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The longbow damage is actually the arrow damage, as 2d6 is high damage for clubbing someone with a bit of wood.
There are some recent chats about different arrows, and I think Prysus did some if you wanted to look.
However if you wanted to use the longbow could i suggest playing one of the females of the Fayd family from the Seven Sisters on the Shadow Coast. Very few people seem to have noticed them and they are a little better at bow usage than most, and are still northerners, but human.

What is said in the LoB book is a Total.
GMs can be infer that a Master Fletcher (Northern Hinterlands 169 & 170 for the OCC, someone that makes arrows) can become so skilled that they can add a damage bonus to their arrows. Like how skilled blade-smiths can add bonuses to their products (PF RPG 2n ed Core book page 271 & 272.)

You should check out the Raw Edition of Lopan (get while you can) because the book has non magical specialized arrows and lots of "new Long Bows". At
this time, I can neither confirm nor deny all these weapons will make it into the final version Island of Lopan but I'm feeling very confident.

Well, I asked a version of this question regarding magic enhancements. The consensus was the same. Enchanting the bow is worthless. You need the arrows enchanted. Although, the bow might give you a bonus to strike. Of course, enchanting things is expensive so doing it to arrows is going to break the bank. With SDC and all the physical skills/racial abilities that provide SDC, arrows are much less helpful. Even the frightening longbow does an ave.rage of 7 damage per hit, 10-11 for giant sized. Compare that with something as simple as a Dwarven Battle Axe, which does 15-18 with no worry about ammunition. That's also assuming no PS bonus and not using a double attack with Paired Weapons. Cyclops arrows are quite powerful, but good luck finding one.

-Vek
"Ditch SDC and arrows are worth it."

Veknironth wrote:Well, I asked a version of this question regarding magic enhancements. The consensus was the same. Enchanting the bow is worthless. You need the arrows enchanted. Although, the bow might give you a bonus to strike. Of course, enchanting things is expensive so doing it to arrows is going to break the bank. With SDC and all the physical skills/racial abilities that provide SDC, arrows are much less helpful. Even the frightening longbow does an ave.rage of 7 damage per hit, 10-11 for giant sized. Compare that with something as simple as a Dwarven Battle Axe, which does 15-18 with no worry about ammunition. That's also assuming no PS bonus and not using a double attack with Paired Weapons. Cyclops arrows are quite powerful, but good luck finding one.

-Vek
"Ditch SDC and arrows are worth it."

You are correct sir

Arrows do no damage by the book, and clubbing people to death with the bow seems to be the way to go

But the fact that you can hit people from 600ft away on a 5+ with poisoned arrows is fairly effective in open field combat, or if its a longbowman on a horse.

2D6+2

Smiling_Bandit wrote:Standard longbow does 2D6 damage with run of the mill arrows. In Library of Bletherad, pg. 65 a NPC buys special arrows (2D6+2) to use in conjunction with his longbow. Would it be an additive situation? 2D6 base damage, plus the 2D6+2 for a total of 4D6+2 per shot? Or would you just take the higher arrow damage and inflict 2D6+2 per shot? 4D6+2 seems fairly high given that is in the range of enchanted weapons, or even lesser rune weapons.

As others have said the damage is for the arrow.

Now Megaversally I can point you toward a few bow weapons that alter the arrow damage from the standard that can hit harder, but those bows are going to require exotic (for PF) construction and a high PS score:
-Steeltree Bows in Rifts WB26 require a normal PS of 21 , and when firing non-steeltree arrow shafts do 4d6 SDC as they shatter on impact (they do MD with Steeltree shafts in Rifts).
-Larhold Barbarian Bows in Rifts WB9 will do damage based on SN Punch Damage, which using the PF SN Punch Table starts doing more damage than a regular bow in the 21 or better range.
-Rifts Spirit West has a manufactured Pulley Augmented Bow that specifically adds extra damage to bows (they shatter on impact) due to the high string draw weight (reduced from 35 to 21 due to pulley). Now technically pulley technology should not be out of the setting's technological reach, but the idea adapting it to bows might not have occurred to them (IINM it's a 20th Century innovation in the real world).

Megaversally it should be noted that Rifts Japan has enchantment options for Bows (one option alters the damage, some GM tinkering might be required for this to work in PF), for those interested see the Zen Masters Bows (WB8 or BoM). You also have enchanted arrows (along with non-enchanted Japanese trick arrows that trade damage for "sonic effects") in addition to various types, the explosive arrow could be duplicated in PF with the right materials (I know they exist I just forget the name off hand that are exploding rocks). There is also the class of Magic Tattoos for archery and Biomancy's Energy Bow both lost magical arts in the Palladium world (technically the Tattoos category in question appears to be a more recent development). Dragons and Gods has Dragon Bone arrows that do more damage than baseline and fly farther (but are super expensive).