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I'm wondering because of Greatbow vs shortbow. Obviously the arrows are going to be of different sizes, and I got to wondering. Arrows for Greatbow, we'll call them great arrows, are they the size of small spears? Or would they be closer to the length of a longsword?

Same thing with the rest of the arrows, what are they the most comparable with visually?

In terms for this question, I'm not asking for damage-wise. What I'm actually asking for is what does the book/rules/DMs say about the arrow sizes visually. The reason why I ask this is because when I think greatbow, I immediately think of the Dragonslayer Greatbow from Dark Souls 3 and the Dragonslayer Greatarrows that it uses. Those, in comparison to the player is a small spear. A longbow in the same game has arrows roughly the same length as a shortsword, iirc. Of course, not the same width.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Related and possibly a duplicate. \$\endgroup\$ – Hey I Can Chan Sep 14 '17 at 23:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ This question's underlying false assumption is equivalent to an incorrect answer to that question; closing as a dupe might be a reasonable course of action, though the actual questions are different. \$\endgroup\$ – Please stop being evil Sep 15 '17 at 6:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is this important solely so that you can visualize events? Or are you looking for mechanical effects, like for computing encumbrance or using arrows as improvised weapons? \$\endgroup\$ – Hey I Can Chan Sep 18 '17 at 5:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ The related question that you linked explained all about the mechanical effect side of things. So it's solely for visualizing events. \$\endgroup\$ – Rion Murphy Sep 28 '17 at 19:36
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Arrows actually have explicit stats for use as melee improvised weapons:

An arrow used as a melee weapon is treated as a light improvised weapon (–4 penalty on attack rolls) and deals damage as a dagger of its size (critical multiplier ×2). Arrows come in a leather quiver that holds 20 arrows. An arrow that hits its target is destroyed; one that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lost.

As a result of this, and arrow transparency (i.e. arrows from any bow can be used with any other at no penalty), it's most reasonable to assume that the arrows are all the same descriptive size. You don't have to, but in any case they all weigh the same and deal the same damage when used apart from a bow, which makes using different descriptive sizes weird.

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