Yeah, but not in TES.

Admittedly, you're fairly new here, but surely you've realised that people here like to argue over the most trivial things.

Folks here always argue about reality and makeing the game mroe real...cuz..it's better for immersion?

So,

I propose that the glass is actually a fiber glass reenforcement.

Iron is just a long running experiment in bow research that's being field tested over an extremlt long time. This is because the fighter's guild gets kickbacks from the manufacturer.

Steel is actually a bow that's been wrapped by Dwemer created steel belted tires!

Really, I don't care much about any of it. Well, except that it can turn the board into a nice theatre

I agree with OP and several others posting here. Bows made of iron, silver, or other metals/minerals makes very little sense. Even if the bow is wood encased in silver, it still doesn't make sense. Having metal/mineral adorments, tips, and grips is fine...though I don't see that having a significant effect on the power of the projectile launched.

And while a understand that glass, ebony, deadric, etc... are all fantasy materials, they have been shown by use as superior armor and weapons to be both harder and heavier than iron or certainly wood. They are also seen to have the attributes of metals as they are worked with heat by smiths and used in the many ways that iron would be used. Thus, fashioning bows from them or bows encased in them would be largely ineffective; adding no power and making the weapon so heavy it would be unusable.

Having bows made of seperate materials than swords and axes wouldn't be overly complex; if people needed to, they could just compare the power stats on two bows when unsure. Having arrows of different materials is fine. Also, only having wood isn't required; using fantasy substances such dragon bones/tendons, magically conjured items, or materials taken from another plane could work...but it should different materials than what's used for armor or melee weapons as the properties that make those better seldom overlap with what makes a good bow.

Glass weapons and armor are an ornate design: light and flexible

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Glass

That is why I think that silver, dwarven, ebony and deadric is better examples of OPs point

Dont you DARE touch my glass...

Glass is effectively obsidian. That alone, and avter playing minecraft for far too long, that makes it freakin awesome.

FYI in case anybody thought this, I'm not proposing glass, ebony, and metal disappear from arrows themselves. Obviously glass and ebony would make great arrows.

not necessarily saying that glass or ebony should disappear from bows entirely either.. but naming it "glass bow" and "ebony bow" if it's amd eout of wood seems sort ofd silly. Would be nice if bows had their own classes, say: yew, bone, great oak, ivory, blackwood... and then those ones could have glass or ebony parts on them depending on how fancy they are.

all bows should be made from wood

BUTTTTTTTTTTTTT

a glass bow for example will have glass parts in it (the ones that don't move) like on the tip where the string is... well stringed and on the handle.

it will make bows look awesome and logical too.

agreed, keep bows realistic so made of flexible bendy material like wood. Arrows can be made of the sharp hard exotic stuff. would be nice to have different bow types too: long bows, short bows, recurve, composite etc etc

Well, if that's the case I hope the wooden parts will actually look like wood, and not just "brown"

A glass bow with ivory limbs :thumbsup:

Mmmm... as it is right now... http://images.uesp.net//1/16/OB-items-Bows.jpg

In fact, after watching this picture, I realise that you can see wood in several bows, and the other ones could just be covered by the metal (as I would say is the case of the silver's one). About ebony and daedric, I don't know, but it's a magical mineral, so who knows, it could be bendable.

But this is a fantasy RPG, sure we can have wooden bows, but it's fun and unique to also have glass and daedric bows!

:lmao:

I think this post needs to be moved to the Lore forum!

Since no one really seems to have taken notice of my last post I'll just say it again, this is all made perfectly clear in the in-game lore http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-manual-arms:



Although not written out specifically, it can be assumed and also observed in many of the in-game bow models, that most of the bow is made from wood, along with ornamental parts and as stated here, a laminated core of the material in question. I'm perfectly fine with this description and would rather have it this way that having various different types of wood as pre-fixes, and while also taking into account that the rarer versions most certainly have also had some magic involved in their making and function, there's well enough explanation for the at first glance, "odd" material choice for bows ^^

I think mages should be able to form weapons from elements using the Conjuration skill tree. Like a bow w/ arrows made entirely of fire, throwing axes materialized from air, etc.

You win.

Oh, is their any kind of award involved? :cake:

Instead of being made by those materials they could be accented with them. I think thats the best solution.

And what about arrows? Does it make sense that they could be made out of hard glass?

Yes! Cheese for everyone! Wait, Scratch that. Cheese for no one. That can be just as much of a celebration, if you don't like cheese. True? You've run a maze like a good little rat, but no cheese for you yet. Well, maybe a little.

Touché, my good sir. :foodndrink:
Now, I just wonder if material itself is flexible or stuff made from it are flexible because of the design.



It's true that this is fantasy, but it doesn't mean that pigs can fly only because it's fantasy.
Also, unique =/= better.

Though obviously that metal laminate core would not have the properties to spring back into place the same way wood does, and would eventually after a short time of using it hold its shape more toward the high tension bent position, loosening the string. So over the life of the bow, you'd have to keep shortening the string to keep it in tension, until the bow becomes strangely contorted.

you can make a bow out of metal

Wooden bows would fit Skyrim very well, especially as Ironwood and Black Ironwood trees are supposed to grow there. I suppose Ironwood would be a well suited material for crafting bows.

You can argue glass bows decently, depending on how they are made.
The egyptians made composite bows made from horn and certian plant fibers, then glued them together. A glass bow could be a wooden bow reinforced with nonflexible glass, providing extra resistance.
But Iron or Steel? Ebony? Those make no sense, not only is it ridiculously difficult to bend those materials, but when you do they deform and retain that shape to some extent.
So each time you bend an iron bow, it loses some of its power. Metals being malleable is bad for bows. And for this reason you couldn't make a composite bow out of these materials either.

And while it may be a fantasy game, it should be believable. It would be one thing to create a giant pig-like creature that can fly, its another thing to make pigs that fly...

But how do you think that http://tedlington.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/crossbow.jpg works, then? Basically, the thicker the metal/material, the less willing it is to bend. As long as it isn't bent too far, the material will return to their original shapes. An excellent example are springs. They're made of metal, and they are made to return to their original shapes. Besides, you repair the bows, and maybe then you replace or adjust the material again. Who knows... Also, any longbow made of wood will also bend towards the string over time.