Ranged weapons against shapechangers

[Winter83]

I learned that there are no bow types against were-creatures, only silver arrows. Those cause 1d4 damage (EDIT: correction: 1d6), extremely rare, and someone mentioned the bow's damage is not added to the overall dmg output, so makes those mostly useless, seeing were ones regenerate faster than the dmg output of silver arrows.

Possible to have some ranger weaponry against them (save for the very rare hunter's crossbow)

[Springer]

There are.. But it is tricky.

Devil-horn bow works against Werewolves (its +1 against chaotic and werewolves are CE)
Shadow wood bow works against wererats (+1 against lawful and wererats are LE)
Werefoxes are most likely CE aswell.
 The only one  that might be unaffected are werebears which are NE afaik, but their only dungeon was very hard to access and I even think it was either removed or moved somewhere unknown.

[Kagetora]

Can't you just throw a +1 or +3 varnish on an entire stack of arrows and have your way with them for 10 turns?

[Springer]

Arrows wont damage anything if weapon itself cant pierce through Dr as far as I know. Its one of the nwn limitations.

[Winter83]

Arrows wont damage anything if weapon itself cant pierce through Dr as far as I know. Its one of the nwn limitations.

Exactly. So the highest damage you can get with silver arrows and a standard bow is : 6

[Shadowthrone]

I still believe my suggestion to allow GMW to affect ranged weapons is the best way to make ranged weapons viable, but judging by the lack of response no one else felt similarly.

[KoopaFanatic]

Alternately, we could just have a couple more +1 longbows and crossbows showing up in loot.  No reason for them to be so rare.

[Kagetora]

Alternately, we could just have a couple more +1 longbows and crossbows showing up in loot.  No reason for them to be so rare.

It IS pretty stupid to have to carry around a golf-bag full of bows in order to deal with Undead, CE, and LE.  And you still can't do crap against Constructs or anything else that doesn't fit in those three categories.  Not having any serious archer characters myself, and being told varnishes worked on ammunition stacks, I sort of thought my suggestion was a solution (never tried it myself).  Sad to learn it doesn't work.

What are there...2 bows that have a general AB/EB?  A shortbow with no STR bonus, and the Masterwork Longbow?  Of which I have seen about 3 for sale?  I'd love to hear from the Dev's what the reasoning is behind this.  Is there an anti-archery bias on purpose, or is it a simple oversight?

As a side-note...can't you sacrifice a ton of your XP and get someone to enchant a player-made bow?  Does THAT give it a permanent AB/EB?

[dutchy]

Arrows wont damage anything if weapon itself cant pierce through Dr as far as I know. Its one of the nwn limitations.

Exactly. So the highest damage you can get with silver arrows and a standard bow is : 6

i fought every urge to not mess this topic up with somthing like this....but alas i had to.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYnso2Sny8[/youtube]

[Kenkaku]

What are there...2 bows that have a general AB/EB?  A shortbow with no STR bonus, and the Masterwork Longbow?  Of which I have seen about 3 for sale?  I'd love to hear from the Dev's what the reasoning is behind this.  Is there an anti-archery bias on purpose, or is it a simple oversight?

As a side-note...can't you sacrifice a ton of your XP and get someone to enchant a player-made bow?  Does THAT give it a permanent AB/EB?

I believe there's actually four +1 AB bows that drop in the loot tables. I have personally only found one in my entire time here, but I know several people have found them in various places. They are exceedingly rare, however, and are generally pretty bad on the damage end of things.

Enchanted bows, on the other hand, do have a permanent AB as well as a Strength bonus limit (if you get the proper bow enchanted). They are fairly difficult to make, though. They are a solution to the ranged weapon problem... At level 14.


I would love if there were more +1 bows in the loot tables. The fact you are pretty much forced to either take Rogue levels or Arcane Archer levels in order to damage a good number enemies past the first few levels is kinna... Meh. I believe a fair few awesome bows were suggested in the Item Thread, but I have yet to see any in play.

[dutchy]

the weapon table is simply not balanced out, there are tons of weapon types that lack diversety or proper enchantments compared to the lets say longswords.

ranged weapons are no difrant in this BUT the crafted ones are not that bad the enchanted one is the best but ofcourse a high price to pay.

staff side argument can be:  there simply should not be a abundance in magic weapons as its initially a low magic world.

or they simply have not gotten around to it.

player wise argument: almost everyone uses a bow as a ranged weapon so a bit more of those wouldnt hurt, it would even promote the ranger class a bit more.

[Mayvind]

I have crossbow that is +2, so there is out there just have to dig hard for it ! 

[Springer]

ACtually there are +1 crossbows here and there.
Bows are VERY rare. So rare in fact that I remember Masterwork bow was sold for prices like 20k between players..
And slings are non existant.

[Taty]

I seem to recall Suz once getting a +1 sling, but it was the only one I had ever seen and it sold for quite a bit.

[Dhark]

You know its funny , because one of my toons bought a masterwork bow from the Vardo auction.  I was the only bidder , no one else was interested & since then I have been unable to sell it to any known archers.

No matter , I would like to see Sheltatha's suggestion implimented, but I'm not sure if its one of those things thats coded into NwN & can't be achived.

[Winter83]

There's always a go-around. Give the silver arrows 1d12 dmg 

[KoopaFanatic]

You know its funny , because one of my toons bought a masterwork bow from the Vardo auction.  I was the only bidder , no one else was interested & since then I have been unable to sell it to any known archers.

!!!!!!!  Wish I'd been there!

The +1 sling also used to be reasonably common -- they sold it in Degannwy once upon a time, didn't they?  Considering a sling only does 1d4 damage, that would hardly be an unbalancing thing to put back, perhaps in Muhar...?  (Last I checked you could buy a +1 AB dagger in a shop...  seems comparable to me.)

[Emomina]

+1 longbows are definitely not rare. I have found 3 in this year alone, and I hardly play as many hours as nearly every other player.

[Mark Johansen]

+1 longbows are definitely not rare. I have found 3 in this year alone, and I hardly play as many hours as nearly every other player.

I've been here for some months now, and the gods know i've been pretty active on the dungeoning part i haven't even seen an usefull longbow in any of the loots.

[Winter83]

I'd like to have a lícan hunter bow put into the crafting table. As it is now, woodcrafters can use some extra stuff to make, and useful stuff, mind you. (apart the white stag bow).

A bone-bow for instance? OR the sinew treated with belladonna? Dunno just sparkling ideas.

[dutchy]

+1 longbows are definitely not rare. I have found 3 in this year alone, and I hardly play as many hours as nearly every other player.

I've been here for some months now, and the gods know i've been pretty active on the dungeoning part i haven't even seen an usefull longbow in any of the loots.

been playing here for a few years now and still now and then a item pops up i never knew that it exsisted  i send a tell to another player all exsisted and they go   uhh its not in the recent droptable its just rare.

so you can hunt for certain items for a year and not find it and suddenly have 2 in 2 months   its a luck factor.


also the definition of usefull differs per player.