Hey all, I've played through the game twice, and I've decided to try be magick using archer. Trouble is, I can't find a decent bow. I thought that the elven hunters bow looked pretty schnazzy, so I bought it, and instead of the 10-20 damage listed, it only did 1-10. This is just not going to cut it. I'm level 10, have 355 arrows, rank of 3 in bow, and I have yet to fire a shot with a bow - I've been doing all my fighting with a fine steel dagger and no melee skill, Soggk Virgil and the dog recently have been doing all that. I know I can get a pretty cool bow in Qintarra at least much later in the game when I bring someone some Mithril ore, but no way am I going to wait around that long before getting a decent bow. So, in the meantime, what's actually a good bow to use? Keeping in mind that compound bows and the pyrotechnic bow (made from a compound bow) are tech items, and hence have nice bonuses to critical failures, I need something to use. I have the 1.0.7.0 patch, so this deal with the elven hunters bow really sucks.
Bows Hmph. I found a decent bow (I think it was Mystic Bow) in the OVERRUN Tarant Sewers, but it is no guarantee! But, a good bow would be Magick Bow or Elven Hunter's bow. Seriously. The Speed makes up for the damage, believe me!
Wise women tend to sell lots of good stuff - as the previous poster mentioned, you might even get lucky enough to get an arcane bow turn up at one. And, uh, you *have* got expert training in bow, yes? Silly question, but could be overlooked - and it makes a difference.
Yeah, I have now got expert training and a level of 4. Still no difference. I am, however, getting an unusually large amount of critical hits. Not just against animals either. They're almost always the double critical hit as well, where you get two critical hit messages for the one shot (although, I'm not sure if that happens anyway). Another thing, someone else mentioned it - when you have expert status with the bow, how do you fire two arrows at once? My arrow count only decreases by one each time I fire a shot, yet I have expert status. What's going on?
I'm having the same trouble. My 3rd attempted character is an elven mage-to-diplomat with a desire to use bows, and her str/dex is 8 each, using the elven hunter bow with a 2 in it, apprenticed. And it's not doing the required damage, so I'm using the axe of lost time or whatever it is, the one that does 6-72 dmg but hastes enemies, they tend to die on the 1-2nd hit anyway now (funny that I had no direct offensive spells and now she melees with a 2 skill using a huge, cursed axe; not much of my original intention at all). Same problem. What's up with bow damage (1-10 for us)? Is there some hidden dex requirement? Getting mastery just to shoot more accurately seems wasteful, I'd rather put my X amount of points elsewhere or even not have bothered with weapons at all if they're just kind of useless and pretty like that. <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Elias on 2001-11-01 13:15 ]</font>
Bows: Ancient Elven Bow Blood Lusted Bow Hurtful Long Bow Broloch's Choice Bow Bow of the Chill Reaper Bow of Derzin's Blindness Ellumyn's Bow Blessed Bow Bow of Damage Fawn's Bow
I'm bumping this up just so other bow-people know about the Elven Hunter bow...Jarinor, with a new character I recently made I found the Elven Hunter bow from the Elven Tomb (which location you get from the Taran Lady Pettibone quest), and it only has +10 to hit on it, no extra damage. It's likely that it was only coded as 1-10 in previous unpatched games and displays 10-20, bugged. In other words it seems bow-specific. On another sidenote my new character doesn't use ranged weaponry at all. Powermage with high speed and mastering melee now, and I agree with most people, it's pretty broken with shield of protection and haste.
Ancient Elven Bow?! Did you say Ancient Elven Bow or something? I remember those in the story from Torian Kel, but you can actually get them? If so, where?
I'm a 100% sure there's a Arcane Bow in the Ancient Temple, but since the patch is out and the hunting bow is fixed, I don't think its that useful anymore...
