Do Bracers of Archery make weapon attacks magical for overcoming resistance to non-magical attacks?

Question

Bracers of Archery are described thus:

While wearing these bracers, you have proficiency with the longbow and shortbow, and you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls on ranged attacks made with such weapons.

According to Does a Mundane Arrow Fired From a Magical Bow Count as a Magical Weapon Attack?, a normal arrow would count as magical if fired from a magic bow.

Since these bracers are obviously magical and even give a substantial bonus to damage, does it stand to reason that the arrows fired by someone wearing them would overcome resistance to non-magical attacks?

Do Bracers of Archery make weapon attacks magical for overcoming resistance to non-magical attacks?

Answer 1

By RAW no; "by reason" is a slippery slope

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By RAW, no

As the question you cite explains, the rules errata justification for a mundane arrow fired from a magical bow overcoming resistance to nonmagical damage is explicit and clear:

Magic Weapons (p. 140). The section ends with a new paragraph: “If a magic weapon has the ammunition property, ammunition fired from it is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.”

(you can read several other justifications for the magical bow 'working' to grant their magic to the arrow at the original question.) However, there is no such explicit rules statement for the bracers.

If it helps, you can think of the bracers within the narrative as something that steadies your natural aim, rather than magically empowering the weapon, much like a magical increase in your Dexterity score¹ would increase the damage of the weapon without imparting the ability to overcome non-magic resistance. Or, as commenter Alan says, "the bracers magically make you a better archer, but no matter how good an archer you are, your arrows aren't suddenly magical".

Does it stand to reason?

It might stand to reason, within a particular game's narrative explanation for how magic "works", that the bracers actually empower the arrow. However, I would caution against this. The game has so many ways to magically increase damage that if this were allowed, overcoming resistance to non-magical damage would become trivial.

If items are allowed, do gauntlets of ogre power, a belt² of giant strength, or an ioun stone of strength make my mundane sword's damage magical because they give me magical strength?

If spells are allowed, does enlarge make my mundane sword's damage magical because it gives me a magical damage bump? Does bless make my mundane arrow's damage magical because it gives me magical accuracy? Why would anyone use the magic weapon spell if so many other spells gave its benefits as 'add-ons' in addition to their listed effects?

Of the three pillars, combat is by far the best supported in the game. It is simply too easy to get damage or other combat boosts from magic means. If these boosts were allowed to make their enhanced attack 'magical' in addition to their stated effects, it would be unusual to find a character not capable of overcoming non-magic damage resistance, at least for a limited time when needed. And as Syndrome says, "When everyone is super, no one will be."

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¹_{Cf. Ioun Stone of Agility, Manual of Quickness of Action}
²_{Yes, I originally wrote 'girdle' and had to correct myself. Get Off My Lawn.}

Answer 2

No: the arrows are not magical

The Sage Advice Compendium provides clear criteria when something counts as magical:, namely if you can answer yes to one of these questions:

• Is it a magic item?
• Is it a spell? Or does it let you create the effects of a spell that’s mentioned in its description?
• Is it a spell attack?
• Is it fueled by the use of spell slots?
• Does its description say it’s magical?

In the case of the magical bow, which is a magic weapon, the description for magic weapons (provided in an erratum, p. 140 DMG) explicitly states the arrows count as magical:

If a magic weapon has the ammunition property, ammunition fired from it is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

fulfilling the last of these conditions. The bracers of archery are not a magic weapon, they are a wondrous item (p. 156 DMG):

BRACERS OF ARCHERY
Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

so they have no such language attached to them, and do not state the arrows are magical.

The arrows themselves are also not a magic item, spell, spell attack nor are they fueled by spell slots, and the bracers do not make them any of that either, they just add +2 to damage. Ergo, they do not make the arrows magical.