I made a character, started with archery skill, and the bow misses the 1st rat every single time, as in 100/100 misses if I keep reloading. I have put no points in daggers, and the Ebony Dagger hits with no problems. Is this normal, that the Iron Bow is never going to hit in this situation?

OK figured it out: I must hold the bow taut for a bit and then let go of the mouse, then it works as expected.

A couple of things going on here:

1: The material of the weapon gives a huge tohit bonus. Much more than, for example, Agility does. So the Ebony Dagger hits so much because of its high material type.

2: You are just starting out so you have, at best, okay-ish skill with a Archery. This makes you miss quite a bit.

3: One of the mods GOG Cut comes preinstalled with changes the bow mechanic so you get a positive or negative effect on your hothit roll based on how long you draw the bow.

+ Not high skill with archery
+ Iron weapon
+ Fast firing
= Lots and lots of misses


Find a Steel or better bow and take your time shooting and you'll see much better results.

I have over 2000 hours in Daggerfall, 90% of them as an archer. In fact, since I bought my copy in early 1997, I *always* start as an archer, cheesing survival by running backwards while I shoot. Added bonus: Running skill goes up FAST!

It has never, in the countless times I've replayed Privateer's Hold since then, taken 20+ arrows to kill that starting rat. Ever.

Daggerfall UNITY broke archery, plain and simple. In fact, with a 12 in "Short Blades" I was able to kill the skeleton in the throne room with the Ebony Dagger, despite shooting 50(!!!) arrows at him, with 30 in Archery Skill.

Daggerfall UNITY also removed the High Elf's "immunity to paralysation" (sic) which, EVEN for those of us who did not exploit the famous "disadvantage bug" was a godsend against low level enemies like the spiders and scorpions. So now NOT ONLY am I no longer immune to paralysis, I can't even pick off those enemies from afar since the Archery skill is useless.

By trying to "fix" Daggerfall, Daggerfall UNITY broke Daggerfall.

Cheating to run tests: Archery Skill @ 100 + Ebony Short Bow = 17(!!!) arrows to kill the first bat in Privateer's Hold.

Archery Skill @ 65 + Daedric Long Bow = 13 shots to kill the first skeletons.

Looks like Archery Skill does, in fact, NOTHING.

Is it Daggerfall Unity or the DFU GOG Cut (that is, a mod included in the package)?.

I don't play archers, and I have no experience with using bows, but I spent a lot of time with both Daggerfall (from the beginning) and Daggerfall Unity (in the last one or two years), and I haven't noticed differences between the two when it comes to skills. And according to what I read on the DFU site, the DFU developers didn't seem to be interested in "fixing" lots of (perceived) Daggerfall "weaknesses" - contrary to many DFU modders.

It was the DU with Nexux mods, now DFU "GoG cut" - and just for the heck of it I cheated and gave my character 100 Agility, 100 Archery AND a Daedric Long Bow. It *still* took 6 arrows to take down a bat in Privateer's Hold!!!

I remember very clearly being able to slaughter "Vampire Ancient" with stats much LOWER than that in the old game. I don't know what happened with the rules/skillsets but something sure did . . .

Hm. I just started a new DFU game (unmodded) as a standard archer with archery 35 and agility 70. In the beginning you encounter 2 rats and 2 bats. I defeated the rats with 2 arrows each, but the bats took 8 and 21 arrows respectively (and the thief killed my character before he had shot 5 arrows which all had no visible effect). I found the difference between rats and bats to be a bit high, but perhaps it reflects the issue that bats fly and are more difficult to hit than rats (except that I got the arrows back from the corpses, see below).

Like I said in my previous post, I have no archery experience in Daggerfall. Playing an archer for the first time, I feel it plays about right, as far as rats and bats are concerned (considering that my character is inexperienced, and a bat can't seriously harm him before it's hit by an arrow and the damage of one arrow is enough to kill it). I'm not sure how I feel about my experience with the first human enemy. But ok, there is nothing wrong with avoiding the guy initially, and perhaps I have better chances to win by shooting at him while running backwards.

UESP says that archery increases the probability to hit (not the damage), but I don't know the exact formula, nor do I know how damage from arrows is calculated. Given that I got all arrows back from the 4 corpses (minus one of the 21 I pumped into the second bat), I'd say that my probability to hit is above 90%, but the hits don't cause damage.
Does someone know how ranged damage is calculated? It's probably influenced by attributes like strength, agility, luck, etc.
And is my assumption correct that getting back arrows from the corpses means that I really hit them?

Update:
I repeated my little experiment in classic Daggerfall. Archer, archery 45, strength 65, agility 65. The guy had 24 arrows - and guess what happened: Not a single one damaged the first rat, in three different attempts! Just to be certain there iss nothing wrong with the game, I equipped the other weapon, a battle axe, which killed the rat with two blows.
Then I tried it three more times (shooting arrows). The first time the first arrow killed the rat, but the next two attempts were like the first three.
I aimed at the rat, shot by clicking the right mouse button, checked that there was one arrow less in th inventory - is this the wrong way to shoot arrows?

Well, I may be going senile. It is possible! But I have always played a PC focused on archery, since just after release way, way back when . . . And though I've only ever completed the main quest but once (I usually get bored with the numbing, endless miles upon miles of corridors) I did finish it, and saw the final cinematics after braving Aetherium with a bow.

With the GoGCut I thought it necessary to line my little aiming dot on the target, but that did not seem to improve things.

Anyway, I gave it up, made a PC focused on Long Blades and am having quite a good time. I cheat to alleviate the boredom (I'm always honestly taken aback at the sheer amount of bewildering tedium I used to endure "back in the day" - and I'm not singling DAGGERFALL here) but other than that, this UNITY remake is the bomb!

I'm familiar with DFU, but not with the GOG Cut and its mods, and I can't say anything about a potential relationship between your shooting problem and the GOG Cut mods.

When it took you lots of arrows to kill a rat (or whatever), did you ever loot the dead enemy? If yes, how many arrows did you find? This number, divided by the number of arrows shot at the enemy, gives you the probability to hit the enemy with arrows. In particular, the number tells you if shooting at the enemy works.
If the number is greater than 0, then you also know that almost all hits didn't cause damage (in the case of a rat, only the last arrow did).
Like I said in an earlier post, I still don't know how damage caused by arrows is calculated. Without this information it's impossible to find out why almost all hits don't cause damage (it may be a bug, but other explanations are possible, too).