Ranged Enchantment

[Snoteye]

In theory, yes. In practice, no. It's too easy to interrupt that script.

[derfo]

I skimmed through the thread, and it seems like people think bows should be balanced around 1v1 situations, when most things just aren't. In my opinion, I think that bows already have sufficient potential. With special arrows, useful bow feats, and the obvious range advantage, you can easily be a useful individual just using a bow alone and one gold bundles of arrows, as opposed to a melee character's higher healing and consumable bill.

Playing an archer for a significant period of time in EFU, I believe that they are fine without magical enchantments, considering the versatility that pretty much every archer will possess in some fashion.

[Caddies]

I definitely support the Magic Weapon spell being able to be cast on bows, and really don't understand the arguments against it bar the technical one that Snoteye mentioned.

[Meldread]

Outside of "balance concerns" what IC rational is there for Magic Weapon to work on gloves, and many different types of weapons, but not on bows?  Where is the logic?

[Nightshadow]

While NwN uses mostly 3.0 rules, in DnD 3.5 (DM's Guide), if you look in the magic items section, you'll see that most types of magic properties can be applied to projectile weapons and their ammunition. I see no reason why casting magic weapon on someone with a bow/crossbow/sling out could not give their bow a +1 AB and any arrows/bolts/bullets they have equipped a +1 damage bonus. This would not be unbalancing, it would make it possible for archer builds to do something other than sit there and look pretty on the quests that have nothing but DR monsters, gaining free xp while doing nothing.

[Yalta]

I think having it castable on bows/crossbows would be sensible and balanced.

[chezcaliente]

Yeah I'm not really sure about the balance issue, as I agree there are many advantages to quality ranged attackers... but I also kinda think it just makes IC sense to be able to cast magic weapon on a ranged weapon.

So I'm going for the latter.

[Cruzel]

I definitely support the Magic Weapon spell being able to be cast on bows, and really don't understand the arguments against it bar the technical one that Snoteye mentioned.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. It's too easy to interrupt that script.

I'm pretty sure snoteye was responding to me responding to someone else about making some bows only equippable if hte PC has certain feats, if not it just unequipped them. (which can be interupted, as snoteye said)

There is really no issues from the technical side to allowing magic weapon to grant +1 AB to bows, that I can see.  

Scriptwise, it should be easy to add.
ICly, it makes sense.

I dont see any reason to NOT do this, tbh.

[Snoteye]

Cruzel's right. I have no comments on balance, it's not my area of expertise -- all I can say is that this has been brought up multiple times in the past and has yet to happen.

[Ommadawn]

Okay.. but is there any DM opposition now to allowing bows and crossbows to be enchanted with MW?  If this is only a small change and is not imbalancing, why can't it be implemented?

[Secutor]

If you build a character around the bow how is it any different than a character built around a bastard sword / large shield, greataxe or greatsword?  It's not often that you see them changing weapons, why should a character designed to be an archer toss aside his bow because his attacks are useless because he can't get a magic weapon enchantment?

[Snoteye]

This isn't happening until a DM who does understand the balance says it's fine. My opinion is that it isn't needed, but on the other hand I can barely find my way around the Ziggurat.

[iBard]

Make an awesome app for AA, imo. Problem solved.

[JackOfSwords]

Make an awesome app for AA, imo. Problem solved.

Except that you can't begin AA levels until at least lvl 8, and it's really levels 3-7 that it's a problem.  You can have the 3 feats we've proposed as necessary to use a special bow by 3rd level, either by being human or by taking at least 1 fighter level.  However, if you were to take those 3 feats, it shows a very strong commitment to archery, and should resolve the balance issue as you'll pretty much only be effective as an archer.

[bob7el]

Regarding the logic of it all, just about anything can be justified with 'magic'.

I'd prefer to see +1 ammunition become more prevalent.  A fletching merchant could fix this, with ammunition costs at a reasonable rate.  It'd create a fair money sink for archers (considering the amount frontliners have to spend on potions), without disrupting the balance issues with MW.