composite bows

[calighis]

I made a +8 composite longbow for the requisite 900gp. My players are telling me that this is extraordinary and should not be available to me at this point in the game.
I looked it up in the rules and Aesop's strength bonus is +8 (it's good to be a centaur)
It lists the price at 100+ 100 for every point of strength in addition that you add.
There is no mention made of any extra costs for extraordinarily high strengths.
Is this discussed somewhere else at length, because if not then I think everything is kosher here.

 

[Blackrat]

I'm working from memory now, but I think a bow made for medium character has maximum of +5 for strenght bonus. Large creatures can have bows up to +10. (Could be that this has always been a houserule with my regular DM and I just adopted it to my own games)

Now the problem is that you are a centaur who is technically a large creature but whose upper body is realistically unable to use weapons meant for large creatures. I think this case is totally up to DM.

 

[Dross]

I made a +8 composite longbow for the requisite 900gp. My players are telling me that this is extraordinary and should not be available to me at this point in the game.
I looked it up in the rules and Aesop's strength bonus is +8 (it's good to be a centaur)
It lists the price at 100+ 100 for every point of strength in addition that you add.
There is no mention made of any extra costs for extraordinarily high strengths.
Is this discussed somewhere else at length, because if not then I think everything is kosher here.

Not knowing offhand how the pricing works here is something to consider.

The bolded bit indicates to me not that you have the pricing wrong, but that there are other factors that you have not taken into account. Where will you physically get the bow from? Are you in a place that could provide you with such an item (if you did not make it sourself)?

 

[Darklone]

I'm working from memory now, but I think a bow made for medium character has maximum of +5 for strenght bonus. Large creatures can have bows up to +10. (Could be that this has always been a houserule with my regular DM and I just adopted it to my own games)

That was 3.0 IIRC, 3.5 has no str limit on composite bows.

 

[eamon]

This is very much a campaign-feel question rather than a rules question. The bow you're describing follows the rules just fine - athough, I can't imagine making such a bow non-masterwork...

Are such bows "hard to get"? That's all about how such bows are made (which isn't detailed in the rules), and how many high-str archers are around. It's not necessartily more expensive to have a bow custom-made in D&D since all normal items in D&D are "custom"-made: there's no such thing as a mass-produced extra cheap bow in the rules.

So, you could argue that you simply hired a bowyer to make just this specific bow. It wouldn't cost him more than day, and be a tidy profit, so it's perfectly believable in a generic D&D setting.

But as to any specific setting, indeed, that's a question. I'd also like to point out weapon's (in the MIC) such as the Bow of the Wintermoon (3,400 gp) which acts as a +1 composite longbow which furthermore always adjusts to your strength whatever that is.

Also, a large weapon's base price is twice that of a medium weapons: So a Large Composite longbow with +8 strength bonus would cost 200 (base price) + 800 (str bonus cost) + 300 (mwk) which is 1300gp, which is what you're after, I believe.

 

[Bumamgar]

I think your players are confusing the rules for composite bows with the rules for magical enhancements.

Making a masterwork composite bow that allows one's natural strength to be applied to damage is not magic. It simply requires good craftsmanship.

There are no limits on such items in the rules as written.

What your players are probably thinking of are the rules for enhancement bonuses on items, which state that no weapon or armor can have more than a +5 enhancement bonus (to atk/dmg) without becoming an Epic item.

So, it's perfectly legitimate to have a +5 Large Composite Longbow (Str +8) as a non-epic item, which, in the hands of a large creature with Str 26 would do 2d6+13 damage.

 

[moritheil]

I think your players are confusing the rules for composite bows with the rules for magical enhancements.

Yup, and if you call it a "+8 bow" you are partly to blame. It's a mighty composite longbow (+8 str bonus).

 

[calighis]

Well in all fairness the adventure to date had taken place on an insular island. We had just run an adventure wherein the thieves guild had it's ass pulled out of the fire by the characters. An earthquake had recently caused some ground in the marketplace to collapse revealing one of the of many secret tunnels beneath the town. Part of a network of an ancient dungeon that the thieves guild had cleared in order to move stolen good around town. Political clout prevented the local military from exploring and mapping it, (as the leader of the thieves guild sat on the town council) So the job had to be farmed out. The characters lied and created a false maps thus the thieves guild in return rewarded them handsomely and granted them the ability to buy just about anything that was available in the entire realm at 15% off. So basically i told them to open there Magic item compendiums and DMG's and happy shopping.

 

[Folly]

By the crafting rules the DC to make a might bow is 15+(2xstr bonus), thus a mighty composite str bow +8 would require a DC 31 skill check. This makes the bow significantly more difficult to make than most other mundane items. So it would depend on the availability of highly skilled crafters to make the bow.

 

[ElectricDragon]

Actually, mighty is a 3.0 term. All composite bows now have a Strength rating (+0 if not mentioned) and require a wielder to have the same or higher Str rating to competently use the bow (if Str is too low take a -2 penalty to attacks).

Ciao
Dave