Bow Damage?

[sfbistimg]

It says you need Dexterity for bows So I Have a charcter with 18 dex and it says I have +8 Bonus Damage to attack yet my bow still only does 1 to 7 damage. It doesn't seem to add my bonus damage to it at all. Is this suppose to be like this or is something not working properly?

[Pershon]

Composite bows add your strength to the damage. Also, any feats or gear will also add. I haven't confirmed this, but difficulty level may impact it as well.

[sfbistimg]

Originally posted by Pershon:

Composite bows add your strength to the damage. Also, any feats or gear will also add. I haven't confirmed this, but difficulty level may impact it as well.

Im not using a composite bow, just a regular longbow

[Stigelmo de Axes I]

Bow damage should not be incresed by dexterity, only the bonus to attack (hit) is affected by it.
Strength modifier should apply on any bow damage if negative and only on composite bows if positive.
There are also feats in the game to increase bow damage.

[Tevjake]

Originally posted by sfbistimg:

Originally posted by Pershon:

Composite bows add your strength to the damage. Also, any feats or gear will also add. I haven't confirmed this, but difficulty level may impact it as well.

Im not using a composite bow, just a regular longbow

That's your problem right there. A regular longbow adds nothing extra to the damage you will do with a bow. A Composite Longbow, however, allows you to add your strength modifier to the damage a bow will do. For ex., if your strength is 14, giving you a +2 modifier, and you do damage with a Composite Longbow, your damage will be 1d8+2. Dexterity modifier does not add to "damage" for a bow. It only adds to your base attack roll. Your "to hit" roll, so to speak.

Hope this helps!

[sfbistimg]

Thats beyond stupid, why are bows the only damage type that needs to flippin stats?


And it clearly states im getting 6 bonus damage from my dexterity modifier in game

[socialautiste]

There might be an enchantment for bows like Agile does for melee, which adds your Dex bonus to melee weapons if you have the Weapon Finesse trait. But, like Jake said, normally Dexterity is used to calculate ranged hit chance and Strength is used to calculate melee hit chance. The damage roll is based on the weapon stats, and any traits that might modify it. Also, 18 would be +4 dex bonus, not +8.

[sfbistimg]

Originally posted by Elisarion:

There might be an enchantment for bows like Agile does for melee, which adds your Dex bonus to melee weapons if you have the Weapon Finesse trait. But, like Jake said, normally Dexterity is used to calculate ranged hit chance and Strength is used to calculate melee hit chance. The damage roll is based on the weapon stats, and any traits that might modify it. Also, 18 would be +4 dex bonus, not +8.

yeah the +6 was when I was fully buffed and actually have 22 dex.
So basically Longbows, short bows, crossbows and heavy crossbows are useless since strength only gets added to Composite bows. I mean why even have them in the game.

[K9Pepper]

Originally posted by sfbistimg:

Originally posted by Elisarion:

There might be an enchantment for bows like Agile does for melee, which adds your Dex bonus to melee weapons if you have the Weapon Finesse trait. But, like Jake said, normally Dexterity is used to calculate ranged hit chance and Strength is used to calculate melee hit chance. The damage roll is based on the weapon stats, and any traits that might modify it. Also, 18 would be +4 dex bonus, not +8.

yeah the +6 was when I was fully buffed and actually have 22 dex.
So basically Longbows, short bows, crossbows and heavy crossbows are useless since strength only gets added to Composite bows. I mean why even have them in the game.

Because of proficiencies, comp bows are martial proficiency. So if a character only has simple proficiency they can use stuff like light crossbow which is light weight and don't need to take another feat so they have a secondary or way to deal with archers on perchs and etc. even if they don't get any bonus damage.
If you want to do an archer build I suggest human to quickly obtain useful archer feats and lots of points for str and dex, if you're at range you don't even need con really no one will target you usually.

[Entity Sade]

I think it's also worth mentioning that crossbows don't suffer a strength penalty to damage in the way that bows will. This makes them a good choice for simple weapon proficiency classes with low strength character, such as rogues or wizards. In addition, with some classes their ranged attacks will benefit from their sneak attack, and so the extra damage from strength is pretty negligible.

[Entity Sade]

I hate to keep going but I just remembered a really important detail. They've way simplified the composite longbow rules. It used to be that to use one required a minimum strength rating corresponding to the bonus to damage it provided, and it also had to be specially made for that strength rating. This was a reflection of reality, where easy to draw bows are capped by the strength of the bow, and composite bows are created specifically to require a formidable draw strength. It is the difference between hunting bows and war bows.

[Борг]

Originally posted by BitLicker:

I hate to keep going but I just remembered a really important detail. They've way simplified the composite longbow rules. It used to be that to use one required a minimum strength rating corresponding to the bonus to damage it provided, and it also had to be specially made for that strength rating. This was a reflection of reality, where easy to draw bows are capped by the strength of the bow, and composite bows are created specifically to require a formidable draw strength. It is the difference between hunting bows and war bows.

By they did you mean Paizo and new editions or Owlcat?

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by sfbistimg:

It says you need Dexterity for bows So I Have a charcter with 18 dex and it says I have +8 Bonus Damage to attack yet my bow still only does 1 to 7 damage. It doesn't seem to add my bonus damage to it at all. Is this suppose to be like this or is something not working properly?

Does it says it has +X Bonus to Damage or +X bonus to Attack, Attack is basicaly accuracy. And since if it does 1-7 damage it would mean you have 8 STR.

[provokastoras]

bows need 2 stats so that you cannot make a warrior class that is stronger than a pet with pounce.
that reminds me crossbows do add dex in their damage,(if I recall) but miss out on certain buffs like wind bow that increases the damage for 1 size category, and bracers of archery.
though if you really want damage with ranged builds you ll go for sneak attack anyway.
you do get a nice bow in act 2 that is oversized and with that spell does 2 damage categories higher than normal, and you can enlarge for an extra size category and then rapid shot and so on... (but you do get a MASSIVE -11 ? to hit with that thing and all those damage feats so its a trade off I guess, if you know how to make your characters hit regardless [, bard +reckless stance barbarian sharing rage + sacred bonus (tristian) + freebooter targeting +heroism]of the penalties its descent.
depending on the class you play and the buffs you get crossbows or bows might have an edge. eg that spell is arcane and the only divine casters that get it are rangers and or maybe priest of a certain domain. . but then again most arcane casters can't use bows unless they are elves or pull an extra feat for it and is already a pretty feat intensive build.

[gronkinator]

Originally posted by provokastoras:

bows need 2 stats so that you cannot make a warrior class that is stronger than a pet with pounce.
that reminds me crossbows do add dex in their damage,(if I recall) but miss out on certain buffs like wind bow that increases the damage for 1 size category, and bracers of archery.
though if you really want damage with ranged builds you ll go for sneak attack anyway.
you do get a nice bow in act 2 that is oversized and with that spell does 2 damage categories higher than normal, and you can enlarge for an extra size category and then rapid shot and so on... (but you do get a MASSIVE -11 ? to hit with that thing and all those damage feats so its a trade off I guess, if you know how to make your characters hit regardless [, bard +reckless stance barbarian sharing rage + sacred bonus (tristian) + freebooter targeting +heroism]of the penalties its descent.
depending on the class you play and the buffs you get crossbows or bows might have an edge. eg that spell is arcane and the only divine casters that get it are rangers and or maybe priest of a certain domain. . but then again most arcane casters can't use bows unless they are elves or pull an extra feat for it and is already a pretty feat intensive build.

Only the gunslinger adds dex to damage with a crossbow, and only at lvl 5 with a certain archetype. You can use hurricane bow with a crossbow.

the big thing with a crossbow is you can dump strength and not take a hit to damage, and you can still eventually get all the rapid-shot stuff like a normal archer would. In the pnp, I have a heavy crossbow user that mostly uses gravity bow and divine favor to keep the damage up. It's not quite as good as a bow archer would be, but it's still decent, especially at the levels PFS usually runs through.