"You Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast and requires a spell attack roll. The effects of the spell do not occur immediately but are imbued into the bow you're wielding. Make a Strike with that bow. Your spell flies with the ammunition, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell. This counts as two attacks for your multiple attack penalty, but you don't apply the penalty until after you've completed both attacks."
This is really conufsing me
so you cast a spell which takes either 1 or 2 actions, I get that.
then you imbue it in an arrow which you shoot, that still makes sense
after that I am not understanding the spell
first it says, the attack roll determins the effect of both the spell and the strike, but immidietly afterwards it says it counts both of those as 2 diffrent attacks, so they get diffrent penalties? and which attack gets which penalty
and the last part "you don'T apply the penalty until after you completed both attack", so I only apply the penalty after I already hit or miss?
I think I am completly missing an obvious point and need some help to understand that
So like for example what is the math behind using Eldritch shot with an Ray of Frost?
Your basicly making both a bow attack and ray of frost attack, but only rolling once (and using Dex, and bow range).
So damage is bow damage + ray of frost damage.
Then it counts as 2 attacks. Not really going to mean anything unless you have Haste and make another third attack.
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Mellored has the right of it. The idea is that you take a spell which requires aiming, and you imbue it in your arrow, so you can use your (presumably better) archery proficiency and range to make people suffer the effects of snowball or acid splash or whatever.
So if you're a 6th level ranger with 14 str, 19 dex and 14 Cha with ray of frost from the Eldritch Archer specialization, your spell proficiency modifier would be +10 but your bow proficiency modifier would be +14. Add to that the fact that at this level you probably own a +1 striking composite longbow.
So against any opponent within bow range, you'd roll +15 to hit, dealing 2d8 (striking bow) + 1 (propulsive) + piercing damage + 3d4 +2 (ray of frost) cold damage. The benefits here are that the bow can attack at further range increment where the spell would need metamagic to go past 120', and you're much more likely to crit using a +1 weapon you're an expert in than just rolling to hit with trained spell proficiency.