Greetings all ..
I want to create a bow that can bypass DR of creatures.
Basically I want to create a bow that will be able to bypass DR on a round by round basis.
If I have to spend a round to match the bow to the creatures DR that seems easily acceptable.
So the question is this ... spells and material ... what will I need, and how expensive would it be you think ?
A +5 bow will overcome DR/Magic, DR/Silver, DR/Cold Iron, DR/Adamantine, and all alignment-based DR. 50,000gp for the bow.
Normal arrows overcome DR/Piercing. Get appropriate arrows for DR/Slashing and DR/Bludgeoning. Blunt arrows can be found in the Advanced Players Guide.
As far as I know, that only leaves DR/- and DR/Epic. DR/Epic is rare enough to be ignored, and aside from special abilities that say they ignore all damage reduction, there is no way to overcome DR/-.
For materials-based DR, I'd suggest "Durable arrows" from the Elves of Golarian book. These arrows can be retrieved under almost all circumstances, so you can afford to make special material arrow heads and carry maybe 20 normal, 20 blunt, 10 silver, 10 cold iron, and 10 adamantine. Combine this with a "Conserving" bow (a +1 bonus that makes your non-destroyed arrows teleport back to your quiver), and you have a lot of DR covered, including magic. (You'll want an efficient quiver for this, too.)
Elemental energy-based DR is going to be more expensive: you could get a bow for each energy type (electricity, fire, acid, cold, sonic), and swap them out when you make your knowledge check. Each of those is a + bonus. (An efficient quiver will hold all of these, also.)
Alignment-based DR is a bit trickier, since aligning weapons takes a +2 bonus AND you take a negative level if you try to use one opposed to your own alignment. I would just use "oil of align weapon" and take a round out to apply it before continuing combat.
If you're willing to look at feats instead of just materials and spells, you should look at Clustered Shot (add your arrows from each round together before applying DR) and Penetrating Strike (you can ignore up to 5 points of DR with your focused weapon). I'm sure there are others, depending on the exact build you're looking at.
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Are you looking for a custom magic item?
You could make a bow that can cast align weapon or versatile weapon on command (standard action). Unlimited useage would probably be priced similarly to a +5 weapon, but 1/day use of each might be a +8,000gp enhancement based on the magic item cost guidelines. These guidelines are suggestions and require a sanity check from the GM, but that sounds about right to me - 16% the cost of a +5 bow to give it similar DR-piercing ability once per day, activation required. I'd probably adjust it to either spell once per day, though. "Once per day on command, this bow alters its properties to bypass DR of one of the following types: bludgeoning, cold iron, piercing, silver, slashing, good, evil, lawful, or chaotic. This effect lasts for 5 minutes."
Note that like all custom magic items this requires GM approval.
If you weren't looking for a custom item specifically and just want to bypass DR as an archer the above suggestions are all good.
EDIT: For crafting, I'd set the enchantment at CL 5 (for versatile weapon) and require both spells as pre-requisites. Cost for materials would be about 4K.
Elemental energy-based DR is going to be more expensive: you could get a bow for each energy type (electricity, fire, acid, cold, sonic), and swap them out when you make your knowledge check. Each of those is a + bonus. (An efficient quiver will hold all of these, also.)
I assume you mean energy resistance. There is no such thing as energy-based damage reduction. Damage reduction only applies to physical damage, not energy damage.
Energy resistance is easy to ignore - just don't do energy damage. Stick to physical damage.
The fighter-only feats penetrating strike and greater penetrating strike will allow you to bypass 5 points of dr X/-
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Clustered shots is all you need.