Touch Spells and Blunt Weapon Profiency

leddyhs

Chill touch and Ghoul Touch are based on Club weapon profiency (now that the Blunt Weapon Profiency is gone). If you spec in to quarterstaves, you receive a -5 penalty to thac0 when using touch spells as a pure mage. This is pretty crude, considering mages can't spec into clubs right now..

Is there a fix somewhere?

bbear

I didnt know that touch attacks had weapon proficiency assigned to them. Frankly, I think there should be a new proficiency called "Bare Hand Proficiency". While monk is the main beneficiary, druids, mages and clerics can also benefit with touch spells.

Anduin

Is this true? A touch attack should need no proficiency... If it does club is a poor choice. Quarter staffs can be used by everyone so should be used over a club... That saying dagger, can also be used by everyone.

and_then_or

Who allows thier (single class) mage to get close enough to touch someone? I never understood spells which require contact. All ogers are equiped with clubs-of-exploding-mages.

Shin

I don't think it's true. They both utilize proficiency 115, which isn't blunt weapons, and neither a proficiency which the player can assign points to. I think the confusion is because they both have maces as category, but that doesn't relate to proficiency - rather I think it is the sound an item makes when you move it in your inventory.. but as these items can't be moved, it doesn't really matter what category you assign to them. Quarterstaff utilizes proficiency 102, and definitely shouldn't affect the thac0 of these touch attacks.

bbear

Anduin said:

Is this true? A touch attack should need no proficiency... If it does club is a poor choice. Quarter staffs can be used by everyone so should be used over a club... That saying dagger, can also be used by everyone.

Except clerics cant use daggers and monks cant use staffs (2 handed weapon).

Displacer

and_then_or said:

All ogers are equiped with clubs-of-exploding-mages.

This made me lol

leddyhs

@Shin
Just did a lot of testing and it seems like whenever you cast Ghoul Touch or Chill Touch, you receive a penalty (measurable) of -5 to your melee attacks, unless if you have points in Clubs. If you do (dual classed or fighter/mage), then you do hit quite well with Touch, considering it's got +2 hit on it.

Shin

@leddyhs Hm, sounds like a definite bug.. have you checked if it's an actual penalty/bonus or if it just looks that way in the UI?

leddyhs

@Shin
It's more than just an UI bug. I think the BG1 functionality should be restored, as early game mages could use touch spells before magic missile scaling kicks in. Don't know if it's possible, but at least it should be Quarterstaves instead of Clubs..

elminster

Why Quarterstaves instead of clubs? With both spells you are attacking with just the one hand after all.

Edit: Yea I was in the process of checking over proficiencies after I made the post.

I guess I would say get rid of the penalty to hit. Its not listed in the description and it seems odd that they would get it.

TJ_Hooker

elminster said:

Why Quarterstaves instead of clubs? With both spells you are attacking with just the one hand after all.

Because mages can't use clubs.

Dragonspear

@elminster

Xzar would like to have a word with you. Or rather he would except he and tiax are currently in an argument about who is crazier while you just walk by and turn them into rabbits.

elminster

Dragonspear said:

@elminster

Xzar would like to have a word with you. Or rather he would except he and tiax are currently in an argument about who is crazier while you just walk by and turn them into rabbits.

Ha...I was scrambling around once I'd made my post to look over things haha. Then I'm like "wait a second"...so I've restored what it was when TJ_Hooker responded to it just so it doesn't seem too out of wack.

leddyhs

How hard this is to fix btw? As in.. can I do it myself?

reedmilfam

Touch attacks are supposed to not have proficiency adjustments at all. They ignore AC, but honor dex bonuses per PnP rules. Don't konw how they implement in BG; I generally shy from touch attacks because I don't want my mage next to sharp objects and pointy sticks!

TJ_Hooker

reedmilfam said:

Touch attacks are supposed to not have proficiency adjustments at all. They ignore AC, but honor dex bonuses per PnP rules. Don't konw how they implement in BG; I generally shy from touch attacks because I don't want my mage next to sharp objects and pointy sticks!

As far as I know they just implemented touch attacks as an attack with a +4 to hit.

Ravel

We obviously need a new weapon proficiency: Spellslapping

Mortianna

and_then_or said:

Who allows thier (single class) mage to get close enough to touch someone? I never understood spells which require contact. All ogers are equiped with clubs-of-exploding-mages.

I guess some of us are more risk-takers than others. You don't cast Ghoul Touch and then send in your mage into melee alone. You find ways of supporting characters already in melee. Casting a defensive spell like Shield or Spirit Armor beforehand is wise as well.

Ravel

Displacer said:

and_then_or said:

All ogers are equiped with clubs-of-exploding-mages.

This made me lol

the typo really sells it

CamDawg

Prof 115 is club proficiency; all of these spell items should be using prof 0, eliminating non-prof penalties.

ZanathKariashi

they're supposed to use your unarmed proficiency which every character has automatically (when bare-handed), not clubs.

Ravel

CamDawg said:

Prof 115 is club proficiency; all of these spell items should be using prof 0, eliminating non-prof penalties.

Except isn't 0 Long Sword?

edit: nevermind - i read that wrong. It's "Large Sword", and Long Sword is a separate proficiency. No clue what Large Sword is.

TJ_Hooker

and_then_or said:

Who allows thier (single class) mage to get close enough to touch someone? I never understood spells which require contact. All ogers are equiped with clubs-of-exploding-mages.

There's also bards and fighter/mages who can cast touch spells who are better suited to getting up close and personal.

lunar

I used DLTCEP to edit the items chilt and ghoult. They have club/mace item type and thus impose a steep non proficiency penalty of -5 to the mage using them. (for a fighter multiclass that is -2, for cleric or thief multis and bards that is -3, unless ofcourse the caster has proficiency in them) They have innate +4 to hit, so the result is the mage has -1 to hit. If he has exceptional strength he may overcome this penalty too, but this is not how the spells should work.

Incidentally, shocking grasp item uses the correct 'hand to hand' item type and thus does not impose non proficiency penalty. I edited chillt and ghoult items to 'hand to hand' type as well, and saved them into my override folder. They work correctly now in my game, granting +4 to hit as well, really helping the mage to actually touch their victims.

Oxford_Guy

lunar said:

I used DLTCEP to edit the items chilt and ghoult. They have club/mace item type and thus impose a steep non proficiency penalty of -5 to the mage using them. (for a fighter multiclass that is -2, for cleric or thief multis and bards that is -3, unless ofcourse the caster has proficiency in them) They have innate +4 to hit, so the result is the mage has -1 to hit. If he has exceptional strength he may overcome this penalty too, but this is not how the spells should work.

Incidentally, shocking grasp item uses the correct 'hand to hand' item type and thus does not impose non proficiency penalty. I edited chillt and ghoult items to 'hand to hand' type as well, and saved them into my override folder. They work correctly now in my game, granting +4 to hit as well, really helping the mage to actually touch their victims.

Is this the actual intended behaviour? If so, has a bug reported been submitted?

lunar

Oxford_Guy said:

Is this the actual intended behaviour? If so, has a bug reported been submitted?.

Umm, it was handled like this in my BGT game, but it is modded so heavily I am not sure about the vanilla behaviour intended by the designers. But it makes sense, everybody is proficient with punching, grabbing, slapping, touching etc. You do not suffer a minus to your hit roll when using punches, why should you suffer when you want to touch some one? (it's just that your hand is glowing with malevolent necrotic energy when using touch spells, is all.) That +4 bonus to hit is to compensate that in PnP touch spells ignore armor bonuses to target's AC, so I thought developers chose to simulate it this way.

Oxford_Guy

lunar said:

Oxford_Guy said:

Is this the actual intended behaviour? If so, has a bug reported been submitted?.

Umm, it was handled like this in my BGT game, but it is modded so heavily I am not sure about the vanilla behaviour intended by the designers. But it makes sense, everybody is proficient with punching, grabbing, slapping, touching etc. You do not suffer a minus to your hit roll when using punches, why should you suffer when you want to touch some one? (it's just that your hand is glowing with malevolent necrotic energy when using touch spells, is all.) That +4 bonus to hit is to compensate that in PnP touch spells ignore armor bonuses to target's AC, so I thought developers chose to simulate it this way.

So what's the general consensus, is the current behaviour for all touch spells (apart from Shocking Grasp, it seems) bugged and should the proficiency for *all* touch spells be whatever it is for hand-to-hand and an official bug report made?

Okay pure class/specialist mages may not have an opportunity to use touch spells much, but I can *definitely* see fighter/mages, thief/mages, cleric/mages and bards wanting to use them properly. Also, don't forget that all characters with low reputation can get some of these (vampiric touch only? or can thet also get ghoul touch) as innate abilities in the dream sequences.

At the moment there isn't much incentive, given that they're more likely to hit with whatever sword/mace etc. they're using...

Which spells would this cover - the current melee and magic manuals lists these offensive touch spells - there's the arcance spells chill touch, ghoul touch, vampiric touch and the priest spells cause serious wounds, cause critical wounds, slay living - are there any more (apart from Shocking Grasp, which sounds like its working as expected, unless this requires further testing?)

TJ_Hooker

Oxford_Guy said:

So what's the general consensus, is the current behaviour for all touch spells (apart from Shocking Grasp, it seems) bugged and should the proficiency for *all* touch spells be whatever it is for hand-to-hand and an official bug report made?

It looks like this is a bug that will be fixed.

https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10843/unexpected-thaco-penalty-on-weapons-created-by-spells

Oxford_Guy

TJ_Hooker said:

Oxford_Guy said:

So what's the general consensus, is the current behaviour for all touch spells (apart from Shocking Grasp, it seems) bugged and should the proficiency for *all* touch spells be whatever it is for hand-to-hand and an official bug report made?

It looks like this is a bug that will be fixed.

https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10843/unexpected-thaco-penalty-on-weapons-created-by-spells

Great, I've added chill touch, vampiric touch and the priest spells cause serious wounds, cause critical wounds, slay living to the spells that should also probably be checked.

Also - what are the current proficiencies for: Melf's Minute Meteors, Magical Stone, Shillelagh (club?), Flame Blade (scimitar is implied), Spritual Hammer (presumably war hammers, but is it?) and what *should* they be, if different? Can a cleric/thief backstab with Shillelagh or Flame Blade (as a thief can with a club or scimitar(? All This has never been clear to me. Should I create a seperate thread for this question?

Oxford_Guy

Oxford_Guy said:

TJ_Hooker said:

Oxford_Guy said:

So what's the general consensus, is the current behaviour for all touch spells (apart from Shocking Grasp, it seems) bugged and should the proficiency for *all* touch spells be whatever it is for hand-to-hand and an official bug report made?

It looks like this is a bug that will be fixed.

https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10843/unexpected-thaco-penalty-on-weapons-created-by-spells

Great, I've added chill touch, vampiric touch and the priest spells cause serious wounds, cause critical wounds, slay living to the spells that should also probably be checked.

Also - what are the current proficiencies for: Melf's Minute Meteors, Magical Stone, Shillelagh (club?), Flame Blade (scimitar is implied), Spritual Hammer (presumably war hammers, but is it?) and what *should* they be, if different? Can a cleric/thief backstab with Shillelagh or Flame Blade (as a thief can with a club or scimitar(? All This has never been clear to me. Should I create a seperate thread for this question?

BTW I created another thread for this question, which has been quite enlightening and informative (and yes many of them are bugged...): https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/10843/unexpected-thaco-penalty-on-weapons-created-by-spells