Wait, so let me get this straight....if a bow is magical, but the arrows aren't, then does that mean that the attack doesn't count as a magical attack, since the arrows are dealing the actual damage?
Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having a magical bow in the first place?
Yep. That is why modern vampire hunters and shit use silver bullets instead of silver guns. It does no good to have a crucifix carved on your gun if the vampire never touches it.
Assuming we're talking about D&D, the magical bow confers its bonuses upon the arrows fired from it, though they may also be able to stack with magical arrows' bonuses depending on the enchantments and edition.
The arrow becomes charged by passing through the bow's magical field as it is fired.
Unfortunately, arrows are knocked with their tips in front of the bow itself, so only the shaft is magical.
So what would stop a knight from say, rubbing his sword all over the archer's bow before swinging it around?
That's not how the FUCKING MAGIC works.
You do it like this, ya git!
L-Lewd.
>female knight furiously rubbing her blade on male archer's bow
>"Yeah, you like that?!"
>"S-stop..."
It works, but you don't get very long.
Arrows don't remain magic for long either, but they usually hit and do something magic quickly before fading.
Some enchanters prefer to make sword and scabbard combos to distribute the enchantments more efficiently, relying on the two being exposed to each other regularly and often for the magic fields to be intertwined.
Magic arrows also exist, but they're usually a step above novelty. Keeping a tiny and light thing like an arrow still viable while also enchanted is tricky, so they're usually very simple enchantments that don't function with an enchanted now in the first place. On the other hand, if you really know what you're doing a master enchanter can make damn fine arrows, stepping up to stupidly powerful when comboed with the correct bow.
But now you're paying for master enchanters doing something tricky with limited buyers, so be prepared to fork out a metric buttload of money.
For most situations, and for most archers, an enchanted now with nonenchanted but high quality arrows is the most efficient for gold spent to output. Though some swear by the reverse and a high quality bow and a variety of enchanted arrows for greater adaptability, even if the price and damage output is higher for the former and lower for the latter.
Except silver isn't magic, you chode.
It is against werewolves, and vampires in some settings.
It's more like salt to a slug.
>implying salt isn't magic
Sumo wrestlers throw it around the ring to purify it from evil spirits before a match, you know.
Salt is magic.
I've usually seen it written up as the bow has a permanent enchantment that lets it put temporary enchantments on the arrows.
One setting I played in had the accuracy enchantments on the bow and the damage enchantments on the arrows/quiver. Nice touch in theory but it didn't really add much to gameplay.
I know salt sometimes fucks up ghosts and causes bad luck, but isn't it mostly an anti-magic tool?
>when they finally scatter the remains of their ghostly opponents, she returns to the archer
>"let's do it again"
>"O-okay"
>She drops her sword. "Without the weapons"
Rest of the party looks on as he's dragged into her tent.
Encountered a ghost once, since my character was eastern and superstitious, I took the rock salt I carried for this purpose and threw it at the ghost.
This being DnD however it did nothing, and our party having no magic weapons was forced to flee from the spooooky ghost.
Isn't it usually just that the bow itself is magical, and thus fires the arrows more powerfully/accurately, but the arrows themselves aren't magical at all. They just fly faster so there's less deviation and more force behind it.
If I wear magic bracelets, should every stone I throw also count as magic?
If they're magic bracelets enchanted so as to enhance stone-throwing attacks, then I think so, yes.
If they impart magical abilities onto the stones, then yes.