Archer moves for Ranger

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Ifryt

  • 17
Archer moves for Ranger
« on: March 27, 2012, 08:00:31 AM »
One of my players noticed that there are no advanced moves for building an archer. Of course, the Ranger gets Called Shot, but it is it.

What do you think about adding advanced moves for archers, for example:

Bow mastery: When you shoot an enemy with a bow, add an extra 1d4 damage.
(And another move for levels 6-10 increasing added damage to 1d8.)

or/and

Seeking armor holes: When you shoot an enemy with a bow, your arrows get piercing 1. (And another move for levels 6-10 changing it to piercing 3.)

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noofy

  • 777
Re: Archer moves for Ranger
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2012, 09:04:30 AM »
Sounds like a compendium class in the making, I like your take on archers. Go for it Ifryt! If I may, I would modify slightly for narrative effect and colour...

Master of the Bow When you shoot to kill, add an extra 1d4 damage.
(And another move for levels 6-10 increasing added damage to 1d8.)

and

Achilles Heel When you target a known weak spot, your arrows get piercing 1.
(And another move for levels 6-10 changing it to piercing 2.)

That way the extra damage is a choice when the archer means to murder someone (or something), and the piercing comes through another move, possibly discern reality, spout lore or just careful roleplay.

I would add another move to the Archer Compendium that limited ammo depletion like:
Fletch and Fetch: If you roll a 7-9 on Volley and choose to reduce your ammo, you can recover your arrows later, no problem.

I would also add a move to the Archer Compendium that enhanced Defending like:
Unflinching Bead: When you Defend with your bow, you can spend hold to deal your (ranged) damage.

Great concept! I like it a lot.

Re: Archer moves for Ranger
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2012, 12:06:16 PM »
One of my players noticed that there are no advanced moves for building an archer. Of course, the Ranger gets Called Shot, but it is it.
Yeah, we noticed the same thing (and whined about it to Sage on Twitter!). All kinds of support for blazing a trail through the wilderness, and even for fighting with two weapons, but nothing for the AD&D ranger's (to me) iconic weapon.

The easiest thing to do is adapt the dual-weapon advanced moves, but it's not necessarily the most interesting option. I like giving arrows the Piercing tag, and Noofy's moves.

I don't really know about making an Archer mini-playbook, though. The Fighter pretty explicitly is melee-only -- notice that his Signature Weapon options specifically exclude bows, or anything that could pass for a bow. What's the alternative? An Archer playbook that comes with a Signature Bow? The Ranger's already the only playbook with any real support for Volley; if it were me, I'd just extend that to make Ranger the Volley playbook as a counterpart to the Fighter instead of making a new archery add-on class. If a non-Ranger character wants to get more into archery, they can multiclass to Ranger, just as a non-Fighter character might multiclass into Fighter to be more effective with Hack and Slash.

(Although even that analogy doesn't hold up that great, because multiple playbooks get advanced moves for Hack and Slash or damage-dealing in melee, but last I checked literally nobody gets an advanced move for Volley.)

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P2

  • 53
Re: Archer moves for Ranger
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2012, 06:31:06 PM »
Hi guys,

In the other topic I had complains about some Bard moves, in this, there are some about Ranger moves.

Wouldn't be a great time to get a new attention to the classes as all? Asking the players for specific playtest about the classes moves, giving report about unballanced things, or something we think is missing, or something we would like to change...

To start, I personnaly think that thieves don't need "poisoner" as an initial move. I see it as an advanced one. And I miss something in his initial moves, I don't know quite yet what is (I was foccusing in bards and wizards first), but I promisse I'll give every class an intense look to find this kind of things

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P2

  • 53
Re: Archer moves for Ranger
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2012, 06:52:25 PM »
I don't really know about making an Archer mini-playbook, though. The Fighter pretty explicitly is melee-only -- notice that his Signature Weapon options specifically exclude bows, or anything that could pass for a bow. What's the alternative? An Archer playbook that comes with a Signature Bow? The Ranger's already the only playbook with any real support for Volley; if it were me, I'd just extend that to make Ranger the Volley playbook as a counterpart to the Fighter instead of making a new archery add-on class. If a non-Ranger character wants to get more into archery, they can multiclass to Ranger, just as a non-Fighter character might multiclass into Fighter to be more effective with Hack and Slash.

(Although even that analogy doesn't hold up that great, because multiple playbooks get advanced moves for Hack and Slash or damage-dealing in melee, but last I checked literally nobody gets an advanced move for Volley.)

I agree.