign the following ammunition tracking rules can be used:

Each ranged weapon has its own progress tracker for a ‘load’ of ammunition (12 as listed in the rulebook). The tracker begins with three spots: full (default), some, and empty. Each additional load of ammunition adds one spot to either side of the some spot on the tracker (player's choice), with the next load spot added balancing the the number of spots on either side of 'some'. (guuh, wording needs help)

Example: One load, [ ][x][ ] where [x] is the some spot. Two loads could be [ ][ ][x][ ], then three would be [ ][ ][x][ ][ ] to balance out the sides.

When one or more chaos stars are rolled during an attack the tracker shifts one step toward empty. The GM can limit the number of shifts the marker can make via the chaos star per encounter if he so chooses. When an encounter is over a character can attempt to recover arrows, roll one expertise die per spot the marker shifted during the encounter. On a comet shift the tracker one step back toward full, but never further than where the marker was at the start of that encounter. A character can spend a Fate Point to reroll an expertise die if they so choose.

I like the concept you guys are coming up with, so will be interested to see where this goes...

For you wording problem, i think you are trying to describe something like this...

Additional loads are always distributed to ensure that the addtional spaces on either side of the "some" marker are as even as possible, if there are an odd number of additional loads, the player gets to decide on which side the additional load is added.

Been doing this all along as I mentioned in another thread on here.

We set up a tracker with 10 spaces (regardless of the number of arrows). Each chaos star in a result breaks an arrow in addition to normal chaos star results each comet retrieves an arrow in addition to normal comet results. If a character has two quivers they put to counters on the tracker. Simple as that.

keltheos said:

I don't understand what difference it makes if you add one spot one side or another... or at the beginning or the end of the track, for what it matters. It's the number of spaces that matters, not their position.

A balanced tracker is a pretty tracker.

Thanks for the wording fix, I was typing on the fly so that cleans the language up nicely.

@Kryyst, right. I wasn't a fan of the static 10 slots with counters for each load, this has less stuff for the player to track as well. Yours also works fine. Question though, why not go to 12 slots when each ammo type has 12 in a load vs. just 10?

You know... there's a limited number of puzzle-fit piece and the game seems to always want to use a lot of trackers. So if every player has a tracker of 10 (or 12) spaces for their ranged weapon ammunition, guess you won't have any piece left for anything else!

There's that too, but you can make a 'tracker' out of anything. Heck, a few different colored d6's lined up and the markers next to them would suffice as well.

There are a couple reasons why I used 10 instead of 12. First it requires less pieces. Secondly because it's a more narrative approach we look at it as a percentage not specific arrows. Since with one ranged action you could kill multiple henchmen anyway. Looking at ammo as a percentage seemed more fitting in this respect. But there is no real problem with using 1 tracker piece per arrow and I know some players would look at that more logically anyway. So 10 or 12 it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

In that case, you could use a d10 more easily. Everytime you fire a ranged weapon, turn the face that is up 1 lower (starting with 0 which of course means 10). You don't need to use any trackers, and it keeps the table clean and tidy.

TimbiWan said:

What I was thinking. You can really use anything for this. For example som markers in a small cup. Or hell, if you want a more thematic representation of a quiver of arrows: use a cup and coctail sticks

Yup.

We're looking at ways to swap counters for dice right now. A few small d6 to track recharges saves counters piled on cards, each player has two that match the colors for fatigue/stress, and so forth. Cuts down on clutter, does the same thing.

hi my 2 cents :

- for tracking, i'm using items cards made with strange eon, using the right-sided track for durability (10 steps). I get a paperclip snatched on the side showing which step is current. For each chaos star, paperclip goes 1 step down.

- i wonder about the recovering process. You say you give players a single expertise die, automatic, and recover 1 step only on comet ? Isnt it too scarce? I was thinking about making this a rally step option : "ok guys combat over, i'm off for a second getting back my arrows from all those corpses.."

what about 1 fortune die for each step lost, recover 1 for each success and each 2 boons ?

Great ideas here. I really like the narrative approach, for the reasons you mentioned: a round doesn't mean a single shot, I can't be bothered with book keeping, but I want players to worry about running out of ammo!

I think this is the way Savage Worlds handles it for mooks.

- Ammo track (IIRC): Full , High , Medium , Low , Out.

- At the end of any encounter in which the mook fired at least one shot, mark off the next box.

- Replenishing erases all marks.