I’m trying to work out how/whether arrows get used up during Fight! and Range & Cover. I took the fletcher skill so I could resupply, but reading through the BWGold Rev book now I can’t find any reference to ammunition being spent or used.
Side question: when crafting arrows using Fletcher, is the Ob higher when creating arrows with specialty arrowheads (bodkin, leaf head, etc.)?
I think the topic is meant to be a little vague. I’ve seen folks not track it at all; I’ve seen people treat quivers as expendable toolkits (DoF, on a 1, you’re down to your last). I personally track my arrows whenever the table will allow.
I believe the folks at BWHQ take arrows by the dozen, track them, and make Scavenging tests to recover them after a battle.
I don’t have an answer about Fletching Obs at the moment.
The rules say Fletcher is used to create “suitable arrows” and divide Obs by type of bow; so, my reading is that creating the arrow is the same Ob whatever type it is (i.e. the real trick is in mounting head, shaft, and fletching not the differences between heads). This “all arrows are similar” interpretation is supported by Bowyer listing the Ob for making arrows as 1 rather than having any scale of Obs for arrows.
However, depending on the Resource granularity of the game, I might expect a Resources/Haggle/Blacksmithing/&c. test for some arrows to represent specialist heads being harder to obtain (e.g. Fletcher lets a character find the resources to make a basic arrow as part of the test but players need a separate test to get a rope-cutter head).
Indeed. Arrowheads are the purview of Blacksmith (Ob2). And even that skill is calls for no Ob differentiation between the various types. Which makes sense; they’re just not that different in terms of crafting difficulty. Which is pretty neat! Diversify your arsenal, baby!
Exactly. This highlights something that seems the tasty core of BW for me: rather than the common “big” skills of an RPG, the life paths feature very fine grain skills that break up tasks into multiple overlapping paths; this makes it easy to pick out the critical step for this specific moment.
For example: in a big city, plenty of arrowheads so the interesting thing is perhaps can you make a bushel quickly; in the middle of the desert, no arrowheads so the interesting thing is perhaps Smelting.
I’d let my players Beginner’s Luck for Flint Knapping in a real pinch. A regrettably forgotten art in the implied setting.
Ah, yes, improvised arrowheads! Eeasily represented by a Disadvantage to their Range skill roll!
As far as creating them, I would use either Fletching (taught as a “backup”) or the Mason skill (it’s shaped stone, just different tools and minerals), with Disadvantage either way for improvisation.
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