So, I know this sounds weird superficially, but I ask because when I encounter a wraith or a ghost, I have a small cache of silver arrows, but they always seem to vanish and I find MAYBE one arrow near the ghost/Wraith corpse when I kill it.

Do they eat arrows? Interesting question. I've always been under the impression that ghosts (along with other advanced undead) exist in two or more realities at a time. The silver arrow either winds up in this other reality, or is is 'absorbed' by the ghost.

Arrows found nearby either manage to pierce and go through the ghost, or they wind up missing it entirely. That's the best I can come up with. Now where's glargg for the real answer?

Ghosts and wraiths aren't unique in this regard. Will-o-wisps, for instance, share the trait. In the case of ghosts and wraiths, one can concoct a plausible if flawed justification. It is possible that those two beings exist in two dimensions at the same time, the one inhabited by our avatars and one in which resides the remains of their living selves. To do them harm, arrows enter the second dimension and are thus lost to our avatars. Harmful melee weapon strikes also enter the other dimension, but there our avatars' grip on them renders the excursion temporary.

-Decrepit-

Har....ninja'd by a master!

You guys are taking my question a bit TOO literally. I just meant 'eat' as in whether they have a script that despawns arrows on contact by some kind of randomiser or something. Because sometimes I'll find an arrow and sometimes I won't.

Thread title is misleading. I see the word "eat", and I think of eating. Title oughta be "Do ghosts have a script that despawns arrows?" There ya go.

I have no idea, but somebody more knowledgeable should be answering your query very shortly.

My character's never recovered any of her arrows from the little pile of ectoglop that ethereals leave. Very very rarely, she has recovered one of her arrows on the ground nearby I believe.

She's never recovered an arrow after shooting a will-o-the-wisp or any atronach - either on the body or on the ground nearby.

Arrows do seem to bounce off skeletons and can often be found on the ground nearby.

Arrow tend to go through ghosts (of various varieties) and Will of the Wisps.

And they tend to bounce of skeletons (of various varieties) and atronachs (of various varieties).

But a shot arrow will also tend to disappear eventually no matter what it is shot at. That's apparently done to prevent game bloating. If the game had to keep track of every arrow in the world indefinately (including those shot by others) that would be a lot of info to track and store.

I'm going with this.

I have no idea either. I suppose it's like when you shoot six arrows into an ogre, and you only can loot one of them from his corpse. Where did the rest go? Beats me.

Well of the arrows that you shoot some of them are bound to get broken aren't they?

Also, realistically, if you got back every arrow that you shot there would be no need to ever get any more than what you first had - (except to upgrade, obv.) - or have any challenge actually bothering to "arrow manage"

Some people actually think that roleplaying games should have bottomless quivers that never run out of arrows.

If fighting a bandit archer equipped with mundane weaponry in the open, Buffy will often summon her ghost as a shield. She stands behind the ghost as it trades low damage frost spells vs harmless arrows with the bandit. She times it carefully right after the bandit shoots to slide out a couple feet, fire her own bow and quickly slip back behind her ghost. It is quite eerie to be able to see arrows coming at her ghost, only to have them magically disappear upon impacting her 'ethereal shield'. All in all, this makes for a very fun engagement. If the bandit is using something like silver arrows that can hurt the ghost, Buffy whacks a massive shield spell on the ghost to minimize the damage he takes and can still use the same tactic.

Disclaimer: I do use a couple of applicable tweaks/mods here. The ethereals in Buffy's game are much more translucent than vanilla - you can see through them pretty well. Vanilla summoned ghosts are unique from all other ethereals in that they have only 50% resistance to normal weapons; in Buffy's game, summoned ghosts have the same 100% resistance to normal weapons as all other ethereals.

Unenchanted arrows pass through ethereal enemies. If you search around you should find them on the floor. The arrows will damage the target if they're of a suitable material (silver or daedric iirc)

Enchanted arrows are 'eaten' by ethereal enemies, and are gone forever.

Everything eats enchanted arrows. Not just ethereals.