I just was wondering how effective the bows in Arcanum are. Would you recommend them for a character leaning towards Magick?
Well, if you rely on attack spells, then not. But otherwise, yes. There are some good bows in the game. Most of them are magical, so they are the best for magik oriented characters.
Pyrotechnic Bow and Ellumyn's Bow. This isn't what I meant by a thorough compare-n-contrast essay. I was asking, rather, for specific reasons why you prefer throwing to bow. I'm well aware of what items exist in the game. :insert Raised Eyebrow smilie, should we ever get one:
You don't need arrows for throwing and you can stun them with grenades. Bows need arrows and is there a bow that can stun? But in my game I got mastery in both.
:shrug: Arrows are cheap, light, plentiful, and not really an issue. onder: There might be a hexed bow that can stun, but I can't really remember and I'm honestly too lazy to look it up. Regardless, there is more than one way to stun an enemy, and anyway why bother if you can kill them all before they get to you? There have been at least two good threads on bows recently. http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9264 There was a better one though. Can't find it. Maybe it was at the other board. Hmm. Oh, here it is: http://community.vugames.com/WebX?14@25 ... 7@.efb251d I do believe I'm too tired to finish this post properly. I shall bid you Good Night.
Bows will work very well whether your magical or tech inclined. Even the compound bow is enough, but theres pyrotechnic and envenomed. For a bow person, you could get bow and dodge, the explosives tech tree, the smithy perhaps if youd like some decent armor, throwing, and do just fine. Magic will work..I beleive Shadygrove had the post about his pretty nice magic inclined bow. Elven hunters or Ellumins and the stun spell is enough to do well here. Like ive learned from playing, just about anything you can think of will work. Im about to finish my Gods quest dwarf, quite a ride, he mainly uses Drochs, very armored.
Bows rule, whether you're magick or tech. For a tech the Pyrotechnic bow is a dream, probably the most powerful ranged weapon in the game. Ellumun's bow is good for both tech and megick, its just as fast as the Mechanized gun, does similar damage and consumes much less ammo. Learn Temporal, get high MA, cast Haste + Tempus Fugit on yourself before the battle and carry Ellumun's bow- and you get the highest possible fire rate in the game.