[BUG] Nerfed arrows

velorien

I noticed that arrows +1 adds only bonus to thaco and not to damage.

Is this "working as intended"?

If you compare bows to slings, slings are very overpowered. Indeed, gaining thaco bonus from both strenght and dexterity and gaining damage bonus from strenght, slings can outclass bows easily.

Also I noticed that sling bullets +1 give bonus both to thaco and damage.

Bows only takes thaco bonus from dexterity and no damage bonus. Only Archers (ranger's kit) can give bonus to bow damage.

If you give a sling to hexxat or better to a halforc fighter with 19 str and 18 dex, with 5 points on sling proficitiency, using sling+5, you can put your elven archer down to the toilet.

Illydth

Verified that this is happening as described. Don't know if this is as intended or not.

@LiamEsler, @aVENGER: Can either of you confirm whether or not magical arrows not giving damage bonus is intended as designed?

I'm creating a save and bug report for this now.

Bug Report 7051 Has been Created for This

Jalily

Intended.

Castorp

Why?
Bows are already quite weak in BG2, that sounds like unnecessary Nerfing.

Illydth

@Jalily: So while I agree this may be intended by rules, I would disagree that this is acceptable/intended game behavior. 2nd Ed. Rules may make this correctly implemented, but the consequences to the archer class I don't believe are wanted.

Putting together a Level 18 Halfling Warrior (2.5M XP) with 5 in Sling Grand Mastery, 19 dex, and 18/00 strength with +2 Sling Bullets and the +4 Sling of Avoreen provides the following Statistics:

THACO: -12
Damage: 18 - 21
Attacks: 3/1

Putting together a Level 16 Elven Archer (2.5M XP) with 5 in LongBow Grand Master, a 19 Strength and a 20 Dex with Strong Bow (for Damage) and Arrows +2 provides the following Statistics:

THACO: -11
Damage: 13 - 18
Attacks: 4/1

Damage Range for our Warrior: 54 - 63 Damage / Round
Damage Range for our Archer: 52 - 72 Damage / Round

The warrior has a slightly better THACO.

The thing about this is that the warrior has all the benfits. Even though damage and to hit looks pretty comperable:

* The warrior is level 18, the Ranger is level 16 due to XP Gaps.
* The warrior can do this in full plate and, since the sling is a 1H Weapon, A full Tower Shield. The archer is restricted to non-metal armor and no shield since all of his weapons are 2H weapons.
* The warrior is not restricted to 1 point in Melee Weapons. Along with his Grand Mastery in Slings he can Grand Master an Axe or Mace or something and wade into battle doing major damage in melee also if needed.
* Given the armor and additional weaponry bonuses the warrior can EASILY double as a tank in times of need with a massively low AC and warrior hit points. Rangers can do damage (they tend to specialize in 2H weapons because of the bow requirements) but will never have the AC. They tend to be secondary damage dealers...paper tigers...when in melee range, yet without the oomph of mastery in their melee weapon.

The sling bonus tends to make Archer/Rangers fairly obsolete by this point in the game.

That said @velorien: The subject line may not be proper to have "bug" in it. Feature Request may be more the speed here.

TJ_Hooker

If it's any consolation, the current behaviour (regarding the nerfed ammunition) is consistent with how it worked in vanilla BG2.

Sharn

Bows in BG2EE are not receiving bonus damage from anything other then class features and specialization. The damage bonus's get displayed in the bonus window, but they do not show up in the total damage window, nor are they being applied to the actual damage when attacking. I tested with all +1 and +2 arrows and neither was applying its damage.

Sharn

@Jalily

So its intended that bows do not receive a damage bonus from either the bow or the ammunition?

@TJ_Hooker

You are incorrect, bows in the original BG2 did not receive a damage bonus from the bow unless it was listed in the description, the enchantment only applied to THACO, the ammunition however did apply to the damage if it was enchanted.

This makes no sense, you left bows strong in BG where melee has trouble keeping up and make them useless in BG2 when the bows are the weapon that have trouble keeping up.

Castorp

Yes, it really doesn't make any sense.
Could one of the devs at least explain why such a choice was made?

Sharn

It took less then five minutes for the post I made to be moved into a part of this thread, but a day later and no dev has commented as to why this decision was made?

Every other ranged weapon in the game gets bonus damage added to the attack from both the enhancement bonus on the weapon itself, and the damage bonus on the ammunition if it has any. Slings and thrown weapons also benefit from the users str, and crossbows sometimes offer bonus damage greater then their enchantment.

While I can understand the need to not let the enhancement bonus from the bow itself not be applied to damage, I am not agreeing with the choice, I just understand such a decision, I do not understand why the damage from arrows are not applying to the bows damage, its only purpose is what type of enemy can be damaged with the bow when a magic weapon is needed, the limited availability of magical ammo is enough to keep this in check, and unlimited +1 ammo in BG2 from the quiver is hardly game breaking in any way.

Xukuth

I doubt it was a conscious and deliberate design decision, since it's how ammo has worked in BG2 for over a decade already.

e: You think it's the case that ammunition gives a damage bonus based on its enchantment level in vanilla BG2 but you're wrong. I checked the item files just to be sure, and Arrow +1, Arrow +2, and Arrow +3 all do 1d6+0 damage and don't even hint otherwise. Here's the Arrow +3 description:

These enchanted missiles far surpass the craftsmanship of any arrow, magical or otherwise, you have ever seen.

STATISTICS:

Damage: 1D6
THACO: +3
Damage type: missile (piercing)
Weight: 0
Launcher: Bow
Not usable by:
Cleric
Druid
Mage

LordRumfish

My thought: the original game designers heard some complaints that ranged weapons (especially bows) were too powerful in BG1 and nerfed them when they designed BG2. Now we just consider it canon without wondering why the decision was made. It seems to me that a wild overcorrection was made and now bows in BG2 are too weak. I was amazed how badly ammunition got nerfed (not just arrow +2 or whatnot, but arrows of fire and such as well). The bow itself isn't adding damage either.

For comparison, in 3.5 D&D bow enhancement stacks with arrow enhancement, so a bow +3 and an arrow +2 = +5 hit and damage.

Xukuth

I agree wholeheartedly that bows and crossbows (which don't get a magical damage bonus either) are too weak in BG2, but I doubt that Overhaul made a conscious choice not to include the damage bonus, since that's how it works in vanilla BG2.

LordRumfish

Xukuth said:

I agree wholeheartedly that bows and crossbows (which don't get a magical damage bonus either) are too weak in BG2, but I doubt that Overhaul made a conscious choice not to include the damage bonus, since that's how it works in vanilla BG2.

Absolutely, I hope my comment was read the right way. When I say "original game designers" I'm definitely talking about Black Isle/Atari.

Smilge

I think the main difference between arrows/bolts and bullets is that bullets do piercing damage and that's it, aside from a very limited supply of special bullets. Arrows can be switched out to do acid, poison, bonus physical, fire, cold damage as well as dispel on hit. Bolts can do poison, lightning, or even fire damage with the right crossbow. These things pass through stoneskins and physical resistances, and in cases of vulnerabilities they can do even more damage than listed.

If you're comparing straight up damage between slings and bows you're going to get numbers that don't reflect any of the utility available in game. In the end, you have 6 party members. Why not give one a bow and one a sling and have them work together?

rathe101

I know this is kind of an older post, but I was wondering if there was a mod or anything that reverted magical arrows back to BG1 standards? While I understand that in BG1, with lower level characters, things like arrows of fire, and acid arrows were extremely overpowered, in BG2 with MUCH higher level characters, and MUCH more powerful melee weapons, the ammunition should be more powerful too. It simply doesn't make much sense that a dagger +1 does more damage then an arrow +3.. due to the fact that the dagger gets the THACO and damage bonuses, and the arrow does not.