Nimbul wielding throwing axe instead of his short sword +1

[marco_costa]

Didn't find a bug report thread, so I'm hoping just creating a topic is appropriate:

I'm playing a new EET install, thought this was a tad weird, I'm not sure SCS is to blame, just assuming that it has something to do with what creatures decide to equip based on their inventory.

Is it a bug?

WeiDU.logWeiDU-BGEE.log

[subtledoctor]

Huh. I saw he dropped throwing axes, but I didn't know if it was incorrect, or simply his preferred missile weapon. But I can at least confirm I see that same in my (rather heavily modded) EET game.

[tomasz86]

His original equipment should be as below.

[marco_costa]

oh no, he dropped the correct equipment. the screenshot is misleading because I had already looted the magical stuff when I took it. my bad.

[jmerry]

Nimbul, in the base game, starts out wielding his throwing axes. And his weapon-using combat script is WTARSGT, a standard "prefer ranged" script (He also has a mage script to cast spells). He talks to you at range, and engages immediately. He has axe proficiency. Using those throwing axes is definitely intended.

When you close on him, he'll switch to melee. That's a "MostDamagingMelee()" check, which I really don't trust to actually pick the most damaging weapon. And based on my experience with player characters and the "prefer ranged"/"prefer melee" options in that AI, it seems to particularly like the melee mode on throwing weapons. Korgan chooses the Rifthome Axe (1d6+3) over Frostreaver (1d8+3+elemental) every time.

In Nimbul's case, choosing between a throwing axe that deals 1d6+1 damage when used in melee and a +1 short sword that does 1d6+1 damage in melee with an additional +1 to hit? It's a tossup, and it appears the game goes with the dumb choice.

Class-wise, Nimbul is a mage/thief. Which shouldn't be able to use throwing axes at all, but non-party characters ignore the rules all the time. Maybe it would make more sense to turn him into a bard, but even SCS doesn't do that.

You mentioned SCS, and SCS makes the combat scripting considerably more complicated. But it still has that "MostDamagingMelee()" action at the core when choosing a melee option.

[marco_costa]

Ah, thanks for that explanation. So there's nothing in the code to make him switch to a backstabbing weapon when invisible, then?

[subtledoctor]

53 minutes ago, jmerry said:

In Nimbul's case, choosing between a throwing axe that deals 1d6+1 damage when used in melee and a +1 short sword that does 1d6+1 damage in melee with an additional +1 to hit? It's a tossup

I don't think those axes have a melee mode... which means using them in melee is using a missile weapon in melee range, which subjects someone to MAJOR penalties.

I don't know if Nimbul actually does that. He has always dropped 20 throwing axes for me, which means he has not used any. Which is good.

[marco_costa]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't think those axes have a melee mode... which means using them in melee is using a missile weapon in melee range, which subjects someone to MAJOR penalties.

I don't know if Nimbul actually does that. He has always dropped 20 throwing axes for me, which means he has not used any. Which is good.

Well, in my screenshot he dropped 20 throwing axes and I got the message that he used a weapon that can't backstab, so the melee mode must work for him?

[jmerry]

Thief combat scripts in SCS have code for "I'm invisible, I should backstab". There's no code to choose a backstab-capable weapon, and indeed no easy scripting to figure out if a weapon is backstab-capable. It just uses that usual "EquipMostDamagingMelee()" action to switch, and assumes that a thief would be given a backstab-capable weapon.

Non-magical throwing axes do indeed have a melee mode. Same average damage as a battle axe, but faster and unbreakable. They're the most damaging unbreakable non-magical melee weapons you can get in the early game.