Just trying to get some thoughts on this for a fantasy campaign.

Core rules, if a character with a bow is engaged by an enemy, on the character's turn he can perform a Maneuver to disengage and then his Action to shoot (say with a bow) without penalty. On the enemy's turn, he can re-engage and attack but on each successive character turn he can repeat the original sequence to continue to shoot at the previously engaged target without penalty.

Is that correct? (by the book).

My take on it is to give an attacker Advantage when attacking a target with no weapons to defend with (unless he has some other way to 'defend'..terrain, allies, etc). Or should people be able to continuously use a bow in melee without penalty in your opinion?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

By the book that is correct. This jockeying for position, song-and-dance routine isn't uncommon.

Remember that if they spend their free manoeuvre to move they're not doing anything else with it, like aiming or using a talent (rapid archery or dual strike come to mind). The rules work well as they are and this specific thing was brought up several times on the SWRPG boards. Considering this rule hasn't changed (like a few others have) it's safe to assume it's on purpose.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a bow can be used to defend oneself in melee—it's a large, treated length of thick wood. To quote Penny from RWBY : "It's combat ready!"

If your players (or NPCs!) are using this back-and-forth thing, that's where spending comes into play. There's a terrain feature that prevents it. There's difficulty terrain which makes it harder. You can back up, but you'll have your back to a wall (adds to their next check), etc. The mechanics feed the narrative which feeds the mechanics. It's not a one or the other situation. Also, take a look at the Grapple talent in RoT (page 88). It costs 2 manoeuvres to disengage from a grappler.

OK, thanks for the input. Sounds like story and setting should take care of some of it and the rest should be good to leave as is.

This actually reminds me of a strip from Order of the Stick :

Yup! Pretty perfect lol. I remember those days in D&D 3.0 (and 3.5)....

But all silliness aside, it was a HUGE step forward mechanically over the incoherent mess that was D&D 1.0 and 1.5 lol. Don't get me wrong, I played every version of D&D to death going back to the 1970s but they were just a rules nightmare when you look back on it now.