I just like to chime in and thank the people explaining how archery works. There have been a lot of good explanations in this thread, and I now fully understand the difference between Dexterity and Perception. In my first play-through I over-focused on Dexterity. Now I can create a more balanced build for my archer.
I will probably be shot for the statement below, but I am trying just the same. The following simplified formula is applied when calculating a chance to hit a target:
MaxInnateChanceToHit is your absolute maximum chance to hit without taking care of any modifiers. It is like standing next to a door and shooting arrows at it. This number depends on the character sheet of your PC and nothing else. Moreover, it is not affected by Perception since its effect is built into the Modifiers section of the formula.
Modifiers are all the situational effects that have to be taken into consideration before the actual hit chance can be calculated. The range penalty is one of them. It can be reduced by increasing Perception. Environment factors, like smoke, etc. is another one. Your offensive rating and the enemy's defensive rating is another one.
ActualChanceToHitTarget is the actual chance that your arrow hit when you fire the arrow. This is the number the game displays on the enemy when you hover your mouse over it.
To me the discussion in this thread only makes some kind of sense to me if tx3000 is taking about MaxInnateChanceToHit, while the rest of you are talking about ActualChanceToHitTarget.
