Re: archery commentary

[Greg Mowczko <mooch@ns1.cioe.com>]

> From: Wright Frazier <khelek>
>
> > So I need to be a better than average fire/air mage with one or two 
> > combinations of spells from multiple groups to begin to take on some 
> > shmoe 2/5 of a met away.  Sound unbalancing?
> > 
> > In the game that I ran last weekend, the players came up against a Keep 
> > with ten guys on the wall with crossbows.  They had to cover an open 
> > field of 600' and I informed the players that they were not extended 
> > range crossbows.  The average rating was 24 and no one even attempted to 
> > run across the field.
>
> And you had a party who didn't think apparently.  Wait till nightfall, sneak
> in if you really need too.

Hey I think. Which brings up the question. BJ it was night how the hell could
we see them and vice versa? Doooh. Forgot to call you on that. Oh well I did
like the backup plan I came up with we just didn't have time to finish.

> As for unbalancing hell no.  You can only plink 1 guy with an arrow.  With
> a bolt you get 2-3 at times, with a fireball you can get upwards of 40.
> With 1 spell and a megaphone you can whipe out city blocks.  With 1
> spell and a megaphone you can cause everyone in a city block to worship
> you as a god as well.  Further with 1 spell you can kill instantly with
> a bitch of a check.  With 1 skill you can autocrit someone.
>
> A bow with a big range is not unbalancing unless you are a poor GM who
> can't handle the situation, or a GM who hates to let players exercise
> some free will and acknowledge that shit happens and players do some
> completely insane things. 
>
> Oh, as far as a rate 24 party doing nothing, I've seen a party with
> an average rate of less 15 formulate and execute a good plan of attack,
> keep the momentum and invade a strong hold and take it with nocasualties
> and it was not from my lack of effort in trying to kill them.

Any specific group of players that work together alot can up up with things
to work around ALOT of problems. You just need people who click and then get
everyone to do there part. I just don't like to go beyond my adventurers
expertise ( I was rate 10 as I said ) and come up with complex plans of
attacks. Plus the reason our average was so high was from Mike Kilgore's
adventurer and I think Pruitt's. So a bunch of low and 2 or three mid/high
raters put the average up there. I have no clue what Levi's rate.

> > You can say that they are hard to find but as these weapons become common 
> > ground, I know that 5 people are going to have them by the end of the 
> > semester based on the way gms give out items.
> > 
> > Sorry, but I do not care for the new ranges and am infavor of Dan's idea.
> > 
>
> And I'd rather have 5 people be given a nonmagical bow than 5 people
> be given a wand of 1/day fireballs.
>
> Wright

True enough.
							Greg