| Weables |
if you want something to make sense in context, you have to provide the context. The basic answer would be no. you dont make bows out of metal, because you need them to flex as you pull them back in order to provide draw and power to your arrows. doing so with metal (something which would just bend, not really flex anyways) and a super hard metal that wouldnt really be possible to pull and flex in the first place seems like an idea that wouldn't work.
| pocsaclypse |
The short answer is no. The rules dont allow it and it doesnt really work with the way bows work.
The longer answer is, if your player just wants a bow made out of adamantine for s%#@s and giggles than sure. I'd even give it the +1 to attack for being masterworked but nothing more (it wouldnt grant arrows fired from it the ability to bypass dr/adamantine for example).
I dont have any more advice without knowing the context.
| Dragonchess Player |
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if you want something to make sense in context, you have to provide the context. The basic answer would be no. you dont make bows out of metal, because you need them to flex as you pull them back in order to provide draw and power to your arrows. doing so with metal (something which would just bend, not really flex anyways) and a super hard metal that wouldnt really be possible to pull and flex in the first place seems like an idea that wouldn't work.
Metal bows were actually used historically. Granted, ancient/medieval versions were probably not entirely metal (composite bows) and it was generally cheaper and easier to use other materials.
That said, a composite bow could be made mostly out of metal (such as high-quality "Damascus"/wootz steel or use of pattern welding to result in something close to spring steel). However, the bow wouldn't provide any benefit for bypassing DR when shooting an arrow (as the bow isn't what is striking the target).
| LordKailas |
Someone did invent a metal bow. But it took so much effort to bend it that a special mechanism was developed to draw the bow. The end result was a crossbow.
By the RAW you can not make a normal longbow or shortbow out of metal. You could make a crossbow out of adamantine, however, other than being an extremely expensive masterwork crossbow it wouldn't convey any special properties to bolts fired from it. You could use it as an improvised melee weapon and get the full benefit of it being adamantine.
The DM is of course welcome to create a steel bow using the custom weapon rules and that weapon (which would primarily be made out of metal) could be made from special materials like adamantine.