Does IR Remove Strength Bonus from Throwing Weapons?

[haze]

I didn't see it mentioned in the ReadME, but I am trying to track down what mod removed the strength bonus to throwing weapons. I wasn't sure if this is one of the "fixes" in the main component. If not any idea which of these mods would have removed it?

• Ascension
• IWDification
• Item Revisions
• Spell Revisions
• Song & Silence
• Rogue Rebalancing
• SCS
• Tweak Anthology
• EE Tweaks
• Subtle D Item Tweaks **I skipped the Functional Weapon Tweaks component on newest install

[jmerry]

I'm pretty sure what's going on is that Item Revisions (and Spell Revisions) are based on pre-EE material - and they copy their resources in, overriding the base game versions rather than modifying them. The EE has a flag for weapons (actually, the "melee attack" and "ranged attack" abilities) to grant the strength bonus to damage without also granting the strength bonus to hit. This is used for throwing weapons and slings. Non-EE games don't have that flag as an option. So those pre-EE throwing weapons get copied in, and they don't get bonus damage from strength on their ranged attacks.

[haze]

11 hours ago, jmerry said:

I'm pretty sure what's going on is that Item Revisions (and Spell Revisions) are based on pre-EE material - and they copy their resources in, overriding the base game versions rather than modifying them. The EE has a flag for weapons (actually, the "melee attack" and "ranged attack" abilities) to grant the strength bonus to damage without also granting the strength bonus to hit. This is used for throwing weapons and slings. Non-EE games don't have that flag as an option. So those pre-EE throwing weapons get copied in, and they don't get bonus damage from strength on their ranged attacks.

Thanks @jmerry. Looks like your assumption was correct. I did a fresh install and only installed the main component from IR and indeed thee strength bonus to throwing weapons (tested with dagger) is missing. Is there a "simple" fix or bypass I can do or do I just have to skip the main component?

Edited November 23, 2023 by haze

[Chitown Willie]

"Is there a "simple" fix"

How about the "Tweaks and Tricks" mod, specifically:

Throwing weapons damage type

In BG2, all throwing weapons does missile (piercing) damage. Including axes, and even hammers. Also both axes and hammers are missing strength bonus. This was likely done for balance purposes, but seems a bit silly.

This component allows to:

1. Make axes and hammers do slashing and blunt damage, respectively.
2. And/or add strength bonus to axes and hammers. In Classic, strength bonus will be applied to both THAC0 and damage (engine limitation). In EEs, just damage bonus will be granted.

[haze]

1 hour ago, Chitown Willie said:

"Is there a "simple" fix"

How about the "Tweaks and Tricks" mod, specifically:

Throwing weapons damage type

In BG2, all throwing weapons does missile (piercing) damage. Including axes, and even hammers. Also both axes and hammers are missing strength bonus. This was likely done for balance purposes, but seems a bit silly.

This component allows to:

1. Make axes and hammers do slashing and blunt damage, respectively.
2. And/or add strength bonus to axes and hammers. In Classic, strength bonus will be applied to both THAC0 and damage (engine limitation). In EEs, just damage bonus will be granted.

Thanks. I had never seen that mod before. Unfortunately, it only affects axes and hammers. I did see some other useful components of the mod though.

[subtledoctor]

17 hours ago, Chitown Willie said:

BG2, all throwing weapons does missile (piercing) damage. Including axes, and even hammers. Also both axes and hammers are missing strength bonus. This was likely done for balance purposes, but seems a bit silly.

Was not for balance but for functional purposes. In PnP there is no such thing as missile damage type. In BG2 it us not so much used as a “damage type” as to simply identify which attacks are ranged attacks. E.g. there might be some enemy that is unusually hard to hit with ranged attacks. If you set thrown hammers to do blunt damage, how would the game engine be able to distinguish a thrown hammer from a melee hammer attack? 

tl;dr here: “damage type” is meant to signify the method of delivery - not something about the damage itself. 

As far as the EEs adding STR bonuses to thrown weapons: it seems ridiculous to me that they made such a large and arbitrary balance change to the games. I can’t see any reason for it, and at the very least they should have undone oBG2’s weird half-measures like throwing daggers with double base damage. 

tl;dr here: IR items act normally, the EE games came along after IR and made unexplained changes and you are used to those changes. But maybe try it the old way, you might find it is as fun or moreso. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Graion Dilach]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

As far as the EEs adding STR bonuses to thrown weapons: it seems ridiculous to me that they made such a large and arbitrary balance change to the games. I can’t see any reason for it, and at the very least they should have undone oBG2’s weird half-measures like throwing daggers with double base damage. 

Actually, almost all classic thrown axes/hammers has the strength bonus flag enabled on their ranged attack, EE's only balance change on these is that they disabled providing the THAC0 bonus via splitting the flag into two. (While Azuredge and the AX1H05 throwing axe are missing the flag on their ranged attack in classic, these are fixed in BG2 Fixpack and also got the str damage flag set in EE).

[subtledoctor]

I don’t think STR bonuses are unreasonable on axes and hammers. It even kind if makes sense for them to have to-hit bonuses for strength. But daggers and darts are a different story. 

[Graion Dilach]

Only daggers then (indeed, this was changed by EEs), darts lack strength bonus in all versions I checked.

[haze]

It probably does make sense that daggers don't have the bonus added from a balance perspective. With that said, most people running EE would assume that the bonus is there. So, maybe just a note in the readme under weapons changes because it isn't listed in the readme or in the item index post in the forum. People installing might want to be aware ahead of time. 

[subtledoctor]

Problem being, the last time the Readme was updated might have been before the EEs were released