My players have long maligned the price of a longbow (and the shorbow as well) for being rediculously overpriced and I tend to agree. The composite bow seems fair as it can be enhanced with strength bonuses. But 75 gp for a longbow? How do the peasants hunt? Darts & Slings?
I don't see a problem with the price. It seems to me that it would be really easy to make a bow that falls apart or doesn't shoot well, but difficult to make a good bow, and yes, peasants would hunt likely with slings. Take a look at their weapon proficiencies, and the likelihood that any standard peasant would pick up another proficiency. Besides, in Medieval times, I think bows were used by the nobility and military, not by your common peasant to hunt.
American Indians used them... and they are certainly easier to make than other weapons, especially several metal ones, including crossbows.
A problem with the bows of the PHB is, that the description doesn't say what a longbow is, except that it is a bow that is long. But the "classic" english military longbows were over 2m in length and japanese longbows even up to 2,40m. Those pictured in the PHB and on illustrations in other fantasy RPG books are usually even shoter than the users hight. These really high quality military battlefield bows could probably be really expensive, but that's what masterwork items are for.
But I assume that in D&D a longbow is simply a bow, that doesn't fit neatly straped to your backpack anymore. And even cave men had such bows. I can't really think how such a bow would be much more expensive than a suit of leather armor, but more than seven times that? You get a herd of 25 head sheep for that monney. Also reducing the length of the wooden parts by about 1/3 reduces the price by more than 50% (and material prices aren't really that high for a pice of wood)?
True, a bow is quite a powerful weapon with its high rate of fire and range, but making it the most expensive simple or matrial weapon in the game? They are not that good and at lower levels, when 50gp are an amount of money that matters, the light crosbow is actually much better, but costs less than half as much (while being much more complex in construction).
I think I will just cut pow prices in half for my campaigns.
Weapons are priced more based on in-game value than on actual cost to manufacture. The longbow is the best ranged weapon and is thus the most expensive.
Best rate of fire, best damage, biggest range, and x3 on crit compare that to any other ranged weapon and they all fall short somewhere. The longbow is even better than most exotic ranged weapons.
Incidentally the 'longbow' is not comparable to the bows the native Americans or African aborigines used which have a fairly low range and don't have near the impact of the English Longbow.
Self bows, the kind of bow made from a single piece of wood, break very easily. A hastily tillered self bow will potentially explode when drawn. A good piece of wood for a self bow has to be carefully selected for grain, uniformness, and lack, or even distribution of nodes. War bows, with 60+ lbs. pull and 26+ inch draw length, are particularly demanding. Good bow staves from a good wood, like osage or yew, capable of being tillered into a war bow are not at all easy to find, and require a great deal of care. Getting a straight Stave, excellent growth ring pattern and few limb knots is very time consuming and even then finding a stave without all three wood issues at the same time is rare. Professional Bowyers who craft self bows can have bows with unseen flaws crack or even snap while shooting, or while tillering. Materials ruined, start over.
Additionally, a self bow is very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity. Shooting a bow on a cold, dry day, without warming the bow up, is a good way to end up without a bow to shoot, as the stress can expose hidden flaws. It is fairly common for bowyers to back a self bow with bamboo, or another wood, if they think the bowstave is not up to snuff for a self bow.
Fiberglass, of course, does not have as many problems, which is the blessing of the technology. The partial reason for the rapid move away from bows into reliable firearms is partly due to the problems and issues with the technology, but also because a well maintained firearm is a simple weapon, whereas even a well maintained bow is without question a martial weapon, requiring practice and skill to not hurt yourself while using it.
Since none of these problems with self bows are modeled by the system, I will assume that the price is simply an adjustment for what would be a daily use, low maintenance, decent powered self or single laminate bow. Compound Bows seem to be about right, as well, although the mechanical difference between the compound and standard bows are entirely artificial.
In the mid-14th century, bowstaves were 1s to 1s/6d, while crossbows were 3s to 5s. At the time, the King paid his prized Welshmen 4d/day, about what a journeyman carpenter or mason might make.
After England ran out of full grown yew, importers were required to bring in a number of bowstaves per cask of wine or pay hefty fines.
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American Indians used them... and they are certainly easier to make than other weapons, especially several metal ones, including crossbows.
Yes they did but building bows was a very typical skill that they had and if they didn't they would trade for what they needed from other tribe members. Native Americans did a lot of trade exchanges in place of most monetary systems.