Topic title pretty much says it all. I'm on my third Skyrim character now, a sneaky archer on master difficulty. I hadn't planned on doing any smithing with this character, but am I handicapping myself if I don't?

ermm i found a daedric bow in a chest near the most northern boat you can find

I made my own, but, in a pinch, the Nightengale bow from the Thieves Guild quest line is a pretty good bow. Otherwise, random loot and checking all the shops are going to be your best bet if your smithing is low, or you don't have the materials to make a good one and improve it.

Dont waste smith perks for a bow.

They are very very easy to come
Across in the game. In the later levels ebony bows are a dime a dozen, and many guild shops reguarly sell daedric.

Ah, good, I'm following the Thieves' Guild questline now, so I'll look forward to that. I guess other higher-level bows will start to turn up as I level (I'm just lvl. 17 now), but I was getting a little impatient.

Yeah use those perks for something more interestin than being the town blacksmith. Every town already has one of those

In very early game, I steal the Elven Bow from Aela's room.

If you don't smith, bound bow is the best bow in the game. It's awesome and fun to use. Go to Fort Amol and kill a bunch of wizards. There is a Bound Bow spell book inside a bucket somewhere in the building.

Both of these are great ideas, especially the bound bow (of course you'll need to perk into conjuration to make it worthwhile). Nightingale bow is good; however, it doesn't scale with you. So, if you get the bow at a very low level it'll be one exotic looking paper weight later on.

If memory serves me correctly the nightingale bow is equal to a glass bow at any level,it's just the enchantments that get stronger at later levels.
If that is the case then the nightingale bow is good to get at any level.I've used regular glass bows through out the game and not had any problems.
The differance between a glass bow and a daedric bow is only about a 4% differance in damage.
Thats not much of a differance and when you consider the fact that the glass bow shoots faster than daedric the damage differance is probably nothing over the course of say one minute.
You may have to use one extra arrow to kill an enemy,wich could be the differance between life and death but that is seldom the case when you are one shooting everything from the shadows with stealth attack critical hits anyhow.
I also happen to find the faster fireing speed of the glass bow much better when faceing a group of enemies.

Thanks for all the ideas. Hadn't thought about stealing from Aela--she's my wife in another game. But my current character steals everything that isn't nailed down, so that could work out nicely.

A previous character of mine used bound bows all the time. But I have zero invested in conjuration at the moment.

The above suggestions are good.

Many Archers consider the Elven Bows to be the best because they split the difference between speed and damage and you'll find quite a few of them. Eventually the Draugr will be dropping Ebony Bows. I'm a Smith on both of my characters, but I also wouldn't recommend using Smithing perks just for a bow.

Also Tonilla at Thieves Guild sells bows with really good enchantments.

Then again, smithing can improve bows far beyond baseline. My approach has been to look for pre-enchanted weapons, then smith them into real killers. i think arcane smithing and the perk for the right material are very worthwhile.

You've got the same chance of finding a decent bow as you've got the chance of finding a decent sword or piece of armor.

Also Tanielle (or whatever her name is that's the fence for the guild) always carries higher level weapons and armor then every other merchant. So you basically can buy them 2-4 levels earlier than every other merchant.

But that being said, smithing is amazing in this game and as such I always level it

Yeah, and I'm still tempted to try to grind smithing somehow (even in these post-patch days, when making iron daggers isn't as enlightening as it used to be), but I'd have to put a bunch of perks in to get arcane smithing and then unlock glass or daedric. And I'm really trying to focus my perks exclusively in Sneak-Archery-Alchemy-Illusion.

Its most likely easier and less work to smith it. The best way to get smithing up is making iron daggers. Also, you can buy most ore and ignots from vendors. Provided you want the best bow you can imagine, i would recomend getting deadra hearts from the mehrunes dagon shrine and crafting a deadric bow and improving it then enchanting it.

Nah, they fixed it with 1.5, but Dwarven Bows, Dwarven Armor, and jewelry supposedly works well.

There are also tons of weapon mods that add bows. True, you can get some seriously overpowered ones by just picking a chest. But several mods add bows that you either have to buy (like at around 5k gold) or run a quest for. Look for those.

Like, there is a mod that adds a Dark Brotherhood Bow to the game. But you simply pick it up off a table in the sanctuary . And that bow puts the Nightingale to shame. I didn't pick it up (well, ok I did. But just to drool) - I didn't use it, until I was close to the end of the quest line. IMHO is way over powered at level 10.

As somebody above me said, soon the draugr will be filthy with ebony bows, and the shops will carry the better ones with some great enchantments.

Also, since you'll be doing the Thieves Guild, once you start doing those special jobs for Vex and Delvin,

And don't neglect your arrows, they can really help you out early on.
If you take down a giant Dwarven Centurion, it will probably have a nice quiver of daedric arrows. I gave 5 to my follower Erik, and after he does his job and I loot the body, I pick up more and more daedric arrows, and Erik still has his 5.

Same goes for the archer in the rataway cistern. You have to be able to steal weapons (2nd to last pickpocket skill), but if you steal his arrows and replace it with daedric he will continuously shoot daedric arrows at the practice dummy. Allowing you to just collect them infinitely.

IDK if the archers in the Cistern sleep, but you can pickpocket and reverse pickpocket the guards in Castle Dour while they sleep if you don't have Misdirection.

They do sleep, but it's dark enough in there that if you have a decent sneak skill you can just squat in the corner near the grindstone and steal from them. If not wait till they sleep or until they walk to a secluded area.

Btw the rataway cistern archer shoots 1 arrow every 1-2 seconds. The guards in Markareth shoot one every 4-10 seconds. So I always go to the cistern.

I figured they probably did. I just meant that if someone who doesn't have Misdirection wants to do the arrow duplication thing they'll have to wait for the archers to sleep when they unequip their arrows.

If I were you, I'd hold off on finishing the Thieves' Guild quests if you want the bow from it. Once you're level 46, I believe it turns out to be one of the most powerful bows in the game. Before that, it will remain less than a Daedric bow.