Bowcraft
Crafting bows requires the Woodcrafting and Fletching skills.
Making a Bow
Wood
Bows are ideally made from wood with the Flexible affinity. This includes species such as Elm or Hickory. Rarer flexible woods include Bodark, Boxwood, and Yew; using these rarer woods gives you a higher chance to create high quality bows.
Finishing
Bows can have grips added for additional stats. For ranged combat you want high Hitroll, high Dexterity, and Luck[needs confirmation]. Using a Flexible would will naturally apply Dexterity and Movement Regen, a Green Jade grip can supply a healthy amount of Luck.
Fletching
Making arrows is known as fletching. The skill includes the ability attach feathers and arrowheads to arrows.
Wood
Whereas the bow itself should be created with a Flexible-affinity wood, arrows are ideally created with Dense or Rigid wood with a significant difference in damage. As with all wood crafting it's a good idea to choose a less common wood to get higher quality results.
Example arrows of different woods. All are MASTERCRAFT quality and of the same level to create a steady baseline of comparison:
| Wood | Affinity | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| Catalpa | Soft | 3 to 21 |
| Sandalwood | Aromatic | 3 to 24 |
| Elderberry | Flexible | 3 to 24 |
| Darkwood | Exotic | 3 to 33 |
| Ironwood | Exotic | 3 to 33 |
| Beech | Dense | 3 to 33 |
Arrowheads
Adding arrowheads to your arrows allow you to add Hitroll and change the type of damage. Standard arrowheads do pierce damage, broadheads do slash damage, and blunt-tip do crush damage. Readily available and producing good stats, Steel is an easy choice for creating arrowheads.
