Arkose: That is a lame tactic and won't get you very far. While ammunition is somewhat affordable in the first game it is substantially more expensive in Gothic II (especially with Night of the Raven) because the value of items traded back and forth is no longer 1:1. In either game you will end up paying huge amounts for ammunition that would be better spent on weapons and other more useful equipment, especially if you are taking on foes you shouldn't be allowed to take down at that level and/or if you haven't trained your appropriate ranged skills high enough (which means tough enemies take dozens of shots each).

With the exception of my pure mage run in Gothic I (where I used spells wherever possible and from as far away as I could) I have always slashed things to death at close range, using ranged weapons only to attract enemies and/or wound them before they reach melee range; for weaker enemies I just charge straight at them or move close enough to kill with a single arrow or bolt. Once you have a lot of strength (or dexterity in the case of Night of the Raven), boost your weapon proficiency as far as you can afford to and get the best melee weapon you can equip you can fell many otherwise challenging enemies with a few swift combos, although against orcs and other tough humanoids you will need to learn to block to stay alive. A melee focus is quite difficult throughout Night of the Raven, but in Gothic and Gothic II it is ridiculously easy once you have levelled your character sufficiently because you have such a huge number of learning points available and can always boost your character to the maximum feasible skill at any particular point in the game. In Gothic II my strength was high enough to be able to easily exterminate the dragons' minions for XP in Chapter 2 (or was it Chapter 3?) and even ran into the lair of one to grab a sextant needed for a quest (all the while shrugging off the dragon's feeble attacks); this simply isn't possible in Night of the Raven, even with the most carefully-levelled character, because your per-level strength will end up being much lower.

Night of the Raven's skill scaling system means you have to plan out your character development to a greater degree. If you spend learning points on certain non-combat skills too early, on useless skills (e.g. hunting skills other than taking furs, which should only be learned if you are definitely going to become Bosper's apprentice) or use permanent stat-boosting items too soon (making spending learning points even more costly) you will end up noticeably weaker than you should be at that level and the challenges the game throws at you will be more than you can handle (especially if a chapter change is close by).