Flame weapon on bows

[VanillaPudding]

Can we peel off that last piece of the bandaid that has mostly been ripped from the AULD days and just allow this to happen please?

Throwing weapons have it and it hasn't caused a problem in ages, even with the weight reduction to NOTHING for most of them.

[IKeepForgettingMyUserName]

The only drawback to this I can think of is that there's some really good ammunition out there and flame weapon on top of that could make bows too good.

That said bows don't get blindfight which is a big deal for pvp.

[Egon the Monkey]

Pretty sure they have always worked with blindfight when I used them. Anyway, what VP says. The Really Good Ammo (tm) is rare, whereas Flame Weapon is reliable from drops, casters, scrolls, wands. You can always replenish access. Crits aside, a throwing axe or javelin easily has 1d6 + 1d6 Flame Weapon +4-5 Str, and you can stack Rage on that because nobody wants to hoard Rage potions. They easily outperform a +3 Mighty bow, and you can have +3 AC from having a shield. They also take up less weight and less space. Plus they look cool.

This is not to say throwing is OP. It's not.  The weapons have a weak base and low crit, but they're at last pretty good at taking out enemy casters. But it is to say that for anything other than "Improved Crit bow PC who is exceptionally good at managing their use of randomly dropped ammo" throwing beats it. I've thrown away a +2 Mighty Longbow with a ranger slot and +spot because it's just not worth it compared to 'flame weapon these axes plz' as my Plan B weapon.

I think the other way to fix this would be really cheap access to +damage ammunition, in the same way that Monks get some crazy-powerful gloves. The problem is that the +damage for a melee fighter is easy to buy or have someone cast. Arrow users have to hoard drops, which are random, even for the 1/rest free ammo from the Perks. Which Rogues, Bards, Rangers can't get. The only ones who don't are Arcane Archers. So one way to do this (hear me out) could be to let anyone create Arcane Arrows, but only with Flame Weapon. Then it won't stack with Super Ammo.  Or, perhaps to massively buff Quivers to dispense 100-stacks of ammo and be more available and smaller. Make them the gear you want.

Finally, the last reason darts and axes slap so hard is the Weapon Focus/Spec/Improved Crit for them comes free with Light Blades or Axes. Whereas WF:Ranged doesn't give you a melee focus, I can have my Improved Crit and +2 damage on handaxes and throwing axes. This is a good thing IMO as it keeps your backup weapon thematic! Moving one or two light melee weapons into Ranged and calling it 'Archer' could sort that. In the same way that 'close quarters' is a thematic mixed bag based on weapon usage, not shape. See how Pillars of Eternity does it so Noble is Rapier, Dagger, Wand etc, and each set is based on an archetype not a shape of weapon.