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Insect King wrote:Deadly Archery is a combat-focused reward that currently provides too little for its cost.

Absolutely true. Deadly Archery needs to be vastly improved or replaced in order to be on par with other Virtues. However, that doesn't mean that powering it up in the way you suggest won't make Elves of Mirkwood too powerful. It needs to be powered up to provide cool options, or to aid specifically in circumstances where Elves of Mirkwood aren't as good (foes of Great Size, really large numbers of foes, combats longer than 7 rounds or so) in order to not be overpowered.

Insect King wrote:If I play a Mirkwood elf, I don't get other cultures cool shit. If I did I would have given my elf that cool hobbit ranged weapon 2fd bump.

There are a number of possible explanations for this (including simple bad luck), but it's an anecdote rather than data (and not one borne out my many other people's play experience).

Insect King wrote:You said this before without specifying how this makes them these weedwhackers in battle. How does my current version of Deadly Archery do this?

Basically? Math. I used to honestly agree with you, then I actually used a combat calculator (from Glorelendil, found here) and compared otherwise identical characters of different Cultures with different Rewards and Virtues. At Bow 4, with a Grievous Fell bow (and sometimes making Called Shots, for the elf anyway), a Hobbit with both a Bow of the North Downs and Fair Shot still does only about as well as (or maybe slightly better than) an Elf with only a Woodland Bow (and those with Great Bows only do meaningfully better vs. those with Great Size). Deadly Archery is worthless, but Elves do fine.

This is all discussed at length in the other Deadly Archery thread. Visible on this very forum. My analysis specifically can be found summarized here and here, with links to the aforementioned thread.

Insect King wrote:My 55-experience point Mirkwood elf with 4d in favoured Bow and using Woodland Bow, is not as powerful to the newbie hobbit with rolling 2df shooting arrows. Claiming there's some sort of balance among the cultural rewards and virtues is laughable.

How are both characters built? Because honestly, this sounds really unlikely unless you've focused your xp on areas entirely separate from being good in a fight with his bow (or are actively worse at using the right system elements in play, have bought bad options, or just roll terribly, or some combination of the above). To start with, based on the below, you've apparently invested 12 xp in melee skills, so it's a 43 xp character compared to a 0 xp one...and I have no idea how much of the rest is actually invested in being good with the aforementioned bow.

Insect King wrote:What does "powering it up in ways that add to the flat numerical power of an Elf of Mirkwood" even mean? I've been playing the same Mirkwood elf for more than three years. His basic 3d longsword is more effective in combat than his Woodland Bow double opening volley 4d favoured bow attack.

This seems impossible mathematically unless you've invested way more into Longsword than into Bow. If the bow is Fell and Grievous (something I'd expect of a combative character at 55 xp), then the sword has a +2 Injury advantage over the bow, which isn't nearly enough to make up for getting several attacks. Nor enough to make up for the advantages inherent in getting Pierces on a Called Shot.

Insect King wrote:You see, you keep saying that boost Deadly Archery with numerical advantages that increases combat effectiveness is "not a great plan" yet you still haven't laid out a cogent argument detailing your position.

Again, the argument is basically math. As explained and linked above.

Insect King wrote:Once again, which part or parts of my current version of Deadly Archey -- a combat-focused Cultural virtue -- makes Mirkwood elves too powerful in combat?

The fact that it makes them vastly more powerful in combat while, as current math indicates, they are already on par with other Cultures there. Powering up something that started out on par makes it overpowered, as a rule.

Ah, the cycle continues and another newcomer doesn't believe us.

The thing about Fair Shot is that as skill increases it declines in value. It continues to be great for getting Pierces, but it becomes less and less important for actually hitting. Likewise for Bow of the North Downs, but without the Pierce benefit. So in some sense what the Hobbit virtue/reward do is to allow you to get away with lower skill.

Woodland Bow, on the other hand, increases in value as your skill increases, and also gets better with anything else that improves your archery (Fell, Keen, Grievous, Fel-Handed, Stinging Arrow...)

Let's do some arithmetic. (I hesitate to call it 'math'.)
Let's say you're shooting with skill 4 versus Parry 4. You've got a 78% chance of hitting, which means Woodland Bow increases your output by 0.78 times your average damage (including chance of getting a Wound.)

With Fair Shot your chance of hitting increases to about 90%, which means you are about 15% (0.12/0.78) more likely to hit. So it takes 6+ turns before you make up for the one extra shot during the Volley.

Yes, Fair Shot also significantly increases Pierce chance, albeit with a low Injury Weapon. Woodland Bow's advantage is that it front-loads all of its benefit, before the fight even starts. The value of getting a free bonus shot before your enemies even attack, as opposed to a 15% extra chance to hit each round, is huge. On average your enemy will get 3 attacks before Fair Shot makes the difference between a miss and a hit.

By way of comparison, the only other thing currently in the game that allows a full extra attack is the Noldor spear reward, and that costs a point of Hope each time you use it. Woodland Bow essentially does the same thing for free, before combat starts, once per fight.

Sometimes I think the best fix for Deadly Archery might be to replace it with something that has nothing to do with archery...

Glorelendil wrote:Sometimes I think the best fix for Deadly Archery might be to replace it with something that has nothing to do with archery...

And that is the best solution - perhaps even non-combat related. You can't balance Virtues and Rewards in isolation, you have to look at the whole. As already pointed out, Mirkwood Elves are pretty much balanced with other cultures as-is so if you make Deadly Archery markedly better then you make Mirkwood Elves markedly better too.

I actually added to Deadly Archery to allow MEs to ignore the limitations of darkness and other environmental factors (heavy wind/rain/fog, etc) that may impact someone's capability. This doesn't affect most combat encounters but is really useful when those situations really come into play and gives such characters a supernatural-feeling capability. Seems to be working okay so far; or did, the player of the Elf had to leave the group.