BG2:EE bug: incorrect Grandmastery bonuses

TJ_Hooker

Current behaviour
Grandmastery (5 proficiency points) in longswords (and presumably all weapons) only gives +2 to hit, +4 to damage. These values are being displayed in the THAC0/Damage boxes in the Inventory and Character Record screens, and are being used in actual combat as well.

Expected Behaviour
Grandmastery should give +3 to hit, +5 to damage, as per the weapon proficiency descriptions.

To replicate
Start a game with Abdel.
Equip a longsword (item code sw1h04).
Check the THAC0 and Damage listings in the Character Record or Inventory screens.

To verify that these values are being used in combat, simply attack Imoen. Be sure that the game is on Core difficulty, and that she has a melee weapon (not her fists) equipped first.

Mathsorcerer

The easy fix is to edit wspecial.2da so that the last row becomes 5 3 5 -3.

Watevers

I don't think that's really a bug per say. More of a design decision.

IIRC, this is working as per the original BG2 rules: the Bioware devs admitted that they nerfed grandmastery to +2 hit, +4 damage, and only +1/2 attack per round for game balance purposes. It was done purposely by design because of the higher levels, and they confirmed that in a post years ago.

True AD&D grandmastery is +3 hit, +5 damage, and +1 attack per round. This is what every other Infinity Engine game uses. It looks like Beamdog just copy/pasted the description from BG:EE, but never changed the actual values.

TJ_Hooker

Watevers said:

I don't think that's really a bug per say. More of a design decision.

IIRC, this is working as per the original BG2 rules: the Bioware devs admitted that they nerfed grandmastery to +2 hit, +4 damage, and only +1/2 attack per round for game balance purposes. It was done purposely by design because of the higher levels, and they confirmed that in a post years ago.

True AD&D grandmastery is +3 hit, +5 damage, and +1 attack per round. This is what every other Infinity Engine game uses. It looks like Beamdog just copy/pasted the description from BG:EE, but never changed the actual values.

That could very well be the case, but in that case the description is still wrong. Also, GM is still granting a full +1 APR, so it's not that the proficiency bonuses have just defaulted back to what they were in vanilla BG2.

Khyron

Definately wrong one way or another and needs to be fixed.

Either give the last damage point or fix the description.

Got the exact same problem on my Fighter->Thief.

Grand mastery should be +5
Bolts are 1D8
Heavy crossbow is +2 Damage
This should be a maximum for 15 damage.

Character sheet and actual damage is 14.


*le sigh* You'd think they would have covered this one, as it's been a BG2 thing for 13 years and well known.

sunset00

Well.. if they have made it available in BG1EE, that would be totally incoherent _not_ to make it similarily available (aka corrected) in BG2EE.... indeed... O_o

Leuenherz

Mathsorcerer said:

The easy fix is to edit wspecial.2da so that the last row becomes 5 3 5 -3.

I looked for this file and could not find it anywhere on my hard drive. I used the stand-alone installer for my version of BG2:EE.

TJ_Hooker

@Leuenherz yeah it's not something that you would edit just by opening up the file with a text editor or something. You have to use a program like Near Infinity to make the changes. However, I'll just attach an edited version of the file that you can use (simply unzip it into your override folder). If you don't have an override folder, simply create a new folder in Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition\Data\00783\ and name it "override".

sunset00

@ TJ_Hooker cool man, thx too (just could reverify that with high level korgan/mazzy/Etc).. was strange after bg1ee where that was fixed..i imagine for the guys who did efforts from bg1ee start to get a +++++ lol.. great dev following from one game to another)

ps; nothing related but..Cernd has not been really fixed under greater werewolf too (BG2 needed a patch too for that..but i had in the idea an enhanced edition would take care of that too..)..any hopes to get a fix for him too (under Greater W)?.. if only CON25 (so regeneration) underGW, would seem to be logical... any plan/possibility to 'hot fix' that too? (just asking) ..