Hail, all.

Not sure if these things are known; but after running into confusion about archery damage (specifically thinking that my arrow damage was multiplied by five randomly,) I decided to run some tests. Since I'm new, I do invite people to double-check these findings, especially PC users who have the console.

No mods installed; version 1.5 on PC.

1. The damage tooltip is wrong:
-Set Marksman skill to 0 (eg, player.modav marksman -X, where X is your current skill)
-Equip an Orcish bow (10 damage) and then unequip the arrows. You should see 10 damage on the bow, and on the tooltip.
-Equip Iron arrows. You should now see 18 damage on the bow, and 26 on the tooltip.
-Equip Nordic or Steel arrows. You should see 20 on the bow, and 30 on the tooltip.

What is happening is that the arrow's damage is counting twice - once on the bow's damage, and once on the tooltip. The tooltip addition seems to be false.

When I tested outgoing damage, I got 18 damage with iron arrows and slightly less than 20 damage on Nordic. Tests were done on a Draugr Wight fff000de6 with forceav health 2000 and unconscious.

2. Arrows are affected by (nearly) ALL bow damage increases:
-Set Marksman to 100 (from the previous test, player.modav marksman 100)
-The bow's damage with no arrows is now 15. With Nordic arrows, the bow damage goes up to 30(!) and the tooltip to 40.
-The draugr took 30 damage.
-Conclusion: Archery skill affects arrows the same as bows: base x (1 + skill/200.)

-Add 5/5 Overdraw. Bow goes up to 60, tooltip to 70. Draugr takes 60 damage.
Conclusion: Overdraw affects arrows.

-With only 3 +40% enchants (three items of Peerless archery,) the bow went up to 132, tooltip to 142. 132 damage.
Conclusion: Fortify Archery enchants affect arrows.

-Of course, smithing boosts on the bow won't affect arrow damage. Didn't test alchemy, admittedly.

3. Archery backstabs DO count enchants!
-With 100 skill, 5/5 OD, and Deadly Aim, the archery sneak attacks returned 180 damage (60 x 3.) This is still the Orc bow with Nordic arrows.
-Adding the three +40% enchant items, I brought my draugr down to 1604 from its full 2000: 396 damage! As this is 132 x 3...
Conclusion: Enchants are counting for sneak attacks with archery.

In another test, by the way, I ran a Mystic Bound Bow with 100, 5/5, DA, and 3x40: 341 tooltip (317 bow damage rating.) 290 standing damage for some reason, but a 951 sneak attack.

Second set of tests addressed Alchemy and Critical Strike.

For Alchemy, used the same setup of 5/5 OD, 100 skill, 3x40 enchants, and used Philter of True Shot +40% for the alchemy test, with the Mystic Bound Bow.
Tooltip shows 478 damage, which we know to be 454. Expected sneak attack was 1362; actual was 1330. Potions seem to be multiplying.

For Critical Hit, used the setup of 5/5 OD, 100 skill, 3x40 enchants, with the Mystic Bound Bow but *no* potion. Also included 3/3 Critical Shot.
Tooltip shows 341, which we know to be 317. Repeated the test for 951 sneak damage without a crit, successfully.

Continued to reset the draugr's health to 2k after each failed crit. The successful sneak + crit yielded 969 damage: 18 damage from the crit, which is expected for the bow's base damage without arrows or any other effects.

Conclusion: Critical Shot is as hindered as its sword counterparts.
The Mystic Bound Bow, the strongest bow in terms of Base Damage (24,) still only coaxes 18 damage out of a critical hit: 1.2 damage per perk point, average.

So means the critical shot is not worth it, correct? As i am thinking about skipping critical, hunter and ranger perk...

Thanks for the test, it is quite helpful!

Note that the displayed item and total damage changed in v1.5: https://unofficialskyrimpatch.16bugs.com/projects/7078/bugs/223056

I think he means that critical hits don't count with sneaking attack, which makes sense as it would make it over powered. If you don't plan on sneak attacks then it is worth taking criticals.

Edit: I just got a critical hit while sneaking, so you do get criticals while sneaking.

He's saying the critical damage is based only on the bow's base damage, resulting in a pitiful bonus nit worthy of the perk points.

Thanks for posting your tests. I have been doing something like that by using the console "getavinfo health" on opponents after killing them.

Archery is such a great way to play the game. Enough damage to make you badass, but not so much that the game is too easy.

Thanks for your post. I'd wondered how the arrows factored into the damage. I'd also wondered how the bound bow stacked up against a standard bow. Good info to know.

Critical shot is not a good deal because it does very very little damage even when critical hit triggers. It doesn't benefit from smithing, skill increase or weapon damage enchantments. It only depends on the base value of the weapon. When the critical hit gets triggered you are probably doing 5 more points of damage.

You may notice the benefit in the early stage of the game, when you care about every additional point of damage, but the benefit becomes negligible quickly.

So means the critical shot is not worth it, correct? As i am thinking about skipping critical, hunter and ranger perk...

Thanks for the test, it is quite helpful!

Correct. The 18 damage is only happening because of the Bound Bow with Mystic Binding - every other bow will do less extra damage from a critical hit. There are better places for those perk points, such as nearly anywhere else.