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So I've recently rolled up a Woodsman, planning on using archery: And I'm finding the (bows) group to not really give me "options" like the (swords), (axes) and (spears) groups do:
At the least the groups seem to contain a 1 handed weapon and a 2 handed weapon, and roughly speaking there strengths are (roughly speaking)

1handed & 2 less endurance vs 2 handed, 4 more damage, 2 more injury...

However the bow group seems to give me the choice between
Bow (vanilla) vs Great Bow <+2 damage, +2 injury, +2 Endurance>
In terms of "rewards" it would take 2 rewards to make a bow as powerful as a great bow (Grevious & Fell), yet only one reward to "effectively" make a great bow as light as a bow (cunning make on your armour, lowering your overall fatigue by 2)...

This makes a Great bow seem a lot more appealing than a bow for a primary archer; (having a bow as a secondary weapon: then the low endurance is great).

I feel I would like to find a way of bumping to power level of bows by "about one reward", so that the (bows) group feels like a choice with pro's and con's... Currently it feels like an option that is sub optimal for an archer, and good option.

I know this game is mostly about the characters, and the more I think about it the more I would like my archer to use a bow - as thematically it fits for a Mirkwood hunter... yet still it seems a poor choice.

Ideas, thoughts, suggestions? (I have my own but I'll keep quiet for now)

An axe vs a two-handed axe is +4 Damage/+2 Injury (=3 reward) at the price of +2 fatigue and no shield.
This is the second drawback of 2-handed weapons.

Going from Bow to Great Bow you don't lose any shield, hence the different "scaling", imo.

That said, I agree that Great Bow is the weapon of choice for dedicated bowmen, while the 1-fatigue Bow is a great back-up weapon for melee fighters.
To be fair, I feel the same about the normal spear, but worst: 2 fatigue for a one-shot weapon just a little better than a bow (that got 1 less fatigue).

I think the lighter weapons are a bit underachiving

I think it would come down to a thematic reasoning as well. An Elf, used to spending all of their time surrounded by thick trees and underbrush, would likely have little use for a great bow. The smaller bow would allow him to move more easily. The smaller characters have to use the regular bow as well.

Just my two cents, for what they're worth.

One thing that needs to be thrown in to the discussion is the typical TN for a weapon. Close combat weapons are generally hitting against 6/9/12 (+ target Parry) vs. the bow at TN 12 + target Parry. A bow needs three levels of skill to be able to hit a target on average (TN 12 +Parry 4 = 16). So if a hero in close combat strikes at a target in Open stance (neither being offensive or defensive) their TN is around 13, hitting on average with 2 (roughly) levels of skill. Ignoring the edge and injury levels the damage is usually 5 for most 1-h melee weapons and 7-9 for 2-h melee weapons. A bow at 5 and a great bow at 7 damage are roughly equal to 1 and 2 handed melee weapons. I suspect that the design decision was that bow specialists take Great bow leaving bow as a secondary weapon.

Elves get (Spears) as a cultural group (2 skill levels) and bows as favoured again with two levels of skill. Having bows as favoured when Elves are one of the choices with a low level of Hope really restricts them, more than giving them bow over great bow. An Elf can arm himself with a great spear for close combat and have a spear for throwing and be better off than an Elf choosing Bow with a secondary sword without spending starting points on increasing combat skills.

Bardings get Great bow as favoured and Woodmen get (Bow) as a cultural skill. Woodmen are a powerful melee choice with favoured L-H Axe and spear but let down by their inability to get decent armour. Bardings with secondary spear and decent armour are also good melee fighters if they can't use their bow (restricted location for example).

So I see it as Elves are best as spearmen with Bardings as bowmen, Woodmen are good in a defensive stance using LH axe and shield. Beornings with either spear or axe are good in Open or defensive close combat stances and Dwarves just line up in the front row/Forward stance and hit things with whatever they want - axe or mattock. Non combat specialist characters that focus on other skills can usually take a bow as a secondary weapon to add to supporting fire for CC heroes.

The Combat system is not really focussed on the details of melee and doesn't stress the aspects some players find interesting. It tends to short change bow armed characters and Legolas is the example that gets thrown up most of the time although I expect Tauriel to get some exemplar usage after early December

Hermes Serpent wrote:(...) It tends to short change bow armed characters (...)

Agree.
I think the Barding are the hardest hitting bowmen in the game (well, they got some big precedent ).

The elves probably got the Woodland Bow reward to partially make up for their weaker archery.
And with a power like Stinging Arrows (1 hope=Piercing Blow), a Great Bow would be devastating. An elf can have it, but at least got to pay a lot of xp to build up the right skill.

By the way, my players focused on rewards like Fell (+2 injury rating). Combined with the Hound of Mirkwood, Trolls/Ogres/big tentacled monsters went down... well, maybe not easily, but quickly enough.

Edit: back to the topic, a Woodmen archer with a normal bow is a bit underpowered, RAW. A lighter bow can, in theory, have an higher rate of fire, but that's not supported by the rules. You were leaning toward such an house rule?

Yes, I was thinking that as a bow is about "1 reward" behind a Great bow boosting it by about 1 rewards worth of power would be nice

My original suggestion was to give bow's wielded by those who could wield great bows the elven "+1 opening shot" ability. This would combine with the elven ability to make them able to have 3 opening shots... 2 in a surprise round - where as other bow wilder would get 2 or 0

The loremaster suggested lowering the TN of the first opening shot by 2. Which I also quite like - but can honestly say I don't think this is quite enough to persuade me to use a bow over a greatbow... Thoughts?

I wonder if all the proposals for house ruling changes to the rules have been made after a certain amount of actual play, not just reading the rules, analysing them and running some numbers through a spreadsheet.

I've run around twenty sessions so far since early Summer (four months) and found that the heroes standing back and shooting bows don't hit often enough to keep their interest. I see that their attention wavers if it's - your turn, roll dice, miss, next player, almost every time. Once the hero gets some XP that they can spend it's difficult to decide if Valour, Wisdom or more levels in combat skills are needed. All are important but heroes in their first year or two aren't really competent. I run two groups and each has done two adventures with a Fellowship Phase between the adventures and they really aren't that good so far. A second Fellowship Phase may help but the XP costs tend to hold back Combat Skills compared to Common Skills.

For the demo game I'm running at Dragonmeet I've given the heroes about 15 AP and 10 XP. Getting that third rank in weapon skill at 6 XP is expensive. At the current rate heroes are gaining skills I won't be able to put them against a creature that emanates Fear for quite some time or it'll be hoping for a Gandalf rune as the only way to stand and fight.

I think an extra opening volley is far from overpowered: in other words, the Great Bow is still a far superior weapon.

The reason, IMO, is the Called Shot option for bows.
My group's bowman sucked in combat, till he started to use called shots every round during climatic combats.
That is, every hit is a piercing blow. Combined with his Fell Great Bow (injury rating 18), he felled an Ogre in two rounds.
During the big spider fight in "Don't Leave The Path" he killed 4 or 5 attercops in as many rounds (in the end, they wiped out the whole nest).
Sure, it's risky. And he can miss (his skill is 3), but with an automatic piercing blow tn 18, they feel that an Hope point is worth the effort. And with favored Great Bow, it's hard to miss.

Edit: @Hermes Serpent: I agree that starting characters are underpowered. I started this group giving them Wisdom 2 and Valour 2, and advised them to raise a weapon at 3.
I did it because, IMO, otherwise no-one would ask regular rookie heroes to rescue their missing relatives...
Now they are 15 sessions in, and they are competent in most endeavours.

Called Shot AB p161 says 'A called shot hits only when the roll matches or beats the Target Number set for the attack AND the player obtains at least one tengwar icon on his rolled Success dice.'

So it requires a bowman to hit a target with its TN12 +parry AND get at least one six on his success dice. The more success dice you have the easier it is to get a six obviously. The Protection test required for receiving a Piercing Blow is harder with a Great bow TN16 compared to 14 for a regular bow, not much of an improvement but not hard with 3d armour. The odds are low to get a Piercing Blow and don't improve that much with 3 levels of skill.

Hermes Serpent wrote:Called Shot AB p161 says 'A called shot hits only when the roll matches or beats the Target Number set for the attack AND the player obtains at least one tengwar icon on his rolled Success dice.'

So it requires a bowman to hit a target with its TN12 +parry AND get at least one six on his success dice. The more success dice you have the easier it is to get a six obviously. The Protection test required for receiving a Piercing Blow is harder with a Great bow TN16 compared to 14 for a regular bow, not much of an improvement but not hard with 3d armour. The odds are low to get a Piercing Blow and don't improve that much with 3 levels of skill.

Fell great bow. Tn 18. The difference is tangible. Especially with the hound that sabotage the opponent's armour.
With skill 3d6 (far from über), his chances are around 50%, even more with extra dices from the battle roll.
I was surprised by his effectiveness.