Power balancing an archer?

[Panpiper]

Say I as a player have a wood elf archer who aspires to a Legolas like competency with bows. Legolas is able to nail headshots at extreme distances. How as a GM would you handle this? Would you permit high levels of reduced range penalties? Would you permit levels with called shots, and if so, would you allow eight of them? How would you feel about the character adding damage to their arrows from ranged martial arts maneuvers? It is a pretty trivial matter for me to build a character, for a fairly reasonable expenditure of character points, who can nail a headshot at long distance for 3d6RKA. How much is too much?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I figure someone like Legolas (thousands of years old) is a very experienced, very skilled, very trained character with lots of xps spent.  It just comes down to what kind of game you want; a starting group of young people?  A grizzled bunch of veteran experts?  An elite team of the very best in the world?

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed.  Legolas,  with the talents and skill levels he displays, isnt about the character build or the Character Points spent or where.

 

Legolas is about the long-term campaign caps and the _Experience_ Points spent when we come to know him in the books.

 

 

[Panpiper]

The key word in my OP was "aspires" to a Legolas like competency. My problem is that I can easily build a starting character nearly that powerful without any sort of cheese whatsoever. Some strength to wield a decent bow, a few ranged martial arts maneuvers, a few combat levels with said maneuvers, several penalty skill levels for range modifiers and eight penalty skill levels for called shots. That leaves plenty still for characteristics and skills. My question is just how close to Legolas would most GMs be comfortable with for a character in a Fantasy game? I suppose Christopher's "It Depends" answer is an answer of sorts.

I've got two GMs both wanting to run Fantasy Hero who are both very new to Hero, and "I" don't know what to tell them. They don't understand the power level effects of things to make a judgement on their own. 

[bluesguy]

As someone who has run a lot of Fantasy Hero and plenty of folks who want to play archers.  Here is what I usually do:

• Allow up to +3 vs  Range
• Allow up to +3 vs Hit locations
• Allow up to +4 with bows
• OCV no higher than a 5
• Generally the bows can only do up to 1 1/2 d6 RKA

There were characters that were able to shot 3/4 way across the gaming table.  If the target is unaware then the archers almost always would take a head shot (and usually connect).

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Panpiper said:

The key word in my OP was "aspires" to a Legolas like competency. My problem is that I can easily build a starting character nearly that powerful without any sort of cheese whatsoever. Some strength to wield a decent bow, a few ranged martial arts maneuvers, a few combat levels with said maneuvers, several penalty skill levels for range modifiers and eight penalty skill levels for called shots. That leaves plenty still for characteristics and skills. My question is just how close to Legolas would most GMs be comfortable with for a character in a Fantasy game? I suppose Christopher's "It Depends" answer is an answer of sorts.

I've got two GMs both wanting to run Fantasy Hero who are both very new to Hero, and "I" don't know what to tell them. They don't understand the power level effects of things to make a judgement on their own. 

 

Here's where you need to step up and run some mock combats with them. Hero has a steep learning curve for GM's so they'll need help from you and any other players who know the system.

 

If you help them learn and balance the system, you'll have Hero Converts.

 

If you don't and inevitably have the most OP , you may turn them off on Hero forever.

 

No pressure🙂!

[assault]

It's clearly a campaign balance question. If the potential GM's ate struggling with it, give them a hand. If you are building characters, keep them reasonable.

 

[bluesguy]

Here are the rules of thumb I have been using for a long time now.  They seem to be working:

• Character Benchmarks - Famous fictional fantasy characters and their characteristics.  I stole it from someone's site.  If anyone knows whose it is I will add an appropriate authorship.  It is possible to argue with the characteristics for each of theses fictional characters.  That isn't important.  The important part is the relative comparisons.
• For my campaign, Nyonia, I provide the following rules and information for the players:
  • Characteristics
  • Combat Skills

So far we have had everything from a well armed and armored knight (chainmail + breast plate), sword master (fighting with two blades), archer, and a martial artists/monk who fought with a pair of clubs/fighting sticks.  Everyone had their moments in combat.  Everyone had the crazy hard fight and everyone had the chance at a one shot.

[Derek Hiemforth]

On 8/8/2021 at 8:27 AM, Panpiper said:

Say I as a player have a wood elf archer who aspires to a Legolas like competency with bows. Legolas is able to nail headshots at extreme distances. How as a GM would you handle this? Would you permit high levels of reduced range penalties? 

 

Yes, eventually (i.e., for Legolas-level characters). For starting heroes, I'd probably cap it at +4 to offset range penalties.

 

On 8/8/2021 at 8:27 AM, Panpiper said:

Would you permit levels with called shots, and if so, would you allow eight of them? 

 

Yes, eventually. For starting heroes, I'd again probably cap it at +4 to offset called shot penalties (even that makes a High Shot a normal chance).

 

On 8/8/2021 at 8:27 AM, Panpiper said:

How would you feel about the character adding damage to their arrows from ranged martial arts maneuvers?

 

That's fine. It's no "worse" than a melee fighter adding damage to their swords from hand-to-hand martial arts maneuvers. However, I might only allow Extra DC to be bought with XP (especially if they also have bonuses to offset range, and bonuses to offset called shots, etc. as a starting hero).

In fact, that's a point in general; how much I would allow of any of these things depends in part on how many of these things they have.  Eventually, they can have them all, but they shouldn't have them all when they start -- even if they can afford the CP cost -- or they won't have any room to get better.

 

All that said, these are still the relatively "normal" ways of building a skilled archer. As characters grow in power/skill, they're more likely to have things like Combat Archery and Rapid Archery, or even to "buy-off" the Concentrate Limitation on their bow as a "Nimble Archery" Talent or the like.

[drunkonduty]

First off I should point out that I don't like penalty skill levels except in specific circumstances. eg. range skill levels are for characters with sniper sights. I plain don't allow penalty skill levels to offset targeting locations. I mean, +1 OCV with a specific type of weapon is 2 points. Who really needs a cost break on this? 

 

So, with that caveat, I'd like to ask the OP - who else is in the group? If you've got a group and almost every situation is going to be solved by Legolas standing a hundred metres away and head-shotting the bad guy are the other players going to be able to contribute in a meaningful way? Some of them may prefer seducing every barmaid, or playing politics, or summoning up demon hordes. And that's great stuff as long as everyone gets their time to shine. BUT if you have a group in which more than one player wishes to contribute to combat then you're looking at a potential problem here. The rivalry between Legolas and Gimli is played for laughs in the movies (it's rather more realistic in the books.) Which of your players is happy to be the perpetual Gimli (read "butt-monkey") in this?

 

My first concern when I GM is that all the players are balanced against one another. Now, I realise this reflects a lot of my own preference - I want my characters to be able to contribute to the game. And... nearly everyone I've ever played with has wanted this too. I strongly suspect that most of your fellow players are of a similar mind. No one wants to be a hanger on.

 

You've got new GMs. That's amazing. Don't scare them off with your bad-ass, unbeatable, super-dude. Play nice. Take time to explain how combat works. I don't mean the basic dice conventions and the SPD chart. I mean explain how and what your Legolas could do and how easily they could kill off even a big dragon from a safe distance by turning every mission into special forces sniper missions. Hey, if everyone's okay with that, do it. But let people go in knowing.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Years ago I played a Fantasy game and the GM’s brother was a Robin Hood type archer and could do head shots all day. We still had fun just because of the players. I mean we were outshined by the character so I wouldn’t recommend having such a powerful archer in the group.

[bluesguy]

On 8/9/2021 at 10:37 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

Years ago I played a Fantasy game and the GM’s brother was a Robin Hood type archer and could do head shots all day. We still had fun just because of the players. I mean we were outshined by the character so I wouldn’t recommend having such a powerful archer in the group.

It is important to create situations where the archer just isn't as effective (party is ambushed, party is underground or in enclosed spaces, close combat has started - make the archer character take an extra phase to offset penalty of possibly hitting a friend).

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, bluesguy said:

It is important to create situations where the archer just isn't as effective (party is ambushed, party is underground or in enclosed spaces, close combat has started - make the archer character take an extra phase to offset penalty of possibly hitting a friend).

You bring up some very good points. To be fair, the game I mentioned ended up being a one shot. And it was one of those everyone build on your own. (My character has a 20 Body which I don’t regret ever buying). Still my point is that with any character concept, there may be friction points. So be careful.

[Steve]

At extreme levels of range, perhaps an archer also needs Telescopic Sight abilities to deal with at least some of their range modifiers? This wouldn’t be an issue with shorter ranges, but would when you get to the outer edge of a bow’s range.

 

An archer may have a ton of penalty skill levels, but they wouldn’t do much good if they can’t clearly see the target, would they?