Just a couple of miscellaneous points. First, an arrow wound is generally less deadly than, say, a sword wound in terms of killing you instantly, I think.  Even if its arguable which is deadlier, they both can do it. A sword and an arrow can both kill you in one hit.  That doesn\'t mean it\'s fun to have in the game. Dieing in one hit generally isn\'t fun for the players.
  Just a little clarification, when the arrow leaves the bow its moving at its maximum speed in almost any case. The exceptions are if air friction is somehow negative or if the arrow has some sort of mechanism propelling it forward, such as a rocket engine tied to the back of it.
  Another point, the major drawback of the bow is that it\'s totally ineffective in melee. Readying the arrow, pulling back the string, aiming the bow, and releasing all takes a little time, and its made much more difficult by an axe swinging at your head. Extensive dodging of attacks would probably knock the arrow out of the bow and you\'d need to start all over again. Additionally, using a bow leaves you almost totally vulnerable to attacks since you can\'t hold a shield and you can\'t deflect attacks with the bow (at least not without moving your grip and losing any ability to fire the weapon). While dodging attacks is certainly possible, its not easy and if you have no way of defending yourself your foe will be able to throw themselves at you.  In olden days, archers generally carried at least a short sword of some sort so that when the enemy got close they could throw down their bow and have some sort of effective method of continuing to fight. An exception is the mongolian archers who, since they were riding on horseback were able to keep out of range of enemy attacks in most situations.