Bow and Arrow Stacking

[LokiDR]

Not mine.

The answer would have been to allow bow and arrow stacking but stop the cheese of GMW affecting 50 arrows!

Nobody is ever going to actually purchase arrows +5. Not in 3.0, not 3.5. Bloody stupid if you ask me... Which you weren't, but still.

Now players are either going to invest in a high enhancement bow, and fire twigs, or low enhancement bow with extra added, and GMW the twigs. Powergamers will do the later.

I'd rather have seen them stacking but the exhorbitant price of the 50 +5 arrows causing some hesitation as to their immediate use. Having GMW affect a single arrow per casting would encourage the purchase and hoarding of stackable arrows.

The GMW affecting 50 arrows makes the archer not useless. You can run out of magic arrows and still get through magic DR. There needs to be some way to keep the magic arrows comming. Forcing players to horde is rarely a good idea.

 

[Destil]

The GMW affecting 50 arrows makes the archer not useless. You can run out of magic arrows and still get through magic DR. There needs to be some way to keep the magic arrows comming. Forcing players to horde is rarely a good idea.

Have Magic Weapon affect 50 arrows (remember, +1's all you need in revised). Have GMW affect one. Problem solved. You may want to increase the duration of Magic Weapon a little, though.

EDIT: And you still have the real abuse of GMW, anyway.

Your dope (+8), twink (+1 ) bow +1 becomes a dope, twink bow +5.

A Twink (+1), Flaming(+1), Greater Wounding(+4) bow +4, however, becomes a Twink, Flaming, Greater Wounding Bow +5

Which is +14 vs. +11, nevermind the non-epic +10 limit. And there's even less reason to go over +1 enhancement with the revision to DR XX/Magic.

At least you have to spend two feats to get an empowered, empowered, empowered, extended bull's strength...

 

[Rel]

Not that we've ever simultaneously reached a level where GMW became effective AND had an archer type in the party, but if we ever do, I've already got a houserule that I'll be sticking with even into 3.5:

GMW enchants 1 weapon OR Caster Level pieces of ammunition.

It really does seem like a nice bit of middle ground as far as I can tell.

 

[LokiDR]

Have Magic Weapon affect 50 arrows (remember, +1's all you need in revised). Have GMW affect one. Problem solved. You may want to increase the duration of Magic Weapon a little, though.

That just makes the 1st level spell better than the 3rd level spell. Not a good change.

EDIT: And you still have the real abuse of GMW, anyway.

Your dope (+8), twink (+1 ) bow +1 becomes a dope, twink bow +5.

A Twink (+1), Flaming(+1), Greater Wounding(+4) bow +4, however, becomes a Twink, Flaming, Greater Wounding Bow +5

Which is +14 vs. +11, nevermind the non-epic +10 limit. And there's even less reason to go over +1 enhancement with the revision to DR XX/Magic.

At least you have to spend two feats to get an empowered, empowered, empowered, extended bull's strength...

I wasn't addressing that abuse of GWM. But, since you asked:

At level 20 (change in GWM bonus) a +4 to hit and damage is far from broken. The +10 limit is a limit on the permanent bonus on the weapon. The GWM is asking to be area greater dispelled. Those few points are not going to make a game-breaking difference at that level. A tensors transformation would give the archer a much better to-hit. Higher level spells would be more useful. Go figure.