Lvl 6 Ranged weapon proficiency for Edwin - Darts or Slings?

Oxford_Guy

Edwin has just reached level 6 in my current BGEE game, so gets his extra profiency point, I'm undecided whether to give him darts or slings. Normally I would give a mage a sling, but I already have two sling users in my party - Montaron and Viconia, and no one who had proficiency in darts. Is it still worth giving Edwin a sling, or in this case would darts be a better choice? Darts = more APR = more chances to actually score a hit, but slings can potentially stack a launcher +x bonus with magic bullet +x bonus, though with both Monty and Viccy using slings, there won't be many spare magic slings going around... Opinions?

BTW Edwin has the 18 Dex gloves, so gets +2 to hit with ranged weapons.

EDIT: I'm also thinking perhaps it's a "waste" of the magic darts that you can find in the game not to have someone who can use these?

valky

Even with their lower damage, darts are superior in BG1/EE thanks to their triple RoF compared to slings.
And there are quite some nasty darts in limited numbers as well...

True, that Sling +3 and bullets +2 gives you quite some numbers, but for a mage, whose primary objective is to toss around spells I'm usually quite fine with to give him (in this example) darts.
But 7+2 (highest damage per round for a sling) compared to 3x4 (+1 darts) *hmm* ^^ or stunning darts or for harder/longer fights wounding...

edit: 3x4 damage :P not 3x5 ..

Mokona

I love me some darts, and the poison darts are incredible.

Oxford_Guy

valky said:

Even with their lower damage, darts are superior in BG1/EE thanks to their triple RoF compared to slings.
And there are quite some nasty darts in limited numbers as well...

True, that Sling +3 and bullets +2 gives you quite some numbers, but for a mage, whose primary objective is to toss around spells I'm usually quite fine with to give him (in this example) darts.
But 7+2 (highest damage per round for a sling)

BTW in BGEE sling damage could be higher, as slings currently (wrongly IMHO) get strength bonus to damage (in BG2 only throwing axes get this, in BGEE it's *just* slings), though this doesn't really effect Edwin unless he casts the Strength spell (which would be a bit of a waste) or had strength gloves/belt on (unlikely).

valky said:

compared to 3x4 (+1 darts) *hmm* ^^ or stunning darts or for harder/longer fights wounding...

edit: 3x4 damage :P not 3x5 ..

I decided to go with Darts in the end...

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Pantalion

Darts are optimal for high dexterity, low APR characters.
Slings are optimal for high strength, high APR characters. Where you can hit for 17+ damage per hit and multiply it.

Give him darts.

ZanathKariashi

Technically darts should also be optimal for high str characters, since PnP darts get str bonus (as well as in BG1 and the darts in BG2 that were also from BG1).

Oxford_Guy

ZanathKariashi said:

Technically darts should also be optimal for high str characters, since PnP darts get str bonus (as well as in BG1 and the darts in BG2 that were also from BG1).

I started a long poll discussion about which ranged weapons *ought* to get the strength bonus:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/13405/which-ranged-weapons-in-bgee-do-you-think-ought-to-add-strength-damage/p3

I think darts should only get the strength damage bonus if their strength bonus damage is capped at their max base damage (3) or less *and* they are given some significant carry weight (like throwing axes and daggers) to represent being heavy "war darts", otherwise they are just light darts, which shouldn't benefit from high strength.

DinsdalePiranha

I've personally gone slings - darts are nice and all, but using "proper" ones eats your money faster then you can say "well, shit." plus Edwin has really shitty THAC0, so he'll miss on anything besides very high rolls - using a sling of unerring accuracy and bullets +2 boosts that somewhat, so you can, say, hit on a 15 instead of a 18, like with darts.

Neera is a somewhat different matter (since she has +2 thac0 from dex), but I'd still stick to slings on her too, because I don't like it if my mages each throw 25 gp away, every goddamn round, with minimal results. and because I have buttloads of bullets of electricity sitting in my inventory, while Yeslick is already using bullets +2.

tl;dr: use darts on fighters or fighter -> mages, who can actually hit things - they're far too expensive for mages.

Oxford_Guy

DinsdalePiranha said:

I've personally gone slings - darts are nice and all, but using "proper" ones eats your money faster then you can say "well, shit." plus Edwin has really shitty THAC0, so he'll miss on anything besides very high rolls - using a sling of unerring accuracy and bullets +2 boosts that somewhat, so you can, say, hit on a 15 instead of a 18, like with darts.

The thing is I'd rather have Viconia and Montaron with the best slings, which leaves at best a +1 sling for Edwin. He has the Dex gloves (18 Dex), as no one else really needs them, and currently has a THAC0 of 17 with ordinary darts.

DinsdalePiranha said:

Neera is a somewhat different matter (since she has +2 thac0 from dex), but I'd still stick to slings on her too, because I don't like it if my mages each throw 25 gp away, every goddamn round, with minimal results. and because I have buttloads of bullets of electricity sitting in my inventory, while Yeslick is already using bullets +2.

tl;dr: use darts on fighters or fighter -> mages, who can actually hit things - they're far too expensive for mages.

I can see what you mean, but I wanted *someone* in my party who can utilise darts, and no one else can spare profiency points for these

DinsdalePiranha

@Oxford_Guy: there is one sling +3 in Durlag's Tower, and *two* Sling of Unerring Accuracys (the second one discovered by little old me ) in the game, so you can easily spread them out between NPCs. but with gauntlets of dex, well... maybe. as I've said, the thing that mostly turned me away from darts was the fact that it's a minimal improvement at best, but costs a lot more than the alternative.

lunar

Darts are great. High Edge sells very nice sets of elemental darts, with high charisma and reputation they are very affordable and pack a punch with #3 attacks/round.

Pantalion

If you're going with the best slings on Viccy and Monty, and dex gloves on Edwin, then he's not using the Ogre Gauntlets at the same time, which means he's only going to do 3-6 damage if he hits with that +1 sling.

Mainly I give mages ranged weapons to keep them out of trouble, rather than expecting them to hit anything, but with three chances to roll a 20 each round, you've basically got an outlet for those darts of wounding I somehow keep finding everywhere whenever I don't have a dart user.

ZanathKariashi

mages and thieves can't use the ogre gauntlets, just warriors and priests (unless they're part warrior or priest).

Just use regular darts...it's not like you NEED magical ones except for the handful of enemies that require as such. They're only like 1g per stack or so. The hit reactions and interruption potential alone are more then worth it. And the worse the thac0, the more useful multiple attacks per round are (seen most obviously on a bard dual-wielding speed weapons, even with the gimp'd two weapon style...they go from kind of meh, to almost the same as warriors just from the volume of attacks you can put out).

Illustair

Darts. I read somewhere that Melf's Minute Meteor and Energy Blades use darts for proficiency. Those are some very useful spells to have!

ZanathKariashi

They do indeed...just checked in NI.

*Correction

Energy Blades uses the dart prof, Melf's uses Hand to Hand. Both are tagged as type Dart.

SCARY_WIZARD

fredamora said:

Darts. I read somewhere that Melf's Minute Meteor and Energy Blades use darts for proficiency. Those are some very useful spells to have!

This +1 Insightful is for you!

Oxford_Guy

fredamora said:

Darts. I read somewhere that Melf's Minute Meteor and Energy Blades use darts for proficiency. Those are some very useful spells to have!

Melf's Minute Meteors and Energy Blades don't actually work like this, see:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/201232#Comment_201232

"According to DLTCEP, weapon items have an 'item type' and 'proficiency type'. An item type of 'Hand to Hand' makes it ignore all weapon proficiencies. A proficiency type of 'Large sword' makes it ignore all weapon proficiencies since BG:EE has no large sword proficiency.
.
.
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Melf's Minute Meteors-Item Type:Dart Proficiency:Large Sword Has innate +5 to hit.

Since there is no large sword proficiency in BG:EE this ignores proficiencies. Has innate +5 to hit. A mage with no proficiency in darts will still use them with +5 to hit. Solid spell, BTW."

Actually, for a Mage this is *much* better than benefitting from the dart proficiency!

Illustair

I stand corrected then. So that means those 2 spells neglect any proficiency in dart? Here I am thinking it'll be +5 then another bonus from proficiency...I was even thinking of a build wherein I can maximize points in darts and have those 2 spells.

Oxford_Guy

fredamora said:

I stand corrected then. So that means those 2 spells neglect any proficiency in dart? Here I am thinking it'll be +5 then another bonus from proficiency...I was even thinking of a build wherein I can maximize points in darts and have those 2 spells.

No need, Melf's is already great! :-)

lunar

Melf's only use item type:dart so they can gain benefit from high DEX for attack rolls. They do not use any proficiency so you neither get a bonus for specialisation nor a penalty for not having a pip in darts.

Oxford_Guy

lunar said:

Melf's only use item type:dart so they can gain benefit from high DEX for attack rolls. They do not use any proficiency so you neither get a bonus for specialisation nor a penalty for not having a pip in darts.

Thanks for clarifying @lunar!

DinsdalePiranha

DinsdalePiranha said:

I've personally gone slings - darts are nice and all, but using "proper" ones eats your money faster then you can say "well, shit." plus Edwin has really shitty THAC0, so he'll miss on anything besides very high rolls - using a sling of unerring accuracy and bullets +2 boosts that somewhat, so you can, say, hit on a 15 instead of a 18, like with darts.

Neera is a somewhat different matter (since she has +2 thac0 from dex), but I'd still stick to slings on her too, because I don't like it if my mages each throw 25 gp away, every goddamn round, with minimal results. and because I have buttloads of bullets of electricity sitting in my inventory, while Yeslick is already using bullets +2.

tl;dr: use darts on fighters or fighter -> mages, who can actually hit things - they're far too expensive for mages.

screw my former opinion, just cleared durlag's tower, sold all the haul, then bought *every single elemental dart* in high hedge (that's 4500 darts!), for little under 30k... and I still have 77k gold left.

so yeah, darts. definitely darts.

the_spyder

I can't speak for BGEE, but as for BG as a whole (and BG1 in particular) I would say go Sling. My reasons are as follows:

Slings have a longer range than Darts. My current dart throwing mage is almost always closer to the combat than my sling using clerics.

Slings can make use of the "Quiver" slots for your inventory, thus reducing the amount of Inventory Tetris you need to do. Also, it means you can carry more amo without blocking up your pack spaces (again BG, maybe not BG:EE).

Darts cost 1 GP per 10 stack in most places. Sling stones cost 1 GP per 20 stack just about everywhere. Granted, once you start getting into the money, that little difference isn't very much, but it can add up, particularly early on.

Sling stones actually do more than 1 damage against skells and some of the slimes in the game. Kind of useful since who really wants to waste a Magic Missile on Skells?

Oxford_Guy

the_spyder said:

Sling stones actually do more than 1 damage against skells and some of the slimes in the game. Kind of useful since who really wants to waste a Magic Missile on Skells?

Both darts and slings do the same type of damage I.e. piercing/missile (slings don't do blunt damage in-game) so the damage they do to skeletons will not be that different (unless the sling thrower has high strength, which most mages don't)