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1) Why are you buying / crafting magic ammo enough for this to be an issue? Aside from specialty ammo such as ghost touch there's really no reason. Put the enchantment on your weapon and use mundane ammunition. That being said I wouldn't allow it in my game. For weapons the +1 costs 2000g and a +1 enchantment on top of it costs another 6000g for a total of 8000g. What you want to do is basically give them 8000g worth of ammo for 2000g. They would either have four times as much ammunition or they would take the 6000g they saved and spend it elsewhere on enchantments on other gear making them even more powerful. Horribly game breaking? Probably not. Necessary? Absolutely not. If it aint broke don't fix it.
2) There is already an enchantment which will add +2 to your attack rolls. It's a +2 enhancement bonus. You're basically asking if you can get a +2 bonus with a +1 enchantment. I would not allow it in any of my games, personally, and if your GM will let it slide please let me know. I want to come play with you guys. I have a TON of ideas to run by him. *Evil cackle*
0) Actually, this is not the correct section. What you are looking for is Suggestions and Houserules.
1) Yes, the extra +1 is pretty much redundant, and having situational projectiles is always a plus for a ranged character. However, given the sheer amount of oomph Pathfinder has added to ranged combat, I find that 'redundancy markup' on magical ammunition something you should be able to stomach.
2) Comparing apples to oranges. That 'dual wielding' enchantment, giving an effective +2 for the price of +1, is something that will be usable in almost every fight, as a two-weapon character build is unlikely to not dual-wield his weapons whenever possible. Your bane example, on the other hand, is effective only against a narrow choice of possible enemies. See that difference in quality?
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Situational arrows are nice, yes, but they're just that. Situational. Typically you don't switch up monster types that often. If you're in a campaign going from dragons to golems to undead to demons and devils to... holy crap. If you try to prepare a little bit for every scenario you're not going to be fully prepared for anything. Switching things up now and then for a little flavor is fine but if things are changing so often you feel the need to stash ammunition for whatever encounter you can think of then you may want to speak to your GM about a little consistency in the game.
You also have to take into consideration the balance between ranged and melee classes. There was already another thread a while back where a GM didn't want to let the ranger walk around all day with his bow in his hand because that allowed the ranger his full attack action in the first round whereas the melee had to draw and move up. Granted this is the advantage of playing ranged, but if you allow the ranger to have quivers of arrows for every situation at such a low cost pretty soon your melee characters are going to want their weapons at that cost as well. It might be a little easier to imagine a rogue with 10 daggers, all with different enchantments, on a bandolier, but what about the fighter? Ghost touch shortsword, flaming short sword, bane shortsword, etc.
As for your dual wielding enchantment I wouldn't use it even if it were written into the book as RAW.
+1 enhancement bonus (prerequisite for any enchantment)
+1 balanced weapons enchantment
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+2 total for cost calculations
For eight grand I get an enchantment that gives me a +2 when I dual wield, or...
+2 enhancement bonus
For eight grand I get an enchantment that gives me a +2 all the time.
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1. When creating magic ammunition, would it be too powerful to remove the "+1 enhancement before special abilities can be applied" rule and replace it with "usable with magical weapons only"?
To more directly answer this question: Yes.
If you remove the +1 requirement you're reducing the cost of brilliant energy weapons by 16,000 gold, minimum. It would only take two batches of arrows before the players essentially got a "free" batch of brilliant energy arrows because of the discount.
If they wanted to add another +1 enchantment on top of it the discount grows to 20,000 gold since they're paying fifty grand instead of seventy grand.
Edit: Math is fun, yay!
Straight to the point:
1st. I do not think abusive depending on the type of campaign that your group plays. In my games we do exactly that, removing the need of +1 before adding another spell. But power is limited to adding only ONE enchantment on ammunition. And it is for the same reason, variability for the archers. We do it 'cause when we realize that its contribution to the fight takes place in small chunks of damage, damage reduction hurts a lot and makes things unfunny.
... Typically you don't switch up monster types that often. If you're in a campaign going from dragons to golems to undead to demons and devils to... holy crap...
I think he was using an exaggerated example, not literal. The opponents change over several encounters and not every minute hehe. And on balance between meelee and ranged classes. In my experience it is easier to build a meelee stronger than an archer. Without heavy optimization of course. And damage reduction affects a lot more archers than meelees in general. Remembering always, this occurred in the games where I've attended. Your experience may be different but here isn't overpowered.
2nd. Don't make an enchantment. Make or ask for a magical iten like Bracers of Archery Lesser or Greater that aplies to dual wielding.
Fun for Everyone!
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Clustered Shots (Combat)
You take a moment to carefully aim your shots, causing them all to strike nearly the same spot.
Prerequisites: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +6.
Benefit: When you use a full-attack action to make multiple ranged weapon attacks against the same opponent, total the damage from all hits before applying that opponent's damage reduction.
Special: If the massive damage optional rule is being used (Core Rulebook 189), that rule applies if the total damage you deal with this feat is equal to or exceeds half the opponent's full normal hit points (minimum 50 points of damage).
Archers aren't weak at all.
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I just don't understand the need to reinvent the wheel is all. Why do you need to make an enchantment or magic item (especially a magic item) to do what a +2 enhancement bonus already does? You can put a +2 on the weapon and it works all the time, why waste a magic item slot on it?
If you're playing a ranger why are you making special ammunition? Go into Arcane Archer. Every non-magical arrow you fire can become fiery, cold, or shock enchanted at your discretion. At later levels you even get fiery, cold, or shocking burst and can be aligned to overcome DR depending upon your character's alignment (a lawful character can't align their weapons chaotically).
As for stuff like DR5/-, I refer you to Diego and clustered shots.
Essentially it's up to your GM and what (s)he wants to allow. Like I said, I just don't understand the need to reinvent the wheel.
I didn't know about this talent. Thank you guys!
But about Arcane Archer, maybe he doesn't wanna be an arcane archer, who knows?! hehe
And a amgiacal iten that gives you +2 competence bonus is diferent from +2 enhancement on the weapon. I actually would make the iten +1 because it aplies to both weapons. In this case it's not reinventing the wheel, it's following the examples presented to us in the core.
I do not think this is over. But my players are sensible. If we find that a character is hurting the others by being too strong, even if within the rules, we find a new role for him that does not harm others or the others increment. It happened in the most recent story. The player himself felt too strong and came asking me how to adjust the game.
I think I got lucky with my players!
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Clarifying the balanced weapon enchantment as a +3 instead of +2 doesn't really help the case of balance. You're still asking for a +3 enhancement for the cost of a +1. Not to bash on your party's fighter but if he isn't getting his full attack very often then he's doing something wrong. Full attacks aren't exactly rare and with a minimal amount of strategy TWF fighters turn into blenders rather quickly.
Only 5 or 10 arrows of a specific type? How long will that last you, three rounds? Maybe four? It still sounds to me like your GM is changing monster types too often and forcing your group to attempt to prepare for too many contingencies. You're trying to be ready for anything that comes up and it's costing you resources to do. You can pick up 5 or 10 bane (demon) arrows, 5 or 10 fiery arrows, 5 or 10 frost arrows, etc. and when you come upon the group of frost giants the fiery arrows will be awesome to have...for the two or three rounds they last. Meanwhile the rest of your invested wealth is wasted making you a weaker character. Also see my note above about reducing the cost of higher end enchantments.
In my personal (and GM) opinion, the melee enchantment is both overpowered and unnecessary. No need to start creating enchantments to do what other enchantments in the game already do. As for the arrows there are a lot of ways I could abuse that both as a player and a GM, first and foremost being the cost reduction. That all being said, it's your character and your game. All you can do is approach your GM with the ideas and try to hash it out with him (her).
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I get what you're saying and everything I've said still applies. Just go back and re-read it.
lets say, as a normal player, you DON'T know what you'll be up against next week
This is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned consistency. You have a need to try to prepare for anything and everything and it's obviously not working out well because you're looking for ways to do it more efficiently. You shouldn't have to do this.
In any case we aren't the ones you need to convince. Go talk to your GM and use whatever angle you want. Enchantments aren't overpowered, game needs consistency, whatever. About all we can do is give you a heads-up on what's already out there to do what you're trying to do.