Hm, my understanding was that the elemental rods were supposed to work on any stack of ammunition, be it thrown or shot, so I'm curious as well.
Flame weapon maxes out at 1d4+8, or 9-12 points of damage and that is from a level 40 caster. I know you and your brother have characters that hit that upper limit, and there are a handful of other casters who have, but 99% of this server (myself included) will likely never see bonuses like that.
Tralek's Flame Weapon does 8-11 fire damage, Connor's does 9-12....Welcome to the 1%Club! *grins*
When we're talking about the "balance" of putting elemental on axes..well that's a pretty complex discussion with many different angles on builds, spells and items. That said, I don't think discussing Arcane Archer is too far fetched. "Vs" Damage also need to come in, because you can get 2d8 and it can be negative damage. If you know your enemy, its pretty easy to select the right arrow. I think it all needs to be thrown into the mash-pit.
I agree the constant damage from uncapped mighty of axes is better than a dice roll, but bows can get up to +4 mighty as well. Add that to all the bow dice rolls, and well it out matches the axes damage wise.
As an aside, if you're going to put 18 pts of str at start up and go all str after, good luck hitting anything with your axes based on your dex score.
Shields don't really help much at range, but are nice once the enemy closes. Both an axe wielder and a bow guy can "put their shields up" and sword once it gets mele. I don't see it as a one-sided thing in favor of axe throwers.
Not trying to be picky but one of your comparisons is flawed D. In comparing two level 1 characters one with 18 STR and tossing axes. This IS possible in Layo. But a level 1 using a Hickory bow with Mighty 3 is not. Mighty 3 would elevate the level to equip of the Hickory bow far beyond level 1. In that respect it isnt a fair comparison for the Layo module.I swear Im not looking for a fight here... just saying this comparison is not possible within Layo.
A Level 1 Fighter built as an archer could likewise pick up a Hickory Longbow but adding Mighty +3 to that bow means the archer can't use it until level 5...
Why not start out with a across the board weight reduction and stack increase. Id recommend doing a 60% reduction and double the stacks to 100. For all thrown axes. .