The Best Bow...

[Dave G]

Make it like the bow from the 80's D&D cartoon... turn it into a charged item, add Brilliant Energy and give it variable effects, like rope, etc...

 

[isoChron]

Hmm, nice ideas but .....

1. Is keen allowed on a bow (I thought it only works on arrows). I hope I'm wrong 'cause a keen crossbow would be nice for my mage.
2. If you take frost, flaming, thundering, xxx, yyy, zzz ... How many standard actions would it take to activate all those nice gimmics ? One for all together or one for every flaming, shocking, acidic, frost and speed ?

Oh, and never underestimate a natural +5 bow. No need for the cleric to waste a spell, no dispelling, runs 24 hours a day. Slightly harder to sunder !
Hm, what about one or two elemental damages like sonicburst (don't know the ingame name of it) and flaming burst. Since a bow has a x3 crit it would do some nasty extra damage on a crit. Something like 2W8+1W6sonic+1W6fire+2W10Sonic+2W10fire+10enhancement sounds really critical to me. Remember: normal elemental damage isn't multiplied at critical hits.
Take Improved crit (Comp. longbow) and a level of deepwoodsniper (all arrows are keen) to get a crit from 18 to 20.

Just my 2cents.
Bye

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Oh, and never underestimate a natural +5 bow. No need for the cleric to waste a spell, no dispelling, runs 24 hours a day. Slightly harder to sunder

I was thinking along the same lines. What if the cleric is busy getting eaten or something?

+5 with fire damage and holy damage "extras". That should cover most nasty critters.

 

[Planetouched]

and it will overcome damage reduction, at levels where you play with +9 weapons most enemies have at least +4/20 or something...I'd go for a +5 and then soemthing like keen and sonic, not fire or cold(too many creatures have fire or cold resistances)

 

[Stalker0]

I'm a big fan of wounding on my bows. Archers get a lot of attacks, and hit with most of them. That wounding damage adds up.

 

[Dark Dragon]

A +5 bow is quite nice but for overcoming DR 20/+4 (e.g.), you still need an appropriate arrow...

I'll take it as follows:

+2 enhancement (+2)
speed (+4)
wounding (+1) (in the MM II is Greater Wounding described )
distant (+1)
ghost touch (+1)

Buy some special arrows (from +1 to +5 enhancement) or have the wizard or cleric enchant them (or create them by yourself...) for special opponents...

 

[buzzard]

A +5 bow is not going to help against DR. Only the magic on the arrow counts. Granted, +5 to hit/damage is nice, but if you want damage you can do better with the elemental types of damage. I don't really think keen works on the bow . I like speed myself. It is always an additional attack, not just when you get hasted (like for example on 10 rounds of haste on the boots, vs. all day with speed). Heck if you want keen, take that level of deepwood sniper and all arrows are automaitcally keen at 1st level.

The wounding is a good idea.

I'd say
+3
Speed, acid, wounding.

This way you have good flexibility, and a fairly un resisted damage type. Though sonic may be better. Same cost in any case.

The brilliant energy is something I would avoid. Yes, touch attacks are nice, but so many critter types are unaffected (undead, constructs...) that it could be a dud in a lot of cases.

buzzard

 

[Hejdun]

wounding (+1) (in the MM II is Greater Wounding described )

Remember that Wounding is now a +2 ability. It's in the errata.

 

[Limper]

Looking good! Thank you and I'm sure my fellow player also thanks you.

 

[hong]

Make it like the bow from the 80's D&D cartoon...

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/newenchantments.htm#energized