Bows, shurikens, and daggers have always suffered in D&D because of the weight of the weapon. In the hands of any teenager, these weapons can do as much or more damage in less time as any heay weapon. Back in AD&D days, however, there were what is now refered to as homebrews/unearthed arcana which assigned the damage to the type of ammunition being used which were very effective.
If you wanted to do more damage you just paid more per arrow, dart, dagger, shuriken, whatever because the blades were made differently.
For example, flight arrows increased range, broadheads increased damage, tri-blade daggers inflicted more damage plus bleeding, barbed darts inflicted more damage plus bleed, same for barbed shurikens plus you could throw more in a single attack and each would do its listed damage as a single die roll x the number thrown (up to 5 plus dex modifer).
In later additions, the writing for weapons got lax, less weapons were covered with each update and less thought went into the actual damage and damage type, as damage types became less and less important. Back then, a weapon's damage type was compared to the armor worn by the target to produce damage modifiers.
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