<<I'm new here and want to know what I might be doing wrong. I'm 8th circle and doing fine in melee, weapons and defenses are maxed now on goblins and I rarely get hit. But when I switch to my bow I get beat to heck. I'm using stance evasion but with a bow in hand nothing misses me. It seems really weird.

You will need to change your stance. When holding a bow you cannot parry at all even if wearing a parry stick, so any stance points that you have set to parry are simply not doing anything for you. The default STANCE EVASION is 100 points evasion and 80 points parry, so I assume that's what you're using. What is happening is that you are in effect only bringing 100 points of stance to the table since your 80 points in parry are being ignored. Because the game assumes 180 points of stance are being used for each attack you are almost half as effective at defending as you otherwise would be. Switch to a shield-based stance while wielding a bow or crossbow (I recommend 100 evasion and 80 shield) and make sure you have an arm-worn shield on to make use of those shield stance points and things will get better.

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as far as I know you need at least 50 ranks of shield to wear it on the arm as a ranger...
train up your sheild, and use stealth with your bow

~Purnay
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."

Is there any reason why you would want to wear a medium/large shield?

>>Is there any reason why you would want to wear a medium/large shield?

For more protection, but what you would give up in hinderance/weight/utility wouldn't be worth it.

soooo when you put up stw does that go away?

Monster Elec

You hear the distant echo of a savage Horde snarling in barbaric disapproval of your deeds.

I thought I had gotten all the E-pedia entries about it, I will get those too.

>>soooo when you put up stw does that go away?

I can tell you from training a Ranger to 70th/250+ in Bow that he never once had that messaging appear while wearing a small shield and using a bow. This was true about StW pre-3.0 but it was changed to a passive ability for Rangers, Barbs, and I believe Paladins (but why a Paladin would use a medium shield + bow is beyond me).

It wasn't a test. It was a log to show that it was a load penalty not a hindrance penalty just to be clear, since that was the wording she used.

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So as a young halfling I'd like the smallest shield I can find to wear on my arm. (my rp idea of a ranger would never include a shield but game mechanics all but forces us to use one)
Any suggestions?

>Any suggestions?

If the RP is more important than the protection:
The stout buckler, cooking pot lid or small round shield from Bobba's Arms and Armor in Arthe Dale. They're even sold by an Olvi in an Olvi shop in an Olvi village. Olvi=Halfing

or the variog from:
Only those familiar with Rakash shields will even realize you're wearing a shield!
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Visfarej_Cehs

or if you're a tubby Olvi or an epicurean try to find the quelling the riot quest wooden food tray:
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Shield:Wooden_food_tray

Personally I'd recommend getting a crafted leather targe and use a cleaning cloth purchased from the forging society to bring the description down to as short as possible and rock the superior protection. You could always get it altered to look less shield-like down the road. Or alter your perceptions of what your ranger uses as gear. Going without a shield is an RP choice that's possible but not very smart or effective.

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Thanks so much for the suggestions.
RP is not more important to me than game mechanics. I do realize I could go without but that would foolish. That being said I will still stick with smaller items as might befit a halfling/Olvi such as choosing short bow instead of longbow.

Again many thanks