Concerning launchers that require no ammo

[Guest Ecoris]

I experience a bug with lauchers that require no ammunition (bows, xbows and slings). I've gote SoA+ToB.

Mods:

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods

// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod

// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #0 // BG2 Fixpack - Core Fixes

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #1 // BG2 Fixpack - Game Text Update

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #101 // Improved Spell Animations

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #104 // Ghreyfain's Holy Symbol Fixes

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #105 // Additional Hero Quests in Trademeet Wait Until Hero is Officially Named

~BG2FIXPACK/SETUP-BG2FIXPACK.TP2~ #0 #109 // Corrected Summoned Demon Behavior

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #50 // Avatar Morphing Script

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #60 // Weapon Animation Tweaks

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #80 // Restore SoA Load Screen Logo (ToB Only)

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #90 // Disable Portrait Icons Added by Equipped Items

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #1170 // Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash)

~BG2_TWEAKS/SETUP-BG2_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #3150 // Turn Off The Hideous Cloak-of-Mirroring and Spell-Trap Animation

 

The problem: With no-ammo launchers you can still equip ammunition if you do that after selecting the launcher. The damages of the two projectiles (i.e. the one created and the 'real' one) are cumulative.

(E.g. a bolt of lightning fired from Firetooth +5 deals 2d8+5 missile, 2d4 lightning (no save), 2d4 lightning (save negates all), and finally 2 points of fire damage in that order. Another example is the Short bow of Gesen. Equipped with acid arrows it deals 2 + 1d6+1 missile, 1d3 acid and finally 1d8 electrical damage. The animation will also change when firing. You no longer see the slow lightning bolts but the normal arrow animation, which means the projectiles are faster).

 

Furthermore, I've discovered that in general, the penalties of being non-proficient with a launcher equipped with ammo do NOT apply.

 

Elves don't get the +1 THAC0 bonus when using bows that require no ammo (unless they actively equip ammo). The bonus seems to apply to arrows?

 

The sling of Everard only deals 1d4+2 points of damage depsite its description.

 

The Erinne sling +5 adds the strength bonus to damage.

[Nythrun]

In the description of, for example, Tansheron's Short Bow +3, you'll find:

Note: avoid equipping normal arrows on your character, else the bow will fire these instead of the phantom arrows.

 

So it's not a bug that you can do this - whether or not the cumulativity of the damage is intentional is another matter, but it's not something that can be changed.

 

/edit

Yes, elven thac0 bonus doesn't show on the character record - what you're seeing when you equip ammo is the bow's thac0 bonus, which is not updated on the character record if you've not equipped any ammo.

/edit

 

Sling of Everard description:

Damage: +2 (missile damage)

There's some discussion in this thread about the implementation, if you're suggesting that the damage needs to be 1d4+3.

 

The Erinne Sling doesn't allow strength bonus in the unmodded game, but magical sling bullets do. Fixpack however has already caught and fixed these - which sling bullets were you using?

[Miloch]

In the description of, for example, Tansheron's Short Bow +3, you'll find:

Note: avoid equipping normal arrows on your character, else the bow will fire these instead of the phantom arrows.

So it's not a bug that you can do this - whether or not the cumulativity of the damage is intentional is another matter, but it's not something that can be changed.

Huh. I'm working on some items like this and never considered this. Couldn't you replace the quiver slots with invisible unremovable items while the non-ammo bow is equipped? That seems kind of clumsy but still... there's got to be some way of managing it, since the items I'm working on would definitely be overpowered if stacked with other ammunition.

[Nythrun]

You can use the create item in slot opcode, but that's an instantanious effect (i.e., using a duration of while equipped won't help). What you'd want to do is have the presence of the inviso-undroppo-stuff be synchronized to the equipping of the item - and that doesn't work so well. If you specify no limited duration your dummy items are permanent (bad!) and if you specify a limited duration it's almost certainly going to be wrong

 

This sort of thing doesn't work especially well when scripted either, as a fairly necessary scripting action is defective. You can work around this by using continuous slot checks, but that's one of the laggiest things you can do in the game (and player scripts stop running when the a.i. lantern is off, and you really, really don't want to be adding this stuff to baldur.bcs)

 

When you're making items from scratch, you do have the option of a secondary header that makes an arbitrarily large stack of ammunition whenever used, and then divide the special properties between the launcher and the ammo so neither is too crazy when combined with other pieces of kit (I've used this one myself though it's perhaps only the least of several evils)

 

This is, unfortunately, just not a very moddable subset of the infinity engine.

[Guest Ecoris]

Sling of Everard:

STATISTICS:

 

The bullets produced by this sling are always considered to be of +5 enchantment when determining what they can hit.

Equipped Ability: does not require bullets

THAC0: +5 bonus

Damage: 1D4 + 3 (+2 bonus missile damage)

 

I see now that it's supposed to deal 1d4+3 points of damage and the "(+2 bonus missile damage)" is just a explanation of how the +3 are composed (i.e. bullet: 1d4+1, bonus: +2). It only deals 1d4+2.

(The correction in the linked thread that suggests setting it's damage to 1d5+2 should of course have been 1d6+2, since 1d6+2 = 2-8 while 1d4+3 = 3-7). I think the damage should be corrected to 1d4 +3. One is not supposed to equip ammo, and shouldn't do so.

 

I still feel that equipping ammo on no-ammo launchers that causes the damage from the 'real' projectile to stack with the damage from the 'created' projectile is an exploit, and that it's clearly a bug. (Like acid arrows fired from the Gesen short bow, dealing 2+1d8 from the lightning arrow and also 1d6+1 + 1d3 from the acid arow). Gesen bow and firetooth+4/5 become too overpowered this way and I don't think it's intentional. Is there any way of correcting this, i.e. disabling option of equipping projectiles?

 

Tasheron's bow: It fires phantom arrows (1d6). If you equip any normal arrows the damage from those are cumulative; if you equip unenchanted arrows (arow01) it deals 2d6 points of damage.

 

Perhaps the game-makers intended that no-ammo launchers could be used as 'normal' launchers too, but that the damages stack is certainly not intentional. One of these two should be fixed: Disabling the ability to equip normal ammo for no-ammo launchers, or: making the damage non-cumulative.

 

 

The Erinne Sling and the strngth bonus to damage: I tested it again.

Level 7 figther, non-proficient in slings, str = 19, dex = 18. Equips Erinne sling +5 and bag of plenty +2. Base THAC0 is 14, THAC0 is 5. THACO bonuses: dex gives +2, sling gives +5, bullers give +2; total of +9. APR = 5/2.

Observed damages: 16,17,18,19. This indicates that str bonus is added. 1d4+3 (bullet +2) +5 (sling bonus) +7 (str bonus) gives a total of 1d4+15 which is indeed 16-19.

After that I tried equipping unenchanted bullets (bull01), now the str bonus was not added. Same result with bullets +1. Apparently there is a bug with the bag of plenty +2.

 

 

Notice that the character does not suffer the usual penalties of being non-proficient. Warriors should lose their +1/2 APR gained at levels 7 and 13 and a 2 point THAC0 penalty should be applied. This is not the case above, and in general:

The penalties from being non-proficient with the weapon used does not apply for missile launchers that have projectiles equipped. Non-ammo launchers that are not using ammo from the quiver slots will apply the correct penalties. Actively equipping ammo removes the penalties.

 

This is clearly a bug.

 

 

I shall also repeat what I wrote in my first post: Elves don't get the +1 THAC0 bonus when using bows that require no ammo (unless they actively equip ammo). You seemed to misunderstand this, Nythrun. I was adressing no-ammo bows. Elves can equip these and shoot with them, but they don't get the usual +1 THAC0 bonus their race gives them. If they use bows together with normal arrows they DO get it. It has nothing to do with the bow's THAC0 bonus. An example: an elf eqiups the short bow of gesen. Now a stack of arrows are placed in a quiver slot. The bow now fires these and THAC0 drops by 1.

[Nythrun]

The original description of the sling of Everard says 1d4+2 ; it's being changed because the Fixpack's game text update is based on Kevin Dorner's Baldurdash GTU and there are still some instances where he changed things based on criteria the Fixpack authors's don't agree with, but the description changes haven't been reverted - this is one such.

 

It really does say 1d4+2 in the unmodded game, and Fixpack isn't changing its damage - and I'll nag CamDawg to remove this spurious change, promise

 

There really is nothing to be done about the way ammuntion and launchers stack, I'm afraid. It's possible that whoever coded ammunition-optional launchers forgot how the engine worked while coding them and remembered while coding all of the other missile weapons - though I think it's more likely that they simply didn't care too much. If there's an integer bonus or an attached effect, it stacks - which is necessary for composite long bows to give +1 to hit, and for any magic bows to give a damage bonus. The ugly hacks that are possible to trick the engine out of working in the usual way come with severe disadvantages and would be worse bugs than what's there already - assuming that the usual behavior is in fact a bug (Bioware's timetable for this game was RUSHRUSHRUSH, and they didn't spend inordinate amounts of time agonizing over balance ).

 

Same result with bullets +1. Apparently there is a bug with the bag of plenty +2.

That's why I asked The bags of plenty (quiver05 and quiver06) do in fact allow strength bonus - this is definately fixable and should be added to next version, good catch. Though there probably ought to be one more round of discussion about whether or not it's intentional while CamDawg's still on holiday.

 

The penalties from being non-proficient with the weapon used does not apply for missile launchers that have projectiles equipped. Non-ammo launchers that are not using ammo from the quiver slots will apply the correct penalties. Actively equipping ammo removes the penalties.

 

This is clearly a bug.

Yes, and the elven racial bonus isn't going to show up either in these circumstances, it's updated on the character record in quite the same way as non-proficiency penalties.

 

This is all hardcoded; there's really not much we can do with ammunition-optional items.

[Nythrun]

Forgot to mention, by the way, that you may need to un-equip re-equip this kind of launcher to make the character record display correctly, so double check your numbers if you've been swapping ammunition in and out.

 

If this really, really bugs you, you can change the field "is arrow?" in the item's ability header to make it stop using arrows - the item will then have no equipped animation and will look like you're throwing the arrows

[underdog]

Doesn't the elven +1 only apply to long bows? I seem to remember that from the PnP days, all the bows you mentioned were short bows.

the only ammoless long bows was the one in the bottom of WK, or heartseeker upgraded with IU.

[devSin]

The ugly hacks that are possible to trick the engine out of working in the usual way come with severe disadvantages and would be worse bugs than what's there already - assuming that the usual behavior is in fact a bug (Bioware's timetable for this game was RUSHRUSHRUSH, and they didn't spend inordinate amounts of time agonizing over balance ).

I don't think it was that frantic until they realized they had to actually ship something. Then came the great purge of content and a bout of polish to stuff they had already finished, with a good length of string to tie all the brokenness together.

 

Remember, almost everybody was already working on Neverwinter Nights when they started SoA.

 

That's why I asked The bags of plenty (quiver05 and quiver06) do in fact allow strength bonus - this is definately fixable and should be added to next version, good catch. Though there probably ought to be one more round of discussion about whether or not it's intentional while CamDawg's still on holiday.

It's not intentional. And I must have fixed this locally years ago. Huzzah!

 

This is all hardcoded; there's really not much we can do with ammunition-optional items.

This applies to almost all of the issues here. I agree it's not the best behavior, but there isn't anything we can do about it.

[Nythrun]

Doesn't the elven +1 only apply to long bows? I seem to remember that from the PnP days, all the bows you mentioned were short bows.

the only ammoless long bows was the one in the bottom of WK, or heartseeker upgraded with IU.

 

Nope. They get +1 to hit with short bows too, and with at least some short swords for that matter. Ask me if it's something we can change, and I'll give you an answer you won't like

 

It's not intentional. And I must have fixed this locally years ago. Huzzah!

 

I see. You have gathered this...evidence?

 

While I'm surely not certain this is intentional, it's a little odd to be changing something that was handled in an entirely consistent way (all magical bullets allow strength bonus to damage, and no arrows do) when the description of the Sling of Seeking could be changed to

The Sling of Seeking applies a strength bonus to the damage it inflicts, even when using unenchanted bullets. *

and the items left alone. The fact that Kevin Dorner did it the other way is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition

 

I'm sure the bags will be promply changed.

 

Remember, almost everybody was already working on Neverwinter Nights when they started SoA.

 

At least we'll always have NWN to make up for a stunted development cycle! This is my glomp-dance of joy, look closely or you'll miss it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* "the Sling of Seeking is capable of throwing stones" has to be one of the best lines in an item description ever. Oh, that's what a sling is for! I thought you were supposed to tie it around your neck and pull on the ends until everything starts making sense! Razzlefrazzin'....

[devSin]

I see. You have gathered this...evidence?

IIRC, that only the sling of seeking grants any sort of sling/bullet strength bonus was actually one of the things that got the TRUE stamp from teh BioWare.

 

In any case, the stupidest errors were usually the ones they allowed to propagate to every file they modified. Just because the graphics for every single bow in the game were wrong doesn't mean that they in any way intended it.

 

I'm sure the bags will be promply changed.

Correct. Don't tell Baronius!

[Miloch]

There really is nothing to be done about the way ammunition and launchers stack, I'm afraid.

Would it be possible to add an effect (maybe #197 (0xc5) Spell: Bounce Projectile [197]) that reflects any arrows used with ammoless bows back at the user? A nifty and not-so-subtle way of saying, "RTFM - this bow requires no ammo."

[berelinde]

Now why would you want to do that? There are plenty of times you *do* want to shoot normal projectiles with the bow. If I've got an ammo-less bow when up against trolls, it's a good idea to bring them down with whatever weapons are convenient, then finish them off with one fire arrow. So I'll leave the first ammo slot empty, then put fire arrows in one of the others, and probably a few ice arrows in the third.

 

As I'm generally only using the fire arrows to inflict one hp of damage, I wouldn't care if the damage situation were straightened out, but I'd hate to have a favorite toy taken away to do so.

[Miloch]

Now why would you want to do that? There are plenty of times you *do* want to shoot normal projectiles with the bow.

I don't know which bow you're talking about. But not with this one. It fires multiple magic missiles at the target and I'm pretty sure it was not intended to be used with arrows. And then I have a crossbow that works like a flamethrower, firing Aganazzar's Scorcher at opponents. Which would probably take care of your troll problem. I did not invent these items but I'm trying to scale them down a bit for a mod revision, and this glitch doesn't help things much.

I wouldn't care if the damage situation were straightened out, but I'd hate to have a favorite toy taken away to do so.

Ohhhh. We wouldn't want to take away berelinde's favourite toy now would we?

[Nythrun]

Would it be possible to add an effect (maybe #197 (0xc5) Spell: Bounce Projectile [197]) that reflects any arrows used with ammoless bows back at the user? A nifty and not-so-subtle way of saying, "RTFM - this bow requires no ammo."

 

Possible, yes, but you won't like it.

 

Arrows fired from ammunition-optional launchers use the same projectile as arrows fired from regular launchers, so you'd be granting immunity to all normal arrows or all magical arrows.

 

You also have to add the effect to every creature that you want to protect (i.e. COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.cre$~ ~OMGwehavetopatchsixthousandcreatures~)

 

Projectiles bounced twice tend to crash the game - which is likely to happen unless you can be absolutely certain no one outside of the party will ever get a hand on your cheesy toys.

 

Also - and this bit's subjective - I don't read "this requires no ammo" as "I shall shoot myself in the head". It's rather punitive, isn't it?

 

As long as the extra damage is in the extended dice value, it ought not stack. Prove me wrong, but that's all you can do.