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So I'm gonna start this by acknowledging this is a VERY meta complaint because the Daikyu bow is a Tian weapon and to be used in either a themed campaign or a "strange man in a strange land" character build BUT, mechanically, its a terrible choice and no Range/Archery Focused character would ever pick it, here's why.
First its a Advanced, uncommon weapon. The uncommon is easy enough to get around its mostly a theme gate that your GM can allow or disallow. However, Advanced is a hard one, and a game mechanic gate. Currently, as far as I can tell (Im no expert) there are only 2 ways into proficiency with a non-racial advanced weapon, that is you are a fighter and you start with trained proficiency with all advanced weapons, or you have martial weapon proficiency and spend a general feat to get weapon proficiency (pick a advanced weapon). At first level the non-fighter path to this is Versatile heritage human in a martial class (Barbarian, Champion, Ranger, Swashbuckler) however Barbarians and Swashbucklers are really melee focused combatants, and a champion is going to use their deity's weapon almost exclusively and no one spends feats on a secondary weapon...so Fighter or Versatile Heritage Human Ranger. But the catch is, if your a fighter you have expert proficiency in in Simple and Martial weapons, and only Trained in Advanced so you start with a 2 less attack bonus vs a martial Longbow or shortbow for instance, and this is a deficit that scales your whole career unless you burn a CLASS feat to make them parity at level 6 (probably eschewing triple shot for better proficiency), and if you take the general feat path to proficiency, you are also only Trained, and the big problem there is that proficiency never improves, you will only ever be trained.
Second, the Daikyu is only Advanced and Uncommon, it has no other traits. long and short bows are both deadly D10, and their composite versions have propulsive. The Daikyu also has a shorter range than a longbow (80ft vs 100ft) despite by its description being a larger bow than a longbow. Generally, Advanced weapons are just that, advanced, and offer some sort of interesting mechanic or more useful traits than a simple or martial weapon to compensate for the feat investment. The only thing the Daikyu has going for it is that it does longbow damage (on normal successes), doesn't suffer the volley 30ft trait that longbows do and it splits the difference between a short and long bow while mounted and is useable, but only to the left side of the mount.
Some may argue that the mounted usability is a big deal for what is essentially a longbow, I don't think so. I don't know about all of you but mounted combat in my experience is a vanishingly rare occurrence, in ~18 years of playing ttrpgs I can count the mounted combats on one hand and everyone I've talked to has similar experiences. And even then, its only useable mounted on the left side of the mount.
The second argument I hear bubbling is the "volley" trait that Daikyu don't suffer, admittedly this is a much bigger deal. I don't have a 2nd addition adventure path handy, so I used my 1e Rise of the rune lords campaign and did some research, in the first module there are ~30 scripted encounters, I looked at the provided maps and of those 30 fights 21 of them are in areas smaller than 30ft across, 9 of them have enough space a archer could potentially get farther than 30ft away and only 3 where the range increment on a bow could even matter. Despite the fact that a longbow would take the penalty from volley 60-80% of the time Diakyu still falls short because it lacks the deadly trait or propulsive (most characters could get into a comp longbow by 2nd-3rd level) AND the fact in most instances your going to have a lower proficiency in that Daikyu bow which makes a longbow inside 30ft or a Daikyu a wash, and really reinforces the surprising usefulness of a shortbow (which in previous additions sucked).
But I wanted numbers, so I wrote a python script to simulate the bows in different scenarios side by side. let the numbers tell the story. My simulation assumes a Fighter taking the ranged Class feats, with 14 str and 16 dex at 1st level, standing still and using all 3 actions to fire arrows at a enemy of equal CR to his own class level. Each scenario was repeated 1000 times to minimize statistical aberrations. The results are interesting, see below.
Fighter 1, Pointblank Shot:
Longbow (expert Proficiency) inside 30ft vs Goblin Commando
of all Engaged Goblin Commandos inside 30ft, average combat lasted 3.86 rounds but the longest 12 rounds with 9.77 arrows fired on average and at most 34 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 6.24, the most devastating hit was 26, a critical rate of 0.06, and a total accuracy of 0.37
Shortbow (expert Proficiency) inside 30ft vs goblin Commandos
of all Engaged Goblin Commandos inside 30ft, average combat lasted 3.35 rounds but the longest 10 rounds with 8.19 arrows fired on average and at most 27 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 5.56, the most devastating hit was 22, a critical rate of 0.11, and a total accuracy of 0.48
Daikyu (trained Proficiency) inside 30ft vs goblin Commandos
of all Engaged Goblin Commandos inside 30ft, average combat lasted 4.1 rounds but the longest 11 rounds with 10.49 arrows fired on average and at most 31 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 5.36, the most devastating hit was 16, a critical rate of 0.07, and a total accuracy of 0.37
What this shows is the shortbow despite doing less damage, having the deadly d10 trait and better accuracy is important. Proficiency and traits matter. The Daikyu as the worst performer of the 3 in the best possible scenario for it, doing slightly less damage on average than a shortbow and a full damage less over time than a longbow.
below in those 9 times out of 30 a longbow can get into a intermediate range, more than 30 ft. but no more than 2 strides to stay near enough allies if needed, lets say 50ft. a long bow becomes king of the hill and its all about accuracy.
Longbow intermediate Range 50ft. vs Goblin Commando
of all Engaged Goblin Commandos at 50ft, average combat lasted 2.91 rounds but the longest 9 rounds with 6.84 arrows fired on average and at most 25 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 6.61, the most devastating hit was 25, a critical rate of 0.11, and a total accuracy of 0.5
From there I was curious, a couple levels pass, characters upgrade and at 3rd level the ranged first fighter has likely prioritized upgrading to the composite versions of their bows (where applicable, sorry daikyu) and probably gotten a potency rune installed. So what does it look like then, lets say vs. a CR3 grizzly bear?
Fighter 3, potency rune, point blank shot vs. Grizzly Bear
Composite Longbow inside 30ft
of all Engaged Grizzly Bears inside 30ft, average combat lasted 5.92 rounds but the longest 16 rounds with 15.89 arrows fired on average and at most 46 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 7.78, the most devastating hit was 28, a critical rate of 0.08, and a total accuracy of 0.41
Composite shortbow inside 30ft
of all Engaged Grizzly Bears inside 30ft, average combat lasted 5.34 rounds but the longest 11 rounds with 14.16 arrows fired on average and at most 32 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 6.9, the most devastating hit was 24, a critical rate of 0.12, and a total accuracy of 0.51
Daikyu inside 30ft
of all Engaged Grizzly Bears inside 30ft, average combat lasted 7.83 rounds but the longest 16 rounds with 21.7 arrows fired on average and at most 46 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 5.43, the most devastating hit was 16, a critical rate of 0.08, and a total accuracy of 0.41
and again in those 9/30 times
Composite Longbow intermediate Range ~ 50ft
of all Engaged Grizzly Bears at 50ft, average combat lasted 4.58 rounds but the longest 11 rounds with 11.83 arrows fired on average and at most 31 arrows expended on a single foe. During those fights the average damage dealt per hit was 8.17, the most devastating hit was 28, a critical rate of 0.13, and a total accuracy of 0.52
I think you get the point. I also calculated at a range of 120ft which is about the biggest map I saw in mod 1 of RotRL but the results are similar enough to above (just lower accuracy) I didn't include them. The Take away is the Daikyu starts the game weak and that deficit never gets better, it offers half of a benefit in a rare style of combat and as the numbers above show, is better served by a short bow which is less bulky, less expensive and has a lower bar to entry.
So how do you all think the Daikyu could be fixed? My thoughts are make it uncommon martial (like a katana) and give it the deadly trait, but maybe that's too much. In any case the Devs should give it some love in an errata because right now, its trash.
regards,