Monster attacks

[kartoffelgratin]

This might be the wrong place to post but I couldnt find a suitable sub-forum. Anyways I noticed that in BG2EE some monsters (notably Ettercaps or Wyverns, dont use/ use their poison attacks very rarely (might be some trigger that makes them switch weapons ?). I did load up BG1EE after that to check if the issue has something to do with the extended editions but everything is working fine in BG1EE.

Could this issue be mod-related ? To me it seems like these monsters did "forget" to use their posion/etc. attacks - seeing as some of them have 2 weapons in their inventory with different damage values and/or effects each.

Edit: Seems like it was just me being lucky when I fired up BG1EE; after some additional testing it looks like its the same for both games. Adding the monsters to my party via Ctrl+Q shows that they have weapons assigned to them at random - is this the expected behaviour ?

Edited October 12, 2019 by kartoffelgratin

[ABlake]

You can check their creature files and see what scripts they're using. The scripts that make them switch weapons are ETTERCAP.BCS and WYVERN.BCS. If these scripts are there, then they should still switch weapons.

AFAIK, no mods change these scripts because there's just no reason to. For the ettercap, ETTERCAP is the only script it uses, so its behavior should be exactly the same. The wyvern may get an enhanced melee combat script from SCS, because it also uses WTASIGHT.BCS (basic melee combat script) in vanilla, which may be replaced by SCS.

1 hour ago, kartoffelgratin said:

Adding the monsters to my party via Ctrl+Q shows that they have weapons assigned to them at random - is this the expected behaviour ?

They have claws (crushing, no poison) equipped by default, but when they see an enemy, they may switch to the tail (piercing, poison). When you add one to your party, it might have already switched, or maybe it didn't. The EE adds an extra block of code to their scripts that makes them switch weapons when they're spawned and periodically (with same probabilities) when they're idle. In the original games they only switch weapons in combat, when they see an enemy.

 

 

[DavidW]

Underlying this is a slightly awkward feature of the adaptation of AD&D rules to BG. In AD&D, the wyvern gets (something like) a bite attack and a tail-sting attack. BG1 implements this by randomly shifting between the two.

[kartoffelgratin]

Thanks for your replies guys !

Quote

When you add one to your party, it might have already switched, or maybe it didn't. The EE adds an extra block of code to their scripts that makes them switch weapons when they're spawned and periodically (with same probabilities) when they're idle.

This might be what I was looking for; I did all of my tests with summoned monsters attacking allies (needed something that doesnt fight back + doesnt die in 2 hits).

[Jarno Mikkola]

2 hours ago, DavidW said:

Underlying this is a slightly awkward feature of the adaptation of AD&D rules to BG. In AD&D, the wyvern gets (something like) a bite attack and a tail-sting attack. BG1 implements this by randomly shifting between the two.

Honestly, in total game effect, in my opinion, it would be easier to just summing up the total damage and cut it up in half.

It's not like the trolls get total damage immunity from physical attacks when they go dow... ouh that happened, and now we have modified and never dying critters caused by it. While, If: the Damage Over Time effects would have stacked: a properly set/balanced Regeneration would have worked way better.

..so this is why the wyverns never were able to poison me in BG2&BGT.

[ABlake]

2 hours ago, kartoffelgratin said:

This might be what I was looking for; I did all of my tests with summoned monsters attacking allies (needed something that doesnt fight back + doesnt die in 2 hits).

I actually didn't look at the summoned ones. My installation has both Spell Revisions and SCS and was made a long time ago, so it gets a bit more complicated, because both mods modified the summoned wyvern.

I'm not sure about your game as I don't have a modded EE and the SCS I'm using is a fairly old version. In unmodded game the summoned wyvern still has the script WYVERN.BCS, but its scripts may be replaced by SCS with an enhanced script which probably preserves the weapon switching behavior. Without WYVERN.BCS, however, your summoned wyvern will (probably) only switch weapon in combat when it sees an enemy. If you're just having it attack party members and there's no enemy around, it won't switch. As I said, you will need to look at the creature file and see what scripts it is using to confirm how things work.