Alright folks..bows need some more thought
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DrakhanValane
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Extra Damage: Piercing or what not seems to me to cause the weapon to act as if its also of base type Piercing. Not really sure and NWN is bugged where it comes to that anyway.
If you tilt your head far enough and squint hard enough, anything becomes as simple or complex as you'd like--regardless of whether it is or not. -- A lesson learned from Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science
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Terminal Insanity
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my rogue/sd uses dual kukris and swaps to a shortbow alot... right now hes using enchanted steel kukris and the cherry shortbow... and i honestly dont see ether one being better then the other, aside from the fact i need to buy arrows.
but i think that can be written off with the benifit i get of being able to do damage from a distance.
Also, shouldent the enchantment be on the arrows, not the bow? its up to the quality of the arrow's head to determine if it pierces the soak (in my opinion anyways), for the same reason its up to the quality of the blade to pierce soak, instead of the hilt its on.
And as far as crafted arrows go... it should be cheap XP-wise, but make up for it by charging more alot more GP...
but i think that can be written off with the benifit i get of being able to do damage from a distance.
Also, shouldent the enchantment be on the arrows, not the bow? its up to the quality of the arrow's head to determine if it pierces the soak (in my opinion anyways), for the same reason its up to the quality of the blade to pierce soak, instead of the hilt its on.
And as far as crafted arrows go... it should be cheap XP-wise, but make up for it by charging more alot more GP...
.My thoughts...
I'm more a DnD veteran than a NWN one, so I had no idea that Attack Bonus on launchers counts as enhancement bonus for purposes of piercing Damage Resistance and similar.
If that is the case then my argument was based on false premises...but here are my further thoughts on missile weapons:
"Mighty" is a property found on mundane equipment in PnP which allows an individual with high strength to get some extra damage on each strike. Perhaps allow this property on bows at much earlier "item levels" and have it max out at 5 or something.
Part of the problem here is Damage Immunity and Damage Resistance, they're a little out of control, in my opinion. I'm sure similar arguments along these lines can be made for dexers, dual-wielders, and two-handers.
In game-design, it is best - in my opinion - to take away more than add, to create balance. In this case tone down the immunity/resistance on items, perhaps even remove "immunity" completely and only have resistance. DnD 3e was balanced against certain spells/feats/abilities granting specific resistances not percentage immunities. Certain other things in the game (such as the percentage increase to damage that two-handers get) start to fall apart game-balance wise when % immunity is too common place.
I'm more a DnD veteran than a NWN one, so I had no idea that Attack Bonus on launchers counts as enhancement bonus for purposes of piercing Damage Resistance and similar.
If that is the case then my argument was based on false premises...but here are my further thoughts on missile weapons:
"Mighty" is a property found on mundane equipment in PnP which allows an individual with high strength to get some extra damage on each strike. Perhaps allow this property on bows at much earlier "item levels" and have it max out at 5 or something.
Part of the problem here is Damage Immunity and Damage Resistance, they're a little out of control, in my opinion. I'm sure similar arguments along these lines can be made for dexers, dual-wielders, and two-handers.
In game-design, it is best - in my opinion - to take away more than add, to create balance. In this case tone down the immunity/resistance on items, perhaps even remove "immunity" completely and only have resistance. DnD 3e was balanced against certain spells/feats/abilities granting specific resistances not percentage immunities. Certain other things in the game (such as the percentage increase to damage that two-handers get) start to fall apart game-balance wise when % immunity is too common place.
My opinion on immunity etc. stuff is to have ~5% immunity at lower levels (like there is now), and later just remove it and replace with resistance. Eg. level 1 armor has 5% immunity, level 5 armor has 10%, level 9 armor has 5 resist, 13 has 10...etc. Then have an uber-rare drop with ... say 50% immune and an AC penalty.
Denort wrote:Dev Crit feats for bows has always been available, it just didn't do anything. The reqs for dev crit bow are the same as melee weapons. High str, various combat feats (cleaving feats I think) which all seem pretty useless for archers.
Yeah, it was something of a disappointment when HotU came out and it didn't work. The post I read on the Bioware forums only mentioned that it was fixed in the new patch, but nothing about the associated pre-reqs. Dex requirements instead of str would make sense (IRL, archer strength only matters in terms of how powerful a bow pull they can cope with... not that IRL matters a whole lot in computer games
), but it'll be interesting to see once the patch is fully live.i have a lvl 20 AA here and to tell ya the truth...she sucks.
no its not the build, just because i dont have dmg buffs from not being an overpowered cleric doesnt make the build bad.
the bows are fine, there isnt much more u can do to bows to help out archers besides AB, mighty, massive crits, and maybe some feats to accompany a ranged character (although dmg resist would be nice but if its added to bows it has to be added to all 2handed weapons).
the problem is with the arrows. the best arrows are 2d6 pierce 1d6 acid and they are fine power wise, but the quantity that u find them in is not sufficient enough. if u are using a bow as your main weapon u will blow through stacks upon stacks of arrows in no time. if u dont believe me, go buy 10 stacks of 1d10 arrows and see how long they last soloing on giant mountain. so argueing that there are good arrows out there doesnt help since they are not common enough to allow the archer to use them all of the time.
one way to solve this problem is to make arrow generator items. they can drop off of bosses just like all the high quality melee weapons do so the archer knows he has his arrows forever, only thing to fear would be pickpocketing the generator (which should weigh light). this is done on all of the pvp arena servers so why not here, this is a pvp server right?
another solution would be to make a unique store to sell high quality bows/arrows. but to access the store u would need a key that is gained by completing some type of archer trial. the archer would have to go through a series of tasks (by himself) made to test how strong the archer is. one could test his ac by having the archer fight 1 creature that has very high ab/dmg but very low ac and nearly no resists. to prevent the archer from just running from it and using the shoot & run bug to kill it, maybe once u enter the room for that task u would be locked in an arena type bowl or something. similar things can be done to test your ab/dmg/life/stealth/spot/whatever. after completing all of the tasks the archer fights an end boss who drops the key to the unique archer store.
personally i like the 2nd suggestion better as it would be more fun to go through a gauntlet designed to kill archers. the first one is just easier/less time consuming
no its not the build, just because i dont have dmg buffs from not being an overpowered cleric doesnt make the build bad.
the bows are fine, there isnt much more u can do to bows to help out archers besides AB, mighty, massive crits, and maybe some feats to accompany a ranged character (although dmg resist would be nice but if its added to bows it has to be added to all 2handed weapons).
the problem is with the arrows. the best arrows are 2d6 pierce 1d6 acid and they are fine power wise, but the quantity that u find them in is not sufficient enough. if u are using a bow as your main weapon u will blow through stacks upon stacks of arrows in no time. if u dont believe me, go buy 10 stacks of 1d10 arrows and see how long they last soloing on giant mountain. so argueing that there are good arrows out there doesnt help since they are not common enough to allow the archer to use them all of the time.
one way to solve this problem is to make arrow generator items. they can drop off of bosses just like all the high quality melee weapons do so the archer knows he has his arrows forever, only thing to fear would be pickpocketing the generator (which should weigh light). this is done on all of the pvp arena servers so why not here, this is a pvp server right?
another solution would be to make a unique store to sell high quality bows/arrows. but to access the store u would need a key that is gained by completing some type of archer trial. the archer would have to go through a series of tasks (by himself) made to test how strong the archer is. one could test his ac by having the archer fight 1 creature that has very high ab/dmg but very low ac and nearly no resists. to prevent the archer from just running from it and using the shoot & run bug to kill it, maybe once u enter the room for that task u would be locked in an arena type bowl or something. similar things can be done to test your ab/dmg/life/stealth/spot/whatever. after completing all of the tasks the archer fights an end boss who drops the key to the unique archer store.
personally i like the 2nd suggestion better as it would be more fun to go through a gauntlet designed to kill archers. the first one is just easier/less time consuming
ATI you are again spewing nonsense.
You are right, there is a lack of good bows and forest imbues arrows are rare but a lot of things you said aren't true at all.
1. Epic mage armor:
-Only mages get epic mage armor not most high level chars.
-Epic mage armor is AC and thus melee has same problem and there is no difference between melee and archers.
2. Deflect arrows
-Deflect arrows is REALLY rare. You need 2 monk and a free hand and both are rather rare. How many characters use deflect arrows? Less than 5% I think. That's how much monks we have. Cleric x monk 1 doesn't have it and they use shield anyway.
3. +5 Armor:
-Again, only cleric have this.
-Again this is AC so it's the same for everybody and has nothing to do with damage on bows or anything
4. Premonition:
Any noncleric melee has +3 weapon just like you have +3 bows. Same problems. AA lvl 9 ignores premonition and cleric archers have divine favor anyway.
Here is a list of all armors/shields(sets) lvl 16 boss type:
Lagnar set: 50% slash 50% fire
Tagnar set: 50% slash not sure
Northern Star set: 50% slash 50% cold
Gnoll set: 50% slash 50% fire
Drow plates(shadow dragon etc): 25% slash
The only piercing immunity boss drop is in fact a ROBE. Imbued mystral robe. There is no boss drop shield with pirecing immunity that I know of. In fact I am still looking for imbued mithril tower shield with piercing immunity.
So don't go around saying you are the only one doing low damage. I couldn't do more than 5 damage with tagnar's sword to a mage with a ranger. OF course I wouldn't have any problem with a cleric but that's what we all know. Slashin immunity is gazzillion times commoner than piercing immunity.
Your problem ATI is that you compare archers with fully buffed clerics. All the greater magical weapon and darkfire make great damage. But try asking a barbarian. Also you can't effectively compare damage from melee and ranged. Melee gets damage bonus from their STR modifier and ranged only gets up to mighty(if they manage to get enough STR).
3d6 max is 18. Then you add +3 from enhancement. 21. NOW you use immunity. 50% that is 10 damage in immunity and 11 left. Add positive and that is max of 17 damage for a char with 10 STR. OF course any normal person would have 10/- blunt so you basically do 7 damage max or 0 blunt +1d6 postivie normally. You only get 1 blunt when rolling 18 on 3d6.
With bow you get 1d8+2d6 from arrows +1d6 elemental. With 50% piercing: 20 piercing and 6 elemental, 10 piercing goes into immunity so that is 16 damage. Nearly same as weapon. If they have 10/- piercing as well you have 0 piercing +1d6 elemental. Which is same stuff as weapon. Of course positive is better than elemental but a lot of weapon types have elemental.
The only difference here is melee is keen. And melee gets extra damage if they have higher str than 10. Which is exactly how it is supposed to be in D&D
Here's my opinion. Put keen on bows. Make arrows with 2d6 piercing 1d6 elemental damage readily available or make kits that use money when used. Then bows will be equal to melee weapons on paper. But melee will still have higher damage.
-Darkfire
-Greater magic weapon
-STR mod, melee with +15 str mod has like 15 damage more.
Archers were never meant to do same damage as melee. Go to low magic server with no resists and same bows+ammo as melee weapons. You will have hard time getting past 30 damage without sneaks. The things just are that way. Mostly cos archers don't get damage from dex mod like fighters from str mod. That is why archers go AA or rogue for damage.
You are right, there is a lack of good bows and forest imbues arrows are rare but a lot of things you said aren't true at all.
In case you haven't noticed, melee has same problem. The only ones who can are clerics.yeah...anyone that gets soak from a spell automatically renders an archer useless because the archer can't get his bow surpass soak by 3
Stop overblowing things.Most High lvl chars have epic mage armor, deflect arrows, high discipline, or +5 armor (clerics and their damn magic vestments!) or a druid that has Premonition soak up to 100 damage (a decrease per hit) with a +5 armor modifier.
1. Epic mage armor:
-Only mages get epic mage armor not most high level chars.
-Epic mage armor is AC and thus melee has same problem and there is no difference between melee and archers.
2. Deflect arrows
-Deflect arrows is REALLY rare. You need 2 monk and a free hand and both are rather rare. How many characters use deflect arrows? Less than 5% I think. That's how much monks we have. Cleric x monk 1 doesn't have it and they use shield anyway.
3. +5 Armor:
-Again, only cleric have this.
-Again this is AC so it's the same for everybody and has nothing to do with damage on bows or anything
4. Premonition:
Any noncleric melee has +3 weapon just like you have +3 bows. Same problems. AA lvl 9 ignores premonition and cleric archers have divine favor anyway.
There is NO fact. Stop throwing the word ALL around.Then there is the fact that almost ALL the higher lvl armors have pierce resist (like gnoll chief gnork's plate with 25 percent imunity and then you get the gnoll chief shield, which is anoter 25 percent immunity and 25 resist)
Here is a list of all armors/shields(sets) lvl 16 boss type:
Lagnar set: 50% slash 50% fire
Tagnar set: 50% slash not sure
Northern Star set: 50% slash 50% cold
Gnoll set: 50% slash 50% fire
Drow plates(shadow dragon etc): 25% slash
The only piercing immunity boss drop is in fact a ROBE. Imbued mystral robe. There is no boss drop shield with pirecing immunity that I know of. In fact I am still looking for imbued mithril tower shield with piercing immunity.
So don't go around saying you are the only one doing low damage. I couldn't do more than 5 damage with tagnar's sword to a mage with a ranger. OF course I wouldn't have any problem with a cleric but that's what we all know. Slashin immunity is gazzillion times commoner than piercing immunity.
Your problem ATI is that you compare archers with fully buffed clerics. All the greater magical weapon and darkfire make great damage. But try asking a barbarian. Also you can't effectively compare damage from melee and ranged. Melee gets damage bonus from their STR modifier and ranged only gets up to mighty(if they manage to get enough STR).
Yeah stop smoking crack. How does +5 armor has to do ANYTHING with damage?If the char has +5 armor on, then i lose two damage
What the hell is wrong with you? +3 damage from enhancement doesn't ignore immunities!!The star does 1d6 damage normally, so thats a total of 1d6+3 guaranteed damage[positive damage plus the weapon enhancement], with another 3d6 bludgeoning damage from the weapon and the damage bonus.
3d6 max is 18. Then you add +3 from enhancement. 21. NOW you use immunity. 50% that is 10 damage in immunity and 11 left. Add positive and that is max of 17 damage for a char with 10 STR. OF course any normal person would have 10/- blunt so you basically do 7 damage max or 0 blunt +1d6 postivie normally. You only get 1 blunt when rolling 18 on 3d6.
With bow you get 1d8+2d6 from arrows +1d6 elemental. With 50% piercing: 20 piercing and 6 elemental, 10 piercing goes into immunity so that is 16 damage. Nearly same as weapon. If they have 10/- piercing as well you have 0 piercing +1d6 elemental. Which is same stuff as weapon. Of course positive is better than elemental but a lot of weapon types have elemental.
The only difference here is melee is keen. And melee gets extra damage if they have higher str than 10. Which is exactly how it is supposed to be in D&D
Here's my opinion. Put keen on bows. Make arrows with 2d6 piercing 1d6 elemental damage readily available or make kits that use money when used. Then bows will be equal to melee weapons on paper. But melee will still have higher damage.
Here's why.don't even do damage and my melee weapon does around 30-50 damage per round.
-Darkfire
-Greater magic weapon
-STR mod, melee with +15 str mod has like 15 damage more.
Archers were never meant to do same damage as melee. Go to low magic server with no resists and same bows+ammo as melee weapons. You will have hard time getting past 30 damage without sneaks. The things just are that way. Mostly cos archers don't get damage from dex mod like fighters from str mod. That is why archers go AA or rogue for damage.
wow Spura....you're nice maybe you should chill out for a second.
I know the items I've got have pierce resist, there are lots of armors easily accessible that give pierce resist, however there is something up with arrows, according to NWN, that makes it so that no matter what armor resist the armor has, the arrow changes to that king of damage, making the damage resistable (from what I read at least) I.E. arrows taht are piercing still get resisted off of slash resist armors.
There were a lot of assumptions I made regarding bows are not just right for bows but melee weapons too. Like the +5 enhancement thing, you're right it does happent o melee weapons to. Thats great.
Epic mage armor, DOES make arrows nigh pointless, and defelct arrows is rare? i think lots of monks would differ regarding that.
And actually I compared my fully buffed cleric to a fully buffed cleric using a bow.
Oh and I ALWAYS like people who get nit picky over the word usage in a forum post so let me say that you're ability to get upset over usage of words such as tons and always, over a post made at 3am in the morning is very impressive spura
Actually you can't use darkfire and greater magic weapon at the same time (from what i've tried at least, maybe im just not trying hard enough). Really its because the highest availability of arrows is through 1d10 arrows (lvl 13) while its really easy to get lvl 16+ items. Make lvl 16+ arrows more available is what Im asking for.
All that needs to be done is some more arrow availability. Which is what i think you and I both agree on. So chill out Spura, its a post in NS, not something mollify me over. Its cool, you're right some of the things I said were wrong, and thats unfortunate. Congrats on pointin gthem out, yet over all that ranting, we came to the same conclusion, better arrows with more availability. with some better mods on bows. Im not asking for the same damage as a melee fighter, im asking for some more damage.
I know the items I've got have pierce resist, there are lots of armors easily accessible that give pierce resist, however there is something up with arrows, according to NWN, that makes it so that no matter what armor resist the armor has, the arrow changes to that king of damage, making the damage resistable (from what I read at least) I.E. arrows taht are piercing still get resisted off of slash resist armors.
There were a lot of assumptions I made regarding bows are not just right for bows but melee weapons too. Like the +5 enhancement thing, you're right it does happent o melee weapons to. Thats great.
Epic mage armor, DOES make arrows nigh pointless, and defelct arrows is rare? i think lots of monks would differ regarding that.
And actually I compared my fully buffed cleric to a fully buffed cleric using a bow.
Oh and I ALWAYS like people who get nit picky over the word usage in a forum post so let me say that you're ability to get upset over usage of words such as tons and always, over a post made at 3am in the morning is very impressive spura
Actually you can't use darkfire and greater magic weapon at the same time (from what i've tried at least, maybe im just not trying hard enough). Really its because the highest availability of arrows is through 1d10 arrows (lvl 13) while its really easy to get lvl 16+ items. Make lvl 16+ arrows more available is what Im asking for.
All that needs to be done is some more arrow availability. Which is what i think you and I both agree on. So chill out Spura, its a post in NS, not something mollify me over. Its cool, you're right some of the things I said were wrong, and thats unfortunate. Congrats on pointin gthem out, yet over all that ranting, we came to the same conclusion, better arrows with more availability. with some better mods on bows. Im not asking for the same damage as a melee fighter, im asking for some more damage.
I've tried fire, i've tried faith, and i've tried force, all I have left is hope.
ATI wrote:I know the items I've got have pierce resist, there are lots of armors easily accessible that give pierce resist, however there is something up with arrows, according to NWN, that makes it so that no matter what armor resist the armor has, the arrow changes to that king of damage, making the damage resistable (from what I read at least) I.E. arrows taht are piercing still get resisted off of slash resist armors.
thats false, well for arrows at least. my archer does a significantly more dmg to something without pierce resist than somehting with only slash. however, i have experienced stuff like this when the enemy is using a slash weapon. for some reason on my archer, who uses leonsbane, gets both slash and pierce resist -15 and immunity 25%. dont know how, but ns guards do little or no dmg normally.
and anyway....any feedback on my ideas for helping arrows? (look up a few posts)
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DrakhanValane
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-BannyD- wrote:ATI wrote:I know the items I've got have pierce resist, there are lots of armors easily accessible that give pierce resist, however there is something up with arrows, according to NWN, that makes it so that no matter what armor resist the armor has, the arrow changes to that king of damage, making the damage resistable (from what I read at least) I.E. arrows taht are piercing still get resisted off of slash resist armors.
thats false, well for arrows at least. my archer does a significantly more dmg to something without pierce resist than somehting with only slash. however, i have experienced stuff like this when the enemy is using a slash weapon. for some reason on my archer, who uses leonsbane, gets both slash and pierce resist -15 and immunity 25%. dont know how, but ns guards do little or no dmg normally.
and anyway....any feedback on my ideas for helping arrows? (look up a few posts)
Slash weapons: That's probably because they're using a slash/pierce weapon (sometimes the item description lies and says it's slash only).
If you tilt your head far enough and squint hard enough, anything becomes as simple or complex as you'd like--regardless of whether it is or not. -- A lesson learned from Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science
Spura wrote:In case you haven't noticed, melee has same problem. The only ones who can are clerics.
Also bards, wizards, sorcerors and paladins. Rangers get ripped off with their rather impotent Blade Thirst spell.
Personally I think Greater Magic Weapon should be capped at +4 then mage robes would not need the high resistance and soak because the stoneskin line of spells would actually help against the majority of opponents.
Paladins could still get through for a short duration with holy sword, shifters also in epic gargoyle form, and arcane archers at level 9 or higher.
If you are cleric that is cos prayer gives you 1 point of slash damage then everthing counts as slash. Melee weapons have same problem I believe.ATI wrote:wow Spura....you're nice maybe you should chill out for a second.
I know the items I've got have pierce resist, there are lots of armors easily accessible that give pierce resist, however there is something up with arrows, according to NWN, that makes it so that no matter what armor resist the armor has, the arrow changes to that king of damage, making the damage resistable (from what I read at least) I.E. arrows taht are piercing still get resisted off of slash resist armors.
I don't get it. Please explain in what way does epic mage armor make arrows pointless. It adds 11 AC to caster with this gear. How does that make arrows pointless? It doesn't affect damage in any way.There were a lot of assumptions I made regarding bows are not just right for bows but melee weapons too. Like the +5 enhancement thing, you're right it does happent o melee weapons to. Thats great.
Epic mage armor, DOES make arrows nigh pointless
Yes I think all six of them will agree with you. 3 times I logged on yesterday. 1 monk., and defelct arrows is rare? i think lots of monks would differ regarding that.
Which is what I said should be done. What you said on the first page is that they should put elemental damage on bow. That would make 1d6 of first and 1d6 of second type of elemental damage if you happened to have lvl 16 arrows.And actually I compared my fully buffed cleric to a fully buffed cleric using a bow.
Oh and I ALWAYS like people who get nit picky over the word usage in a forum post so let me say that you're ability to get upset over usage of words such as tons and always, over a post made at 3am in the morning is very impressive spura
Actually you can't use darkfire and greater magic weapon at the same time (from what i've tried at least, maybe im just not trying hard enough). Really its because the highest availability of arrows is through 1d10 arrows (lvl 13) while its really easy to get lvl 16+ items. Make lvl 16+ arrows more available is what Im asking for.
I have been planning to make a slinger like I do on team PvP servers, but then I remembered that slinger can't solo monsters, he needs sneak for damage.All that needs to be done is some more arrow availability. Which is what i think you and I both agree on. So chill out Spura, its a post in NS, not something mollify me over. Its cool, you're right some of the things I said were wrong, and thats unfortunate. Congrats on pointin gthem out, yet over all that ranting, we came to the same conclusion, better arrows with more availability. with some better mods on bows. Im not asking for the same damage as a melee fighter, im asking for some more damage.
Alright, this subject needs to be pulled back around some.
There are two different topics going on right now; better ranged weapons, and damage resistences.
Personaly I don't believe damage immunities belong in the D&D setting, and would not be hurt if it was severly cut back, if not removed from the game. Then again, thats coming from a monk who has an extremely hard time against anyone with bulgining damage. Now, on to ranged weapons.
A little bit back, a post was made about varying different ranged weapons. Crossbows do more piercing damages, shortbows possibly poisen, etc. I think this would be a very good idea, and would love to see it implimented. It would add some thought to the ranged weapon chosen.
Arrow availablility seems to be a huge factor as well. Several suggestions have been made; including, a special store that sells high level arrows/bows. The problem with a single store is that life becomes really hard for the archer until they find the store.
As for craftable arrows, it's a great idea, but anyone who takes Shadow Dancer can't progress in crafting, which is a shame as the range proned classes (rogue and ranger) are the ones that Shadow Dancer was really created for. Crafting either needs to be available to all classes, or not be the primary way to acquire arrows.
Perhaps the solution is to allow both craftable arrows (less costly in the xp catagory), and create a high level archer store. I would tend to leave the most dangerious arrows as drops from main bosses. Maybe even create a "quiver" like item that has X ammount of uses (5 sounds good). Every use creates one bach of arrows. A dropped quiver of high level arrows, would certainly be a sought after item.
One of the big questions is, at what point should the bonuses be added to the arrows, and when should it be added to the bow? As for throwing weapons, I'm not really sure how to improve them... Any ideas?
There are two different topics going on right now; better ranged weapons, and damage resistences.
Personaly I don't believe damage immunities belong in the D&D setting, and would not be hurt if it was severly cut back, if not removed from the game. Then again, thats coming from a monk who has an extremely hard time against anyone with bulgining damage. Now, on to ranged weapons.
A little bit back, a post was made about varying different ranged weapons. Crossbows do more piercing damages, shortbows possibly poisen, etc. I think this would be a very good idea, and would love to see it implimented. It would add some thought to the ranged weapon chosen.
Arrow availablility seems to be a huge factor as well. Several suggestions have been made; including, a special store that sells high level arrows/bows. The problem with a single store is that life becomes really hard for the archer until they find the store.
As for craftable arrows, it's a great idea, but anyone who takes Shadow Dancer can't progress in crafting, which is a shame as the range proned classes (rogue and ranger) are the ones that Shadow Dancer was really created for. Crafting either needs to be available to all classes, or not be the primary way to acquire arrows.
Perhaps the solution is to allow both craftable arrows (less costly in the xp catagory), and create a high level archer store. I would tend to leave the most dangerious arrows as drops from main bosses. Maybe even create a "quiver" like item that has X ammount of uses (5 sounds good). Every use creates one bach of arrows. A dropped quiver of high level arrows, would certainly be a sought after item.
One of the big questions is, at what point should the bonuses be added to the arrows, and when should it be added to the bow? As for throwing weapons, I'm not really sure how to improve them... Any ideas?