[Known 2494] BUG: Arcane Spellcasters Do Not Benefit From Grand Mastery

Xukuth

This is a legacy bug from base BG2: arcane spellcasters who have no fighter levels (so vanilla Mages and Sorcerers, as well as all dual/multiclasses that do not include Fighter) do not properly benefit from the Grandmastery granted by Black Blade of Disaster. The worst effect of this is that they still only get one base attack per round when wielding the Black Blade of Disaster instead of the 2 base APR they should be getting (with Grandmastery giving 1 full extra attack). For this reason, BBoD is somewhat lackluster compared to many of the other 9th level spells.

Since I think A64 is or has worked for/with you guys, you might want to note that this behavior is fixed by setting the optional ToBEx component "Engine:Weapon Specialisation Number of Attacks Mod" to 1.

hook71

Was reported once upon a time as issue 2494 but it was decided not to change it. @Jalily - Perhaps the spell description could be changed to clarify how this works though?

Xukuth

Then I suppose Oversight can consider this a feature quest to either change it or externalize it so people can experience the full glory of BBoD again

Tsyrith

Yeah, I got the feeling that the additional information written into the proficiencies themselves regarding "only fighter-types get this bonus" kind of drove home the point that you could get the +to hit, +to damage, +speed factor but not +APR.

It isn't written into the spell BBoD that you get the APR bonus either, just grandmastery. It was something I was a little disappointed in for my mage/thief too. Swashies and blades are also sad in this regard as their specialisation doesn't give them the extra +1/2 APR.

Mathsorcerer

Perhaps the blade itself could be updated with a couple of EFFs which apply only to classes of mage or sorcerer (1 and 19, respectively) which will set the attacks per round to 2. This way, dual/multi with some sort of fighter receive their default APR. This is an interesting enough question to me that I will test it out today.

Mathsorcerer

I tested it and it works like a charm. Use EFF (177) targeting a specific class (in this case I used class.ids entry 4 = thief) to apply resource sw1h01.eff with a timing of "while equipped". The effect, sw1h01.eff, forced the APR to 2. When I create a new straight thief and equip the sword he gets 2 APR; when I create a bard and equip the sword she received only 1 APR, as she should.

In short, edit the Black Blade item file to apply a similar EFF to straight mages or sorcerers to force APR to 2.

Serpion

Mathsorcerer said:

I tested it and it works like a charm. Use EFF (177) targeting a specific class (in this case I used class.ids entry 4 = thief) to apply resource sw1h01.eff with a timing of "while equipped". The effect, sw1h01.eff, forced the APR to 2. When I create a new straight thief and equip the sword he gets 2 APR; when I create a bard and equip the sword she received only 1 APR, as she should.

In short, edit the Black Blade item file to apply a similar EFF to straight mages or sorcerers to force APR to 2.

force APR to 2 is BAD idea in cases of Fighter / Mage dual/multy class.

Mathsorcerer

That is why the EFF would apply only to single-class mages/sorcerers/bard (but not blade), dual/multi thief/mage or cleric/mage, thieves using UAI, or any other combination that doesn't already include fighter. Characters who were some sort of fighter then dualed to mage technically have a class of "fighter_mage" like regular multiclass characters so the APR effect won't apply to them.