I wouldn’t be inclined to penalize an archer for firing his bow whilst being attacked in melee, but because of the minimum six-foot missile range, in most cases the archer must be firing at a target other than his attacker.

Teramond wrote:

So you can shoot with a bow at 3/2 rate while you are in melee, but you can only attack enemies you are not in melee with?

In my games, an archer in melee introduces significant situational considerations particularly dependent on relative positioning. He can't fire at someone going toe-to-toe with him (too close), but I suppose it's possible that he could fire at another combatant farther away. I'd probably make him choose: does he want a penalty to AC or to hit? I might throw a DEX test into the mix too, who knows. If he's totally surrounded, then yeah, the bow's basically useless, he's not attacking anyone. Anyway, my players tend to use bows only at a distance and then switch to melee weapons when in close-quarters combat, so it's ultimately academic for me. Never actually been an in-game issue.

Teramond wrote:

But what is the basic rule?  It is not clear from the rule book. It is possible to get an answer from the inventor?

Why would you need somebody else to tell you how it should be? I assume you are GM,  if so just make a ruling and stick to it, if you're a player ask your GM about it.

For me it's: bows and thrown weapons - nope.
Light crossbows - ok as long as it's loaded. Hand crossbows - obviously yes. Both with -2 penalty.
Heavy crossbows - I guess its heavily circumstantial, so I'd stick to "no, but..."

Also from my conversation with a bowman, I recall him saying sth that at 5ft the arrow has basically zero power, it gains it when accelerating.

What's cool about games like AS&SH is that rules are light and it's up to DM to determine a lot of stuff. And thanks to that we can discuss a lot of stuff.
 

Blackadder23 wrote:

I probably wouldn't allow it at all except under very unusual circumstances. It seems to abuse the spirit of the rule IMO.

I would agree with this. 

I use the same rule as casting in combat: archer gets -2 AC, and attack is ruined if struck before firing (with expenditure of ammo).