sirnicklaus

18 hours ago, lynx said:

You can lob it at a greater speed and blunt impact is good regardless of armor, unlike a throwing axe.

If an axe hits armor that prevents slashing/cutting damage, doesn't it basically just become blunt impact damage at that point?  But more power still generated with the sling I guess.

16 hours ago, 4udr4n said:

Slings are ridiculously misrepresented in games generally. They are longer ranged than bows and at least as deadly, probably in many cases much more so vs armoured opponents. Here's more from Todd:

I think the issue with them is that it takes a huge amount of practice to become accurate (having tried!), particularly vs moving targets.

In a battlefield context, I'd much rather face archers than slings, the hails of stones/bullets would be terrifying even in armour, but as a skirmishing adventurer I suspect a bow would be more of a threat.

Slings are also common, cheap, biodegradable and unglamourous, which harms their historical reputation and preservation.

All hail the sling I guess... 

What makes a bow a larger threat for a skirmishing adventurer? 

When you say farther range than bows, slings were used to throw bullets in large arcs as bows can fire arrows?  Given the apparent superiority of slings as a medieval ranged weapon (cost, ease of manufacture, damage) I assume that, in reality, slings were the most largely used ranged weapon during their time?

I'd still be interested in that mod you mentioned that removes the strength bonus.

On 11/8/2023 at 4:11 AM, 4udr4n said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK96h2dyJfI&t=610s (also corrected above)

Exactly the point I was trying to make with the link! Darts in AD&D are not modelled on modern sport darts or shuriken, but on plumbata (think lawn darts made for war!). Strength is extremely relevant, and you can throw them very rapidly (though probably no more rapidly than throwing knives).

That would mean searching through the readmes of quite a few tweak mods. I'll take a quick look this evening.

I've always though that all thrown weapons should get a damage bonus for strength and THAC0 bonus for Dex, but that it is more complex with bows:
If we're shooting for realism, bows require a certain amount of strength to draw fully, but they can be drawn partially by a weaker user. Below full draw they will be both less powerful and less accurate. Excess strength makes no difference (overdrawing a bow can also make it less accurate and will end up breaking it) except to help the user not get fatigued. You could show this in game by giving bows a low minimum strength but penalties to THAC0 and damage below a higher strength number.
Light crossbows are generally reloaded using strength, whereas heavy crossbows (windlass/arbalest) use a mechanism that is not strength dependant, so arguably light crossbows should have a strength requirement but heavy should not.

That vid. made for a decent watch. 

That tweak mod is one here on Gibberlings, yes?  I have a prior version of Tweaks Anthology installed and I don't recall coming across any ranged weapon options like that.

Your thoughts about bows and crossbows also make a lot of sense.  Additionally, partially drawn bows would also potentially not fire arrows as far.  But I suppose bow users can't use firing arcs for long distance shots in Icewind Dale anyway.

On 11/8/2023 at 6:43 AM, Trouveur80 said:

Slings have only 1 APR, compared to 2 for bows and throwing daggers, and 3 for darts. Without the strength bonus slings would have no appeal compared to other options.

That point makes some sense if the end goal is to make all ranged weapons equally effective.  I guess in my mind the sling should be a less appealing option.  One that mages, clerics, etc. may have to resort to because they can not use some of the more impressive ranged weapons. 

In my current playthrough I have two dual class warriors.  One with grand mastery in axes and the other in slings.  Their attack rate is the same, but the sling user's THAC0 and damage output kind of make the throwing axes look like a joke.  Especially after casting Draw Upon Holy Might or consuming a giant strength potion.  I'm skeptical that a slung stone would be even AS deadly as the blade of a thrown axe, let alone much more so.  Feels very off.

16 hours ago, 4udr4n said:

There are number of mods that add strength bonuses to thrown weapons (often excluding darts, which seems odd, worth watching this: https://open.qobuz.com/album/qakqpc5462zpb) and I think I recall seeing one that removed it from slings.

The link you provided goes to a music album.  You meant to paste a different one perhaps?

Would you point me towards the specific mod that removes the bonus from slings?  At least this would put them on a level playing field with the rest of the ranged weapons.  Right now they have an unfounded advantage over everything else.

8 hours ago, Angel said:

PHB says: "The damage adjustment also applies to to missile weapons, although bows must be specially made to gain the bonus; crossbows never benefit from the user's Strength."  (PHB 2e, TSR 2159, page 20, Damage Adjustment).  So it should apply to slings, thrown daggers and axes and the like.  However, I think there is an optional rule to not let it apply to darts on the ground that they are too light to carry the force, but I'll have to double-check on that.

Sorry, what is PHB?

That makes crossbows rather weak/unappealing by comparison, doesn't it?

The idea that darts are too light to carry the force is interesting.  Being light would just mean that the dart could be thrown at a higher rate of speed than a heavier implement.  Unless they're more lobbed than hurled.

I just noticed that giant strength potions state that upon drinking, the user "gains great strength and bonuses to hit and damage while using any hand-held or thrown weapon."  This suggests that throwing knives, throwing axes, and darts should incur the bonuses or penalties from a character's strength stat.  While bullets, bolts, and arrows should not.  This seems intuitive.

In any case: it makes absolutely no sense that slings and only slings, as far as ranged weapons are concerned, incorporate strength bonuses/penalties.  It's not fitting that players should feel compelled to select slings as their ranged weapon choice because their THAC0 and damage potential dwarf that of all other ranged weapons.  This is broken.

4 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Did they also have the ammo for it ? Baecause they won't use it without the ammo...

Yes, the character had bullets +2 equipped and the doll was holding the sling on the inventory page.

2 hours ago, 4udr4n said:

Wiki says:
using a ranged weapon against a melee attacker gives -8 penalty to THAC0, whereas the melee attacker gains a +4 THAC0 and damage bonus when engaging an enemy that uses a ranged weapon

2 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Creatures with melee weapons get an additional +4 to-hit and damage when attacking a creature with a ranged weapon equipped. It's not documented anywhere AFAIK.

Went back and made sure the characters being attacked were equipped with melee weapons.  Damaged received was 10-16.  Being curious with what you just told me though, I then equipped one of them with a sling.  Character still received 10-16 damage from the sword.

18 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Do the people that are hit have melee or ranged weapons ? Cause if one has ranged weapon, darts or the like, they take +4 damage, just from that.

 

I'm not totally sure I understand what you're saying.  The members of my party that I was attacking with the sword in question would take an additional +4 damage if they were equipped with a ranged weapon?  How does the weapon they're equipped with (unless it were offering a slashing resistance modifier) affect the damage they take from the sword hitting them?

Druids are considered shapeshifters, correct?  In testing, this sword is doing identical base damage to two members of my party (in this case 10-16 dmg), despite one being a druid and the other not.

I'm assuming the lack of interest/replies on this one means a fix is not feasible?

One of the effects of Animal Rage is a 20% increase in movement rate.  Instead, the spell seems to be negating speed bonuses from items like Boots of Speed and Boots of the Fox (unequipping and reequipping the boots makes no difference).

The sword is registering as unsuitable for sneak attacks despite being a large sword.

17 minutes ago, StummvonBordwehr said:

The core game has just turned 25 years, so I feel that its time that we dont treat the plot as secret and more the grown adult it is. And after all. Its a forum dedicated to modding, so newbies enter at own peril.

Spoiled it for me.   Then again, the aforementioned speech to fighting ratio probably would have kept me from ever finding out anyway.  God, I sound like a gen Z'er with ADD.  I have a healthy attention span, I swear.

Spoiler alert.

You may want to throw a spoiler alert in there.

On 1/10/2023 at 6:10 PM, polytope said:

Lorewise - and probably developer intent - a mace of disruption is only supposed to work this way on undead and evil extraplanar creatures. Did you test it on Rakshasa?

Ok, salamanders are evil, but they're elementals, not things from the lower planes.

On 1/12/2023 at 4:24 AM, polytope said:

D&D cosmology has undergone a lot of revisions over the editions, but at the time these games were published the elemental planes were inner planes separated from the prime by the ethereal plane, whereas the astral plane connects to the various outer planes, home to either fiends or angels.

I'm quite sure mace of disruption never had the % chance per hit of annihilating elementals in any edition (so there's no reason to expect it to work in game). I also don't really know where Rakshasas are supposed to come from, they're either from hell or an alternate prime I guess (they do show up in the expansion too).

Just confirmed it doesn't work on Rakshasa.

Wind of Heaven is not offering immunity to Death Fog as it is supposed to.  If Malavon's Corrosive Fog has the same animations as Death Fog but just does damage instead of acid damage, then from a sprung trap in the Watchknight Crypt I've also confirmed that Wind of Heaven isn't offering its immunity there either.

The statistics section for these does list the + 1 to damage they confer, but not the + 1 to THAC0.

The bag of holding that Criek of Bane drops in Trials of the Luremaster lists all of its original contents to be of quantity one.  However, when you pull some of these items out into your inventory, some of them are actually stacks of quantities greater than one.

In the item's description it suggests that the fireball like spell the wand casts can be cast up to 120'.  But further down, under the "STATISTICS" subheader, it's stated that the range is only 90'.

In the fight with Criek of Bane and his party in Trials of the Luremaster, he cast Heal on one of my party members.  Pretty sure there's not supposed to be a chance of that happening.

Edit: this was probably supposed to go in Tweaks Anthology Forum.  Please relocate it.

In original Icewind Dale, I seem to have an exported character save that has a natural five magic resistance (not coming from any equipment) where there should be none.  Is this a bug or is there an item that permanently raises magic resistance that I don't remember dinking around with?

Now that you mention it, I do remember feeling the urgency playing BG2 back in the day.  I had not played BG1.  Right from the start I felt like I was missing out on stuff in the outside world, waking up as a captive in a dungeon.  And shortly thereafter, felt like the main villain dude was going to be doing bad things in my absence.  Good narrative design on the part of the developers I guess.  And perhaps being young enough not to realize, as you suggest, that the narrative would indeed wait on me.  Then, finding the speech to fighting ratio of BG2 too high, Icewind Dale hi-jacked my attention.

15 hours ago, polytope said:

Lorewise - and probably developer intent - a mace of disruption is only supposed to work this way on undead and evil extraplanar creatures. Did you test it on Rakshasa?

Ok, salamanders are evil, but they're elementals, not things from the lower planes.

I've not come across any Rakshasa to test on yet; they must be in the Trials of the Luremaster expansion.

I had just assumed that elemental planes were outer planes because they aren't the plane the story takes place in.  You're thinking that by outer planes, the developer intent was to only be referencing the lower planes?

One of the Red Potion's effects is not functioning.  It is supposed to confer "+50% resistance to all magical damage."  No magic damage reduction is taking place as per tests with Flamestrike, Magic Missile, and Icelance.

This mace is neither doing double damage to outer planar creatures (tested on water, fire, and earth elementals, and fire salamanders), nor registering its 5% chance of destroying them outright.

After casting Magic Resistance (priest spell) on a character three times (conferring 40% MR per cast), a character tops out at 100% magic resistance.  And yet the character still gets hit (every time) by Sol's Searing Orb.  Sometimes I will get a "magic resistance" message accompanying the damage of Sol's Searing Orb and sometimes I'll get a "blinded" message.  Once I think I got both.  And all times, the fire damage from the spell occurs.  The fire damage from Flame Strike does seem to be negated as it should be.  Flesh to Stone also just killed me.  Symbol of Pain and Symbol of Hopelessness do seem to be negated as expected.