Starting as archer without smithing

[Derakon]

Maybe you could allow spending experience during character creation to start with certain gear? Of course it'd have to be more expensive than just smithing the stuff. Most characters probably wouldn't care all that much, but those that depend on certain items could get it guaranteed at the start, at the cost of having less in the way of skills.

[half]

This doesn't sound too good. What do other people think about the difficulty of finding one's first bow/arrows? I hadn't thought it was nearly as hard as this, and don't know if you are just having very bad luck. At least you know that you can just sink 800 experience or so into Smithing, solve the problem and also not have to worry about arrows running out later in the game...

There is some downside with just making arrows more common early on as it will make them more common later too and upset the ammunition balance, but it should be easier to make shortbows a bit more common early on if needed. They are currently native to 100 ft with a rarity of 2 (second most common). I suppose I could change that to 50 ft or rarity 1 if needed. For reference, boots and daggers are 50 ft rarity 2, shortswords and spears are 100 ft rarity 1, while cloaks are the same as shortbows.

[Arjen]

Of course after my post, I found a 1d8 shortbow and 50+ arrows... So I'm running now a promising archer who also found mithril greaves. Result, fean lamp, archer gloves, boots of speed and some stealth gear (made at -100 forge so I could sneak a bit).

[Philip]

I always figured you should just take Versatility, or smithing. After that you pray. I have seen shortbows as early as 150, and sooner or later you will, too. Arrows are actually pretty easy to find. You're not supposed to find weapons at 50 feet, all you have there is shoes and light armor. Also daggers. Shortswords start at 100 feet for example.

[Arjen]

Hey,

I've been trying for a few hours (half a day) to start as Falathrim archer (1/5/3/3). But I've no idea how I must survive. I've started a few who could survive by forging a bow and 48 arrows. It's a bit waste of smithing as you won't create anything else than a bow and arrows (and maybe a digger someday).

So I tried to do without smithing, but never got anywhere as finding a bow AND arrows is extremely hard. I've died so many times without actually firing a single arrow. This is a bit frustrating as you are clearly an archer race who doesn't start with one. You are bound to train some evasion and take versatility so you can actually do some damage. Or am I missing something?

My solutions for this problem:

- Instead of always giving a Curved Sword at the start, give the player a choice if he wants to start with sword/axe/polearm/blunt/bow? Or make this bound by race, as Dwarves not starting with an axe is somewhat weird too, why would a Dwarf leave his home without one?

- Make bows more common (why are those 1d7 shortbows so rare anyways?), on at lvl '50 I sometimes find 8 weapons and several pieces of armor/cloth, but never found a bow and rarely arrows.

So far my thoughts about this while (not) playing as pure archer. Or maybe I'm just missing something.