There is the matter of specialists making it hard for the rest of the group. Anyone who spread around their points and likely augments, be it between melee and archery or melee and social skills, or whatever, would have the same issues. This is not really an "archery is ineffective" issue, but more of a "a specialist can make it hard on the other heroes" issue, I think.
Mind you, on the other hand there is the "stronger than those faster
than me, faster than those stronger than me" approach. A hunter
should be using his stealth. Shooting someone from surprise from
behind gives something like a +20, and really limits what they can
use to defend against it. The humakti popping out of the bushes and
running after the person won't get nearly as large of a bonus.
>
>
> I tried using lots of weak archers at various points, they simply
> became an AP battery for the target. My players would run out and
> yell "Shoot ME, shoot ME!!!" So I stopped doing that.
What skills were they using to defend themselves with, anyway?
Personally I'd give CC a big negative modifier to defend against
archery, then there are the multiple attacker penalties....but yes,
the entire assembly of clan hunters shooting at Harrek the Berserk
will only make him angrier (and you don't want him angrier....), and
to a lesser extent the same for any really tough hero....which is the
intent, so that the awesome hero CAN dash through a storm of arrows
to singlehandely reach the wall/shut the gate/save the princess/other
dramatic stunt.
>
> Explaining this away in a narrative fashion is easy, yes I can make
> up some story, but it ISNT reality. Reality is that an archer
> reasonably happy with his safety (defended position) is quite
> effective. An archer behind a wall is in heaven. Lots of archers
> shooting at targets in the open should be effective...
I agree. An archer behind a good wall is probably at about a +20 in a ranged combat contest (look at the +5 just for being on higher ground in melee). Isn't the rule of thumb that if the situation means that, given two equally skilled opponents, one would almost always win, give them a mastery of advantage?
Lots of archers should end up being effective too, because you aren't
limited to the number of extra attackers that you are in melee. Play
dirty too, and have them give wounds instead of taking AP at first.
You can get the classic scene where the hero dodges, blocks, rolls,
dashes...making fools out of the first several shooters. Then gets
knicked on the leg, which makes him stagger, and he has to block
three more arrows with his shield, which makes it a bit more awkward,
and one gets him in the shoulder, he staggers....then next round he
looks up to see death falling on him.
>
> Thinks of the classic ending to "1001 Spartans" where the persians
> get sick of trying to melee them and stand back and mow them down
> with arrows... the sky turns black...
Ah, mass combat. A bunch of skills that you would normally use to
deal with arrows probably take even bigger penalties when used as
mass combat, because you are no longer dodging arrows, nor can you
just block one or two. Probably the best defense is some sort of
heavy infantry mass combat skill, where you all get into formation
using shields.
>
> But a single (player) archer seems to have serious problems within
> the game. Duplicating Legolas is very hard in HQ. So we made some
> rules up about 'missing', where unless there WAS a good narrative
> reason they suffered no negative effects.
I don't see why....if you are a bow specialist, with most of your
points and augments there, (which Legolas seems to have been), you
will be as good with it as the humakti is with his sword (well, not
quite, nobody is ever quite as good as a humakti with his/her sword.
buggers). Now, he should suffer some sort of penalties if he is
using it in a melee type situation, but I'd still allow the "Legolas
jumps on the trolls head and dumps an arrow in at point blank range"
thing with only a modest penalty (-5? Or perhaps make it more of an
acrobatics issue, somehting the troll isn't good at defending
against, because really, it wasn't a question of archery skill).
>
> Archery is a lot to do with morale... a happy archer is a better
> archer. Unhappy archers tend to run away... so from a narrative
> point of view you can always say "You missed and it discouraged
you,
> you feel defeated..." But then you are starting to use morale
> modifiers, so my players would start asking for positive
> benefits... "I am behind a wall, can I get something etc etc"... I
> dont want to have to go that far if i can avoid it... and there is
> no distinction in HQ for 'defensive' modifiers, any bonus becomes
> aggressive as it is all subsumed into your skill rating... although
> I suppose you could allow a wall to count as a -^20 AP or
> something...
What is wrong with giving a +20 for being behind a wall? It says in essence that until the opponent can knowck down the wall, get rid of it, or render it irrelevant, the archer has a massive advantage in the contest. Besides being almost invulnerable, he/she can stand, brace, aim, without having to worry about their position, who is flanking them, etc, so yah, they should have a good advantage. The narrative can deal with how ofter they really hit....you can always say that if the success was only because of the bump, they didn't actually hit the opponent, but drove them farther away, the guy stumbled as he tried to find some way out, etc.
Just remember to remove the wall bonus when the opponent decides to run away. When that is the opposing objective, a wall won't be helping you at all, maybe even hindering (well, probably not an archery penalty, just a limit in what skills you can respond with).
Now, I'm not saying that all of this would have made your friend happy, he sounds a lot like my old gaming friends, and a lot of them would never be happy if someone else had flashier and more effective ways of dicing up opponents, and nobody has flashier and more effective ways of doing that than humakti do. It may have been a bit of a lost cause, happiness-wise, if what the guy was really looking for was the most powerful way to defeat people.
--Bryan
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