Fenris said:
For an archer however there is no way to convert attack bonuses to damage as a melee focused character can. Thus the extra 1d6 for the -1 attack, a poor mans Power Attack.
But that's my point, you DO get more damage out of a higher attack roll, even without a damage-boosting enchantment, simply by virtue of the increased number of arrows that hit. Power Attack, contrary to what you'd expect, does NOT increase average damage in 3E since the odds of hitting with an attack are usually far more restrictive than the damage per attack.
Let's look at some numbers. Let's say you're a 12th-level Ranger or Fighter, with Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, DEX of 20, STR of 14, using an enchanted Mighty Composite Longbow (+2 STR). The target is within 30', no cover or concealment, and has an AC of 30. The arrows are unenchanted, the bow has an enchantment. You don't have any beneficial spells on.
We'll use a +2 enchantment as a baseline, and then add the remaining +1 or Flaming later. With that +2, your attack bonus for using a Full Attack with Rapid Shot is +18/+18/+13/+8, and you do 9.5 damage per successful hit (plus 10% for crits).
That means you have a 45% chance of hitting with the first arrow, 45% with the second, 20% with the third, and 5% with the fourth (auto-hit on 20). So, on average you hit with 1.15 arrows.
Average damage = 1.15 * 9.5 * 1.1 = 12.0175 damage per round.
(If you didn't Rapid Shot, it'd be 55%/30%/5% = 0.9 arrows per turn hitting)
So that's the baseline. Yes, it's a piddly amount of damage, but that's what you get for using unenhanced arrows. Now let's look at the two options for the last +1 enchantment:
1> If I add Flaming to the mix, I still only hit with 1.15 arrows, but I now do (9.5 * 1.1) + 3.5 = 13.95 damage per hit, for an average damage of 16.0425 damage per round.
2> If I add a +1 Enhancement, I now do (10.5 * 1.1) = 11.55 damage per hit, but my odds of hitting are now 50%/50%/25%/5% = 1.3 arrows per turn hit. Average damage = 15.015 damage per round.
So, while the +1d6 Flaming added 4 damage per round, the +1 Enhancement added 3 even without any sort of Power Attack. This difference isn't very large, and is often counteracted by the number of targets resistant or immune to fire, so the two are pretty well balanced.
If you, as the archer, had ANY way to increase the per-hit damage (Sneak Attack, Favored Enemy, Weapon Specialization damage bonus, larger Mighty bow, enchanted arrows, or any ability that kicks in on a critical hit), it'd shift even further towards the Enhancement Bonus being the best choice.
Overall, if you're looking for consistent damage output, the Enhancement bonus is just a stronger choice than practically every other option. This is especially true at high level. Its big downside, though, is it's just so PLAIN. It's boring. People want swords that are on fire, or that slice off limbs, or whatever, even if it lowers their damage output a bit.
Elemental damage boosters are great in five situations:
1> When you only have a single attack to make (no Rapid Shot, Flurry, Full Attacks, etc.), the extra 0.05 hits per round an attack boost gives you doesn't help nearly as much.
2> If all of your attacks either need a natural 20 to hit or can only miss on a 1, an attack boost doesn't do much to your odds.
3> If the target has some sort of DR that you can't possibly bypass, but you have no other option but to power through it. If the target is immune to critical hits, even better.
4> If you know you're going up against creatures with a specific vulnerability to an element. The best example is Trolls. You just plain NEED fire or acid, so a Flaming bow is really handy there. But if you're trying to balance the enchantments in general you have to ignore this one, since it works against you just as often.
5> If you have access to Greater Magic Weapon, so that a +1 Flaming Frost Shock Thundering weapon can get boosted to a +5 without losing the elemental damage enhancements.
My point was, you can't just look at it as trading 1 attack bonus for 2.5 damage and saying that clearly the elemental boost is better since it has a higher number. Attack bonuses are just inherently more valuable in the majority of cases. Power Attack was a balanced Feat by the fact that it was a sub-optimal tradeoff at 1:1 (even the new 1:2 for 2-handers is behind the curve at many levels.)
If you really want to trade off attack bonus for something, use Manyshot and Rapid Shot a lot.
And Artoomis: as I mentioned above, that "must have a higher Enhancement bonus to Sunder" rule isn't in 3.5E. At least, I can't find it in the SRD. Besides, bows aren't sundered, they're under the "strike an object" rules, which are far easier to break things with.
