Which character the game thinks is the "strongest fighter" in your party

Zarakinthish

In my run through BGEE, I've reached AR5200 (the area Dudleyville calls Dryad Falls) and just encountered the four gnolls who challenge your "strongest fighter" if you claim you can't pay their toll. Currently, the game seems to think my strongest fighter is Imoen, presumably because she is level 5 and everyone else is at most 4. While not a bug, this is definitely not optimal game behavior. As an experiment, I loaded from a quicksave I made shortly before the encounter, and dropped Imoen from the party temporarily. After talking to the gnolls, the game picked Minsc, probably because of those in the party who are level 4 in (one of) their class(es), he has the most hit points.

Now that you all know the situation, here is my question: what attributes of a character do you think should be checked to determine the "strongest fighter"? In my opinion, the best way the game could determine this is to check a character's base THAC0 (or if possible, THAC0 with a modifier from strength without magical enhancement), and then hit points. What are your thoughts?

shawne

Probably STR if they're literally going for "strongest", no?

Kurumi

Gnolls are not known for their wide repertoire of words, so I guess they just mean "most powerful/competent melee fighter" in general.. hence I'd vote for a combination out of STR, THAC0 and CON (HP) - perhaps even APR, too.

CutlassJack

Odd I always thought the game picked the highest Str fighter type. (almost always Minsc for me)

Is it by Exp value? Has Imoen donated the most Exp or had the most kills of your current team?

moody_mage

Maybe Imoen has the most powerful enemy killed (easy to steal sometime with an archer type).

Kaltzor

One thing it could probably be made to check first is if you have any fighter classes in your party (Fighter, Ranger, Paladin or Barbarian)...

recklessheart

I believe it goes by who has the most current HP at the time of the convo? So Imoen might have had 24/30HP, but Minsc had 21/40HP or something.

the_spyder

Kurumi said:

Gnolls are not known for their wide repertoire of words, so I guess they just mean "most powerful/competent melee fighter" in general.. hence I'd vote for a combination out of STR, THAC0 and CON (HP) - perhaps even APR, too.

From an RP perspective, I'd think that they would pick the most impressive looking, regardless of any other concerns.

Minsc definitely fits the bill as he is 'Full Plate and Packing Steel' with a broad chest and a booming voice, or at least 6-7 feet of muscle and two handed sword. he might actually be level 1, but to outward appearances he towers over everyone else and has a BIG blade.

As for why they pick Imoen, who knows. It might even be position in the party or proximity to the conversation. Or maybe Imoen just has a really impressive "Mean" look about her?

I'd say from a game play mechanics, the game 'Should' go Fighters first descending level. If no fighters in the party, then go most heavily armored. If all in similar armor types, then highest level. That's how I'd do it, but maybe the DEVs can chime in on how it actually goes.

Of course, and here is a thought that just struck me, Gnolls can sometimes be cowardly. Maybe they aren't actually looking for 'Best warrior' despite claiming that. This would explain the choice of Imoen. Just a thought.

Zarakinthish

Technically speaking, this is the action set in the dialog of the gnoll leader in the area:

ActionOverride(StrongestOf,MoveToPoint([3224.684]))
SetGlobal("GnollFightOver","GLOBAL",3)
AttackOneRound(StrongestOf)

It also looks like the issue of how "StrongestOf" works has been brought up on the forum before, and they came to the same conclusion I did of level being the highest priority attribute the game checks.