[Channel Teaser]
How The Legendary Archer Single-Handedly Ended
A War
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story
and a special guest narrator!
Runesmith!
He posts a lot of amazing dnd content on a
weekly basis and is one of my favorite creators.
We are super stoked to have him with us tonight
narrating this amazing story written by Felix,
the same author who wrote your favorite necromancer
story, Astoshan.
Runesmith plus Felix equals greatness and
that is exactly what we have for you here.
An overpowered archer who is probably the
most badass character you’ve ever seen.
Let us know what you thought of him after
you listen to this:
I’m playing 3.5 with a group of buddies
from back when I taught pioneering.
The campaign will mostly be outside, big areas
- mobility is huge.
Two of the guys, who have played with me before,
pick the Magic classes before the DM even
offers me a choice.
They rolled a Knightly Paladin, Armored Cleric,
weird Wizard.
So they need some non-magical range damage.
The guys who have played with me before start
smiling.
They know I can't screw that up.
I’ve been teaching survival and archery
for weeks, Welsh blood flows through my veins,
I know what to do.
I channel my heritage and historical knowledge.
Llywelyn ap Maelwys, human Fighter/Cragtop
Archer and his falcon Saeth (Welsh for arrow),
older retired military vet with a full beard
and long hair.
He doesn't talk much, and he carries a big
stick.
And by big stick I mean Item Familiar Composite
Dragonbone Greatbow.
All of his feats go to range, accuracy, and
power.
He has different arrows for different tasks,
bodkins, broadheads, barbed - he makes every
shot count.
I don’t give a damn about the rate of fire,
and work it out with the DM in exchange for
more damage and crit chance.
He refuses to use spells or magic, the most
he will use are his Bracers, his family Bow,
and enchanted arrows if necessary.
This man can reach out and touch someone at
400 feet without even getting a penalty - maxes
out at about 4000.
Eat your damn heart out, Legolas.
The party says this range is nuts - even the
initial range is BS.
I grab my longbow and take everyone to the
range.
Go behind the range, keep going, then
proceed to lob a few arrows 600 feet.
The top historical range is about 1200 feet;
600 was the minimum for practice - anything
shorter, you used heavier arrows.
The party still says it's BS.
Historical archers didn't have Bracers of
Greater Archery or talking bows larger than
them made out of goddamn dragons.
Fine.
They let me keep him.
Nobody else can pronounce his name.
It sounds like they are coughing up organs.
So everyone calls him Lewie instead.
I run some numbers; at max range it would
take 2 turns before the arrow hit the target.
I am the artillery.
The party gets summoned up by a lord to assist
in a massive battle that his army is marching
to.
The heroes are already somewhat legendary,
thus the summons and solid starting levels.
Most of the party is honored.
Lewie is pissed that they summoned him up
again after he retired.
He’s got a nice little cabin up in the mountains
with his wife.
His kids are starting to raise families.
He’s done with this life; he just wants
to go home.
We set off on our magical adventure.
Saethe is almost always in the air.
I'm constantly rolling d20's and handing notes
back and forth with the DM.
The party is confused and worried.
Halfway through the second day Lewie stops,
pulls his bow string out from under his hood
and strings up his bow.
He knocks an arrow and fires it off into nowhere
down the trail.
Then knocks another and does it again.
The party freaks out and gets ready.
Nothing happens for five rounds; Lewie just
stands there.
Then he starts shooting again.
THIRTEEN ROUNDS LATER the remnants of a patrol
reach us.
The party kills all fifteen soldiers pretty
quickly.
The party looks back at the archer nervously
and continues down the trail.
They find another fifteen men lying dead in
the dirt, spaced out every 120 feet except
for a stretch of about 700 feet.
Two were near each other just under half a
mile away.
The Cleric asks what in the name of the gods
just happened.
Lewie calmly explained the situation.
Saethe spotted the 30 man patrol half a mile
away.
Lewie fired and the arrow hit one the next
round.
The captain told the men to form up and move
forward.
He got hit the turn after that.
The troops weren't stupid: they broke formation
and started to zig-zag while sprinting.
Lewie waited for five turns until they got
within a third of a mile when the arrows took
less than a turn to travel and Lewie didn't
need to guess where they were running.
He didn't want to risk wasting any arrows.
The party is now visibly terrified of the
archer.
As expected, Lewie doesn't fight "normal".
Rather than prancing around the encounter,
firing arrows all over the place like a shield
riding elf that wanted to grow up and be a
ballerina, he prefers to fight the traditional
way.
Whenever the fight starts he stops wherever
he happens to be, picks out the arrow he wants,
nocks it, and gives some poor fool a third
eye socket.
Then he repeats this process every turn until
he runs out of things to shoot.
He flat out refuses to move unless absolutely
necessary, even if the fight starts carrying
on down the street, into another block, out
of town, and then cascades out into the countryside.
As long as the fight is less than a third
of a mile away, someone is going to grow a
3 foot long branch out of the side of their
head every round.
Any farther than that and it just takes another
turn or two to get there.
He would have to guess what square people
are going to be in the next turn.
It's like playing battleship with a railgun.
Gods help anyone if he's on higher ground
- he gets a damage and accuracy bonus for
that too.
Saethe makes sure that he can see absolutely
everything all the time.
His feats let him ignore cover, the arrows
just punching straight through whatever is
in the way.
Regular arrows are pinning people to trees
and knocking them off their feet.
The party craps a brick whenever he pulls
out the magic arrows.
Explosive arrows turn him into a mortar.
Splitters hit twice.
Seekers turn him into a heat-seeking ballista
of pain.
There is no escape.
They finally make it to the army after multiple
sidetracks and encounters that followed the
usual theme.
The enemy army is positioned across a field.
They break out the big formation’s rules.
Lewie takes control of ALL the archers.
He leaves his normal arrows back at the supply
train.
He just wants to get this over with.
He takes his archers over to a hill and has
them start cutting trees down.
The next day there is a wooden tower, light
wooden wall, and a crapload of stakes in the
ground.
He won't budge.
The rest of the army forms up and gets ready.
The evil champion rides out to meet with the
paladin.
Typical heavy dark armor, extremely loud and
full of himself, he has to yell everything.
Demands to go up against our greatest fighter.
Lewie was a very literal man and that was
a very poor choice of words.
One round later a phasing arrow goes flying
past the paladin, ignores the champion's armor,
and turns him into a new kind of unicorn.
The enemy army charges.
Lewie goes up in his tower and starts blasting
captains and commanders into another plane
of existence.
All the archers begin to volley arrows wherever
his shots land, after they get in range of
course.
The two armies collide in the middle of the
field, blade on blade.
Barbaric.
Every turn or so a captain explodes and his
unit gets hammered with hundreds of arrows.
The Paladin and Cleric are buffing everyone
into the stratosphere as they turn the front
lines into a blender of holy fury.
The Wizard is just chucking random spells
around.
In other news, enemy morale is at an all time
low.
They are starting to break when they unleash
their secret weapon.
Golems.
A full regiment of golems.
Lewie starts lobbing Adamantine arrows into
them.
But he can only hit one at a time.
The Wizard starts transmuting en masse to
mud and anything else to slow down the golem
death train.
Lewie fires explosive arrows into the muck,
sending chunks of mud flying, but we can't
stop them.
The cleric and paladin find some loophole
in the programming involving something holy
and
cause a mass case of Berserk.
The golems are going nuts, destroying absolutely
everything including each other.
Both armies are getting the hell away.
A few turns of staying a safe distance away
and blasting the ones that get too close to
Fort Bowman.
They get it back under control.
The enemy army is routing, but they need to
get the dark lord or he will be back.
Lewie knows he's somewhere out there.
Saethe sees a black suit of armor a mile away.
Lewie pulls one of the magic Flight arrows
of Distance to boost his range out to a mile
which puts it almost max range: 18 to hit
penalty.
The arrow needs to fly for 2 turns.
The cleric and paladin both throwing blessings
and prayers like crazy.
The Wizard cast some spell I can't remember,
and patted Lewie on the back.
Buffs are absurd to hit.
They cancel out the penalty, but still need
to predict the movements of a frightened lord
on horseback two turns in advance.
Remember, he's frightened - he needs to move
max distance away from us every turn.
Lewie takes a breath, calm as always.
Whole army prepares for the longest twelve
seconds of their lives.
He nocks an arrow.
Adjusts for distance.
Fires.
While the world holds its breath, Lewie turns
around, unstrings his bow, and starts going
home.
He didn't miss a shot the whole campaign.
Now I regret every archer I’ve ever played.
But with my luck my DM would have us in dungeons
every session and punish this kind of character.
Please let us know what you think and comment
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