Hi I need help in understanding how range wapon works.
How do I determine how mutch ammuntion a PC can carry?
How does relodes work?
There are two different kinds of ranged weapons: The ones with the “Volley” quality, and the ones without. For weapons without Volley, there is ammunition available that may have an encumbrance value. Sometimes, the “ammunition” is the weapon itself (e.g. for throwing axes). Spent ammo can be retrieved after combat by rolling a die.
Weapons with Volley (e.g. bows) have basically a built-in supply of never-ending ammo. You do not need to count shots here. These weapons can have “Loads”, which basically means “a bunch of ammo”. Loads can be spent to make a more powerful attack (see Volley in the rulebook). This essentially means the character fires a bunch of arrows in rapid succession. Loads can be retrieved after combat similarly to shots.
I think Reloads and Loads are the same thing.
Ah thanks for your help, now I understand!
A complication on a Weapon with Volley could be that you ran out of arrows/bolts/sling stones.
Indeed. As a rule of thumb, I tend to have complications cause individual ammo loads to be lost, and then if there are any further complications with that ranged weapon, to impose a “Completely Out of Ammo” complication.
How many loads of ammuntion do a player get in the start of a campaign?
usually it is described under archetype- for example on page 30 under archer: <bow and 2 reloads>…i usually let PCs buy any extra gear they want before the game begins with the money they have- just to reflect them acquiring stuff on their travels…
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One load per weapon chosen. if you get 3 weapon picks you can get up to 3 loads.
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Can someone explain how ammunition works. How many Shots are in a load? They use terms like shots, loads and ammunition but does not really explain each. Thanks.
A shot is an individual arrow/bolt/stone while a Load is an abstract number of ammunition. You can see in Ranged Weapons talents which utilize Loads a lot to get a better idea, for instance “Blot out the sun”.
There is also a talent (dont remember where, perhaps brigand) that lets you recover Loads easier.
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For all intents and purposes Conan doesn’t track shots. An archer or crossbowman is assumed to have enough arrows/bolts to fire uninterrupted so long as they have at least one “load” of ammunition. That being said there are several talents and types of firing that allow an archer/crossbowman to expend a load. If they do this and then have no more loads then they are assumed to have run out of ammo. The only real exception of this is if the GM decides to spend doom to give someone a finite number of rounds or simply say they ran out.
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Weapons with the “Volley” Quality do not track individual shots. You basically have infinite ammo. As already mentioned, these weapons use “Loads” (sometimes called “Reloads”) to activate special effects. “Loads” represent a bunch of shots. Of course, as a Complication, the GM can say that you are out of shots.
You only need to track shots for weapons without the “Volley” Quality, such as most thrown weapons and e.g. the arbalest.
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If you have a bow with two Loads and use Volley once using both Loads or you do Volley twice with one Load each does that mean you are out of Shots now or just Loads(Reloads)?
I’m not sure if you can use multiple Loads on one Volley attack.
But anyway, being out of Loads just means you don’t have enough arrows left for a Volley, but you still have enough arrows for normal attacks. Of course, as a Complication, the GM might say that you are now completely out of ammo.
@Shran there is a talent in Range weapons that allows that. 
@Stokar No, but you cant shoot any more loads. However you are considered to have arrows left (you dont count single arrows, only loads).
Also, there are a Talent that allows you to reclaim your loads (dont remember from which book (most likely brigand) that are very useful for ranged weapons characters.
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Ok so I don’t get how there is encumbrance, and finite arrows, but you can’t count arrows?
How the hell does this work?
Thanks for any help.
There is no finite number of arrows.
A Reload of arrows is “some arrows”, an undetermined number.
This undetermined number of arrows (or sling shots or throwing knives or other weapons with the volley quality) has Encumbrance listed for the whole unspecified number a “Load” encompasses - 1 Encumbrance per Reload.
Only ranged weapons that DON’T have the Volley quality cannot use Reloads.
They fire or let you throw individual items like an arbalest bolt or a throwing axe.
The arbalest has a quiver with a specified, finite(!) number of bolts you need to keep track of. That is a special case for this very heavy crossbow type. It does not have the Volley quality.
The typical (light) crossbow does have the Volley quality, and for that you don’t count individual bolts, only the number of Reloads (= an unspecified number of “some bolts”).
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