One of my players had a question the other day that caught me off guard. He asked what I would do if he told me he wanted to knock 10 arrows in his bow and shoot them all at once.
My first instinct was to tell him that's ridiculous and he can't do that but I'm trying to get away from that reaction and allow players to attempt the impossible. I ended up telling him that he would just have disadvantage and couldn't use his proficiency bonus on the attack.
He has the mindset that if he rolls a 20 anything is possible. How would you handle this particular instance and how do you handle players attempting outrageous things without outright telling them no?
I would allow him to try with disadvantage, but roll for each arrow individually. Any shot that misses fires off in a random direction and may hit other targets, including bystanders and other party members. I would also consider lowering the damage by 1 for each arrow fired because the arrows are notched further from the center of the string with each one added. Of course you could also require a check just to hold that many arrows and draw the bow at the same time. The point is to make the process of doing the task just as ridiculous as the task.
One of my players had a question the other day that caught me off guard. He asked what I would do if he told me he wanted to knock 10 arrows in his bow and shoot them all at once.
My first instinct was to tell him that's ridiculous and he can't do that but I'm trying to get away from that reaction and allow players to attempt the impossible. I ended up telling him that he would just have disadvantage and couldn't use his proficiency bonus on the attack.
He has the mindset that if he rolls a 20 anything is possible. How would you handle this particular instance and how do you handle players attempting outrageous things without outright telling them no?
I would also make him do so with disadvantage and any arrows that miss could hit random targets determined by you. Also, I think that only one of the arrows could deal normal damage. The other nine could deal 1d4 piercing damage.
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Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
I'd go a different direction from the other folks answering so far.
Specifically, I would have a conversation outside of session time about this sort of thing and how I handle it, so that the player could share thoughts and have their questions answered. The short version, though, is that I'd be explaining that rolling a 20 doesn't make the impossible happen - it's just the best your character could do, and that the "rule of cool" is that I'm not going to penalize a player for adding some flourish - not that anything they deem "cool" has to happen, and that the primary things I'll be thinking of when it comes to adjudicating actions not already covered by the game rules are how the handling of it affects, compares, and relates to other game options.
So knocking 10 arrows at once would not be allowed any kind of special function or feature because it isn't good game rules to have such a low resource cost thing that is easily repeated do anything even comparable to other game rules like spells, class features, or feats.
I was thinking similarly. He would have to pull off a number of hard rolls to make it happen. I would hope after a number of times failing at these crazy tasks and wasting his turn he would start doing things that seem more reasonable.
Although if he did happen to succeed that would be a story to tell!🤘🏼
Edit: Upon further reflection I feel like that answer was counter productive to what I want the D&D experience to be at my table. Attempting the unreasonable and fantastic should be encouraged, not squashed. I would still require disadvantage and probably have a chance for missed arrows to hit other things/creatures. Thanks for everyone's advice.
How many hands does the character have? How many fingers? Outside of magic as a DM I doubt I would allow a character to nock more than 3 arrows at once. A natural 20 on an attack roll is an automatic hit, and a critical hit. That's it. A natural 20 on a skill check or saving throw isn't even an automatic success unless there is a house rule in play in your game.
I would go with what someone said of having them roll for every arrow with disadvantage and then have some consequences when it went wrong (hitting other players etc). I did something similar when my groups Ranger tried to fire a chair leg from their bow. They nearly gave another party member a face full of splinters haha.
My approach would be to find a way to let him try it, and find a way to determine the effect.
Just off the top of my head, I think here's what I would do:
It seems like even a super-adventurer can't fire 10 arrows at the same time at a single point. So I'd treat it as an area of effect attack. I'd do something like - have him make the attack roll to see how well he pulls this off. Based on the roll, pick an area of effect (low roll = not what the character wanted, high roll = basically where they aimed, maybe I'd potentially put some randomness in there with dice, like rolling dice to see in which direction they're off or how far) Have every monster in that area make a save (Dex save?), with monsters failing the save taking damage and those succeeding at it being safe. Potentially put the difficulty of the save also based on the attack roll?
In the middle of a session I'd have no way of quickly figuring out whether my idea is balanced or not, but I'd err on the side of going "Yes, and" and rolling some dice to try to make up something that should happen rather than telling a character they can't try something.
This would also, in my mind, be a time for a little DM fudging... the character is trying to do something cool but nobody knows what the rules for it is, so I think the right answer would be to let them try it but then just make sure that the ensuing result is proportional to what else they could do at that time. After all, there's 10 arrows being fired - maybe each one only does one-tenth the damage of a singly-fired arrow! Or one-fifth, or one half, or whatever.
If it's a one-off event, then the details don't matter too much. But if the PC decides "hey, I like this, I'm just going to use 10 arrows per attack for the rest of the game" then you have to make sure it's a sane thing that doesn't completely break fights.
I would be inclined to not allow it at all- to me it's no different than a character saying 'I'm going fly over that building' when they have no method of flight- it's simply not possible. As someone else said, reasonably someone may be able to line up 1 or 2 arrows with whatever disadvantage you'd state that would cause. Maybe create an magic item for them that will allow a similar effect (once per day fire an arrow that splits into 2d6 arrows or similar)
My approach would be to find a way to let him try it, and find a way to determine the effect.
Just off the top of my head, I think here's what I would do:
It seems like even a super-adventurer can't fire 10 arrows at the same time at a single point. So I'd treat it as an area of effect attack. I'd do something like - have him make the attack roll to see how well he pulls this off. Based on the roll, pick an area of effect (low roll = not what the character wanted, high roll = basically where they aimed, maybe I'd potentially put some randomness in there with dice, like rolling dice to see in which direction they're off or how far) Have every monster in that area make a save (Dex save?), with monsters failing the save taking damage and those succeeding at it being safe. Potentially put the difficulty of the save also based on the attack roll?
In the middle of a session I'd have no way of quickly figuring out whether my idea is balanced or not, but I'd err on the side of going "Yes, and" and rolling some dice to try to make up something that should happen rather than telling a character they can't try something.
This would also, in my mind, be a time for a little DM fudging... the character is trying to do something cool but nobody knows what the rules for it is, so I think the right answer would be to let them try it but then just make sure that the ensuing result is proportional to what else they could do at that time. After all, there's 10 arrows being fired - maybe each one only does one-tenth the damage of a singly-fired arrow! Or one-fifth, or one half, or whatever.
If it's a one-off event, then the details don't matter too much. But if the PC decides "hey, I like this, I'm just going to use 10 arrows per attack for the rest of the game" then you have to make sure it's a sane thing that doesn't completely break fights.
Cone, undetermined size. Either an attack roll (possibly with disadvantage, probably without proficiency or magic bonuses) or a Dexterity saving throw against 8+Dex modifier or something similar. 1d4 piercing damage (don't add Dex modifier or any other bonuses) on a hit/failed save. And track ammo and encumbrance. And, of course, the character will need several turns to nock all the arrows and wouldn't be able to benefit from Extra Attack.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
I've done archery for several years with a recurve bow, which in D&D terms would probably be a shortbow. Realistically, nocking 10 arrows to a bowstring at one time and then releasing will likely cause at least some of them to knock each other off of the desired trajectory. The player should definitely roll with disadvantage on the attack roll. If the player gets a natural 20, then I'd say all of the arrows hit; one arrow has 1d6 piercing damage (or 1d8, depending on the bow used) and then the others deal 1d4 piercing damage. If the player rolls high enough that you feel at least some of the arrows hit, I would roll a dice (no larger than a d8) to see how many arrows actually hit. For instance:
Natural 20: None
Non-natural 20+ = 1d4
15-19 = 1d6
10-14 = 1d8
This allows you to be more realistic when determining how effective this tactic is. You might also want to take into account how long the player's character has been using a bow: how long has he trained with it, and how long has he been using one in battle? This could affect the character's ability to pull this off, as well.
I'd tell the player to go outside with a bow, knock ten arrows at once, and repeat that until he rolls a "natural 20" ;)
On a more serious note, it's not that hard to explain to a player that rolling a natural 20 doesn't mean their character can perform impossible stunts. I did have a noobie player that read all the "natural 20" memes on the internet, and it took 30 seconds to explain how rolling a 20 worked in the game we were playing.
If I roll a nat 20, can I shoot 10 unmodified handguns simultaneously? Unless the character has more than two hands, it is a literal impossibility to shoot that many arrows at a single go, no matter the roll. I don't think the game would suffer one bit from ruling no on this.
In this scenario I'd just flat out say no. While flourish is okay, this is just plain insane.
If he continues to do so, I'd make a DM roll behind the scenes and determine how much of a failure this would be. There's a point at which a foot has to be put down.
"Sure, you can try that, the effect is going to be identical to shooting one arrow though.... Oh, you want additional damage/hit multiple targets, sure you can try that too, but you are going be suffering penalties to the roll in order to do the [extra damage: you roll at disadvantage, if you succeed you hit with multiple arrows doing normal damage + your attribute bonus for the second time]; [extra targets: you roll at disadvantage against the highest AC, if you succeed you hit 3 targets - a crit will net you 5 - roll normal damage and split it between each target hit, extra damage is applied to the central target]."
The counter to this: "You just want to shoot one target and do normal damage, that's a pretty cool visual, go ahead and use advantage."
My thoughts on this are that player characters can do a lot of things that are just beyond the reach of very athletic humans, but that the rules give us an amount of damage a weapon can do, in this case the use of a bow - not each arrow, but each use of the bow. This means that generally I won't disallow certain things, but their effect on the effectiveness of the attack will be minimal. I'm also not going to be asking for a lot of extra rolls, in certain cases I will use a skill check to see how well a certain attack does - ex: leaping off a table to bring more force to bear as the strike swings down - but each arrow? nope, you get one attack roll per attack action available to you.
I also want to encourage off-the-cuff and out-of-the-box thinking so I'm not going to heavily penalize the rolls, anything that makes for a cool story or visual I'm going to consider.
I would actually treat it like the spell Conjure Barrage, except with a lower save DC for the dex save, as there are only 10 arrows instead of a full barrage.
If he/she wants to be a master archer, roll a ranger. There are ranger spells to handle things like this, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. 99% of the time, I'm a fan of saying yes to the player. But this request borders on absurd, especially when mechanics already exist to accomplish the goal of "I want to shoot lots of arrows at once".
Conditions for failure have to match conditions for success. I'd say individual rolls for each arrow like most of the others are saying. I'd also say though that a miss on the enemy will result in a hit on any ally in the line of fire. And no dex/str bonus on the rolls.Your players aren't gods. They're people. It's fun to get creative, but I would make it clear this is about as easy as it would be if the actual player tried to do it IRL.
Oh snap! What if you made them do it IRL before they could do it in game? just to put it in perspective?
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One of my players had a question the other day that caught me off guard. He asked what I would do if he told me he wanted to knock 10 arrows in his bow and shoot them all at once.
My first instinct was to tell him that's ridiculous and he can't do that but I'm trying to get away from that reaction and allow players to attempt the impossible. I ended up telling him that he would just have disadvantage and couldn't use his proficiency bonus on the attack.
He has the mindset that if he rolls a 20 anything is possible. How would you handle this particular instance and how do you handle players attempting outrageous things without outright telling them no?
I would allow him to try with disadvantage, but roll for each arrow individually. Any shot that misses fires off in a random direction and may hit other targets, including bystanders and other party members. I would also consider lowering the damage by 1 for each arrow fired because the arrows are notched further from the center of the string with each one added. Of course you could also require a check just to hold that many arrows and draw the bow at the same time. The point is to make the process of doing the task just as ridiculous as the task.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Devious serpent folk devoid of compassion, yuan-ti manipulate other creatures by arousing their doubts, evoking their fears, and elevating and crushing their hopes. From remote temples in jungles, swamps, and deserts, the yuan-ti plot to supplant and dominate all other races and to make themselves gods.
it takes time to knock that many, so I would also say that his next two turns are nothing but knocking the extra arrows
I'd go a different direction from the other folks answering so far.
Specifically, I would have a conversation outside of session time about this sort of thing and how I handle it, so that the player could share thoughts and have their questions answered. The short version, though, is that I'd be explaining that rolling a 20 doesn't make the impossible happen - it's just the best your character could do, and that the "rule of cool" is that I'm not going to penalize a player for adding some flourish - not that anything they deem "cool" has to happen, and that the primary things I'll be thinking of when it comes to adjudicating actions not already covered by the game rules are how the handling of it affects, compares, and relates to other game options.
So knocking 10 arrows at once would not be allowed any kind of special function or feature because it isn't good game rules to have such a low resource cost thing that is easily repeated do anything even comparable to other game rules like spells, class features, or feats.
I was thinking similarly. He would have to pull off a number of hard rolls to make it happen. I would hope after a number of times failing at these crazy tasks and wasting his turn he would start doing things that seem more reasonable.
Although if he did happen to succeed that would be a story to tell!🤘🏼
Edit: Upon further reflection I feel like that answer was counter productive to what I want the D&D experience to be at my table. Attempting the unreasonable and fantastic should be encouraged, not squashed. I would still require disadvantage and probably have a chance for missed arrows to hit other things/creatures. Thanks for everyone's advice.
How many hands does the character have? How many fingers? Outside of magic as a DM I doubt I would allow a character to nock more than 3 arrows at once. A natural 20 on an attack roll is an automatic hit, and a critical hit. That's it. A natural 20 on a skill check or saving throw isn't even an automatic success unless there is a house rule in play in your game.
Sometimes it's all right to say no.
I would go with what someone said of having them roll for every arrow with disadvantage and then have some consequences when it went wrong (hitting other players etc). I did something similar when my groups Ranger tried to fire a chair leg from their bow. They nearly gave another party member a face full of splinters haha.
"Toss a coin to your [Insert class here]"
My approach would be to find a way to let him try it, and find a way to determine the effect.
Just off the top of my head, I think here's what I would do:
It seems like even a super-adventurer can't fire 10 arrows at the same time at a single point. So I'd treat it as an area of effect attack. I'd do something like - have him make the attack roll to see how well he pulls this off. Based on the roll, pick an area of effect (low roll = not what the character wanted, high roll = basically where they aimed, maybe I'd potentially put some randomness in there with dice, like rolling dice to see in which direction they're off or how far) Have every monster in that area make a save (Dex save?), with monsters failing the save taking damage and those succeeding at it being safe. Potentially put the difficulty of the save also based on the attack roll?
In the middle of a session I'd have no way of quickly figuring out whether my idea is balanced or not, but I'd err on the side of going "Yes, and" and rolling some dice to try to make up something that should happen rather than telling a character they can't try something.
This would also, in my mind, be a time for a little DM fudging... the character is trying to do something cool but nobody knows what the rules for it is, so I think the right answer would be to let them try it but then just make sure that the ensuing result is proportional to what else they could do at that time. After all, there's 10 arrows being fired - maybe each one only does one-tenth the damage of a singly-fired arrow! Or one-fifth, or one half, or whatever.
If it's a one-off event, then the details don't matter too much. But if the PC decides "hey, I like this, I'm just going to use 10 arrows per attack for the rest of the game" then you have to make sure it's a sane thing that doesn't completely break fights.
I would be inclined to not allow it at all- to me it's no different than a character saying 'I'm going fly over that building' when they have no method of flight- it's simply not possible. As someone else said, reasonably someone may be able to line up 1 or 2 arrows with whatever disadvantage you'd state that would cause. Maybe create an magic item for them that will allow a similar effect (once per day fire an arrow that splits into 2d6 arrows or similar)
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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I've done archery for several years with a recurve bow, which in D&D terms would probably be a shortbow. Realistically, nocking 10 arrows to a bowstring at one time and then releasing will likely cause at least some of them to knock each other off of the desired trajectory. The player should definitely roll with disadvantage on the attack roll. If the player gets a natural 20, then I'd say all of the arrows hit; one arrow has 1d6 piercing damage (or 1d8, depending on the bow used) and then the others deal 1d4 piercing damage. If the player rolls high enough that you feel at least some of the arrows hit, I would roll a dice (no larger than a d8) to see how many arrows actually hit. For instance:
Natural 20: None
Non-natural 20+ = 1d4
15-19 = 1d6
10-14 = 1d8
This allows you to be more realistic when determining how effective this tactic is. You might also want to take into account how long the player's character has been using a bow: how long has he trained with it, and how long has he been using one in battle? This could affect the character's ability to pull this off, as well.
I hope this helps!
I'd tell the player to go outside with a bow, knock ten arrows at once, and repeat that until he rolls a "natural 20" ;)
On a more serious note, it's not that hard to explain to a player that rolling a natural 20 doesn't mean their character can perform impossible stunts. I did have a noobie player that read all the "natural 20" memes on the internet, and it took 30 seconds to explain how rolling a 20 worked in the game we were playing.
If I roll a nat 20, can I shoot 10 unmodified handguns simultaneously? Unless the character has more than two hands, it is a literal impossibility to shoot that many arrows at a single go, no matter the roll. I don't think the game would suffer one bit from ruling no on this.
In this scenario I'd just flat out say no. While flourish is okay, this is just plain insane.
If he continues to do so, I'd make a DM roll behind the scenes and determine how much of a failure this would be. There's a point at which a foot has to be put down.
"Sure, you can try that, the effect is going to be identical to shooting one arrow though.... Oh, you want additional damage/hit multiple targets, sure you can try that too, but you are going be suffering penalties to the roll in order to do the [extra damage: you roll at disadvantage, if you succeed you hit with multiple arrows doing normal damage + your attribute bonus for the second time]; [extra targets: you roll at disadvantage against the highest AC, if you succeed you hit 3 targets - a crit will net you 5 - roll normal damage and split it between each target hit, extra damage is applied to the central target]."
The counter to this: "You just want to shoot one target and do normal damage, that's a pretty cool visual, go ahead and use advantage."
My thoughts on this are that player characters can do a lot of things that are just beyond the reach of very athletic humans, but that the rules give us an amount of damage a weapon can do, in this case the use of a bow - not each arrow, but each use of the bow. This means that generally I won't disallow certain things, but their effect on the effectiveness of the attack will be minimal. I'm also not going to be asking for a lot of extra rolls, in certain cases I will use a skill check to see how well a certain attack does - ex: leaping off a table to bring more force to bear as the strike swings down - but each arrow? nope, you get one attack roll per attack action available to you.
I also want to encourage off-the-cuff and out-of-the-box thinking so I'm not going to heavily penalize the rolls, anything that makes for a cool story or visual I'm going to consider.
I would actually treat it like the spell Conjure Barrage, except with a lower save DC for the dex save, as there are only 10 arrows instead of a full barrage.
If he/she wants to be a master archer, roll a ranger. There are ranger spells to handle things like this, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. 99% of the time, I'm a fan of saying yes to the player. But this request borders on absurd, especially when mechanics already exist to accomplish the goal of "I want to shoot lots of arrows at once".
Conditions for failure have to match conditions for success. I'd say individual rolls for each arrow like most of the others are saying. I'd also say though that a miss on the enemy will result in a hit on any ally in the line of fire. And no dex/str bonus on the rolls.Your players aren't gods. They're people. It's fun to get creative, but I would make it clear this is about as easy as it would be if the actual player tried to do it IRL.
Oh snap! What if you made them do it IRL before they could do it in game? just to put it in perspective?