#7413 [CORE - Feature Request] - The Gesen Bow

Mythantor

I can't find a bug report for it anywhere else but the damage for the gesen bow is bugged.

Rather than the damage stated in the description +char sheet, the bow always does 2 base +seems to be 1d6 electrical damage.

Also the projectile travels stupidly slowly, I've had fast enemies nearly outrun the shot.

Tresset

I can see no issues with the bow. It should do 2 missile(piercing) damage and 1d8 electrical damage. There are several reasons it may not be doing up to 8 electrical damage for you. First, the character you are attacking could have some electrical resistance. Secondly, if you are attacking your party members to test the damage and have the game difficulty set to normal, then the party members will take 25% less damage from any damage source due to the game difficulty setting.

As for the projectile speed, I think it is fine. Just a bit slower than most bow shots. I think it may actually move faster than it used to if anything.

Smilge

@Tresset The bow is bugged, but in the sense that it shoots 0d6 arrows and the bow itself adds 2 piercing and 1d8 lightning damage. So a normal arrow fired by the gensen bow will do 1d6 +2 piercing +1d8 electrical. The only reason to not equip normal arrows with the bow is when fighting enemies immune to non-magical weapons, since the default 0d6 arrows are considered +4 in terms of what they can hit.

@Mythantor this also changes the projectile speed and animation to a normal arrow.

Tresset

@Smilge Just because its function makes little sense does not mean that this bow is bugged. It functions exactly as it was intended to function by the developers. A bug would, of course, be something that does not function as intended as opposed to this. It was intended to do a base 2 piercing damage and 1d8 electrical damage. It was also intended to be possible for the bow to fire other arrows as well and for these other arrows to be imbued with the power of the bow itself.

@Troodon80 I believe this is not an issue.

Smilge

@Tresset This is the description in the bow's tooltip:

"Combat Abilities: When no arrows are equipped, the bow fires +4 missiles that deal 2 piercing and 1d8 electrical damage"

If the weapon's behavior is as intended, the tooltip is incorrect or, at the very least, incredibly misleading.

Illydth

I'm confused @Smilge: help me see your side here.

"The bow is bugged, but in the sense that it shoots 0d6 arrows and the bow itself adds 2 piercing and 1d8 lightning damage. So a normal arrow fired by the gensen bow will do 1d6 +2 piercing +1d8 electrical. The only reason to not equip normal arrows with the bow is when fighting enemies immune to non-magical weapons, since the default 0d6 arrows are considered +4 in terms of what they can hit"

"Combat Abilities: When no arrows are equipped, the bow fires +4 missiles that deal 2 piercing and 1d8 electrical damage"

The two of these statements seem to track 100% perfectly with each other. When no arrow is equipped the bow does 2 piercing and 1d8 Electrical Damage as you report. The arrows are effective as if they were +4 arrows.

What point of this is bugged? I appreciate a bow firing arrows doing 0d6 damage is a bit weird but assume for a moment that the bow fires arrows that do 2-2 damage (instead of 1d6 it's 2d1 damage) +1d8 Electrical? As to the +4, I assume the bow is NOT adding +4 to the to-hit roll of the character using it? Remember that Bows do NOT add their +'s to damage, only to To Hit (I think).

If you're suggesting it's bugged because it is not adding +4 to the To Hit roll, then it is acting like monk fists act. While they're effective against magical immune creatures, they do not confer a to hit/damage bonus.

Either way I seem to see the bow as working exactly how the description says it does. Is there a better text description you'd like to see it being given? (We're always open to description / text changes).

Smilge

@Illydth The bow itself adds +4 to THAC0, +2 piercing damage, and +1d8 lightning damage. If no arrows are equipped, the "spears of lightning" in the description do 0 damage and have no bonus to THAC0. The only thing special about the arrows is that they act as +4 weapons when determining what to hit. In almost every situation it is better to equip any arrows with the bow in lieu of the "spears of lightning". For instance, a +1 arrow will do 1d6 more damage and have 1 additional THAC0 compared to the phantom ammunition.

If that doesn't make sense, consider the crossbow Firetooth.

"When no bolts are equipped, the crossbow fires +2 Fire Bolts that do 1d8+4 (missile), +2 fire damage"

As a native english speaker, this means to me that if regular bolts were equipped, they would replace the 1d8+4 (missile) +2 (fire) bolts. In fact, this crossbow shoots normal 1d8 bolts. The crossbow adds +4 missile and +2 fire damage. Here is the description of the THAC0 bonus:

"THAC0: +6 bonus (+4 crossbow, +2 Fire Bolt)"

This is untrue. The crossbow gives +6 THAC0 no matter what bolts are equipped. Magical bolts will give a further bonus to THAC0.

So with no ammunition:

Damage: 1d8+4 missile +2 fire
THAC0: +6 bonus

With +2 bolts:
Damage 1d8+4 missile +2 fire
THAC0: +8 bonus

Firetooth is not firing "fire bolts" and the description says it is, it is firing 1d8 bolts. Gesen's bow is not firing spears of lightning, it is firing 0d6 arrows. The Sling of Seeking and Everard's Sling are the same way; they fire 1d4 bullets with no bonus to THAC0 or damage (even normal bullets do 1d4+1).

All ranged weapons that do not require ammunition are incorrectly attributing some or all of their bonuses to their phantom projectiles when in fact all bonuses to damage and THAC0 are part of the launcher itself. I can't imagine there is a person on earth that could read the descriptions of these items and predict their behavior when ammunition is equipped.

Whether it gets fixed or not, to deny that there is a problem with either the items or the tooltips is just silly.

Tresset

@Smilge I think I see where you are coming from now. Yes, it does seem a bit odd that the launchers add their effects to any ammo they fire. I am fairly certain, however, that this behavior is intended. The descriptions don't even touch on the subject of what happens when other ammo is equipped on the launchers so they aren't exactly wrong. Instead they let you figure out what happens when other ammo is put on the launcher. I am not saying it is necessarily right to have the descriptions like this, but I don't think it is necessarily wrong either. If anything is to be changed here it is probably the descriptions and not the actual functionality of the items. If you want you can suggest changes to the descriptions here: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/25217/report-bg2-game-text-errors-here, but there are no bugs that I can see with the functionality of the launchers.

Smilge

@Tresset Fair enough.

Since I have your attention and you're saying there is no bugs with the functionality of the launchers, has it already been reported that the Sling of Seeking and Sling of Everard add both strength and dexterity bonuses to THAC0? Other slings do not repeat this behavior, and it occurs whether or not alternative ammunition is equipped.

Smilge

In fact, when ammunition is not equipped to these launchers, there is an erroneous bonus to THAC0 displayed but not applied. This bonus appears to be from the phantom ammunition, but it is not actually applied in calculations. So either these weapon's description's are worded in a confusing way AND there is an erroneous displayed bonus to THAC0 when no other ammunition is equipped, or the functionality is not as was intended. You can guess which option I think is more likely.

Avenger_teambg

It's not possible to separate the fake ammo stats from the base item. The best we could do is to disable loading anything into them.

Tresset

Smilge said:

@Tresset Fair enough.

Since I have your attention and you're saying there is no bugs with the functionality of the launchers, has it already been reported that the Sling of Seeking and Sling of Everard add both strength and dexterity bonuses to THAC0? Other slings do not repeat this behavior, and it occurs whether or not alternative ammunition is equipped.

@Smilge Now that does sound like a bug. I will report it.

Illydth

@Smilge: Lots here to talk about, before we open tickets let me try to get a better understanding. This is going to get long and I apologize in advance, I need to get this all sorted out with you before we talk about resolutions.

@Tresset: hold on opening bugs on any of this yet. Some discussion has already been had surrounding strength.

* Magical Launchers which fire their own Ammo *
---------------------
Ok, so it sounds like we have some dichotomy going. We have 4 weapons to condsider:

* Bow of Gesen
* Firetooth
* Sling of Seeking
* Everard's Sling

Each of these has 2 options: Fire it's own projectiles or Fire equipped projectiles.

(PLEASE CORRECT WHAT I MESS UP)

Firing It's own Projectiles
-----------------------
* Bow of Gesen: 0 - 0 Base Damage, 1 - 8 Lightning Damage, +2 Piercing Damage, +5 THACO
THAC0: +4
Damage: 1d8 + 2 (3 - 10)
* Firetooth: 1 - 8 Base Damage, + 4 Missile Damage, + 2 Fire Damage, +6 THAC0
THAC0: +6
Damage: 1d8 + 6 (6 - 14)
* Sling of Seeking: 1 - 4 Base Damage, +2 THAC0
THAC0: +2
Damage: 1d4 (1 - 4)
* Everard's Sling: 1 - 4 Base Damage, +5 THAC0
THAC0: +5
Damage: 1d4 (1 - 4)

Firing Supplied Projectiles (+1 base ammo)
------------------------
* Bow of Gesen: 1 - 6 Base Damage, 1 - 8 Lightning Damage, +2 Piercing Damage, +5 THACO
THAC0: +5
Damage: 1d6 + 1d8 + 2 (4 - 16)
* Firetooth: 1 - 8 Base Damage, + 4 Missile Damage, + 2 Fire Damage, +7 THAC0
THAC0: +7
Damage: 1d8 + 6 (6 - 14)
* Sling of Seeking: 1 - 4 + 1 Base Damage, +3 THAC0
THAC0: +3
Damage: 1d4+1 (2 - 5)
* Everard's Sling: 1 - 4 + 1 Base Damage, +6 THAC0
THAC0: +6
Damage: 1d4+1 (2-5)

Are these stats right?

Off the top of my head, I'd say that Bow of Gesen and Firetooth are working differently from each other. Either Gesen needs a 1d6 additional base damage or Firetooth needs to lose 1d8 base damage to work like the other does.

And it looks like Sling of Seeking and Everard's Sling are both missing a single +1 on their bullets.

Please confirm if I've got your point correctly this time.

Slings and Strength/Dex Bonuses
--------------------------
There's been a discussion on this topic already. It was noted that slings were adding strength bonuses while bows weren't...and thus it was better in this game to equip a sling than a bow. Are you saying this is ONLY for these two slings? The sling of seeking in the GameFAQ walkthrough denotes that strength bonus is added...this is not noted for Everard's Sling.

I believe in the previous topic (search for it) it was determined that adding strength bonus to slings was a balancing factor for slings and that, in fact, there wasn't a huge difference in damage once everything was taken into account (like rate of fire, additional bonuses, etc.)

Once I have everything I'll summon up some devs / admins to verify the findings and let me know if they want bugs opened or not.

Please correct what I've missed or add to what I've said so I have the full picture.

Tresset

Illydth said:

Slings and Strength/Dex Bonuses
--------------------------
There's been a discussion on this topic already. It was noted that slings were adding strength bonuses while bows weren't...and thus it was better in this game to equip a sling than a bow. Are you saying this is ONLY for these two slings? The sling of seeking in the GameFAQ walkthrough denotes that strength bonus is added...this is not noted for Everard's Sling.

I believe in the previous topic (search for it) it was determined that adding strength bonus to slings was a balancing factor for slings and that, in fact, there wasn't a huge difference in damage once everything was taken into account (like rate of fire, additional bonuses, etc.)

@Illydth I already made the report about the strength on the slings thing before you told me not to...

Also the issue I made was not about a strength bonus to damage but rather a strength bonus to THAC0. No ranged weapons should add a strength modifier to Thac0. What the slings with auto ammo are currently doing is adding BOTH a dexterity modifier to thac0 AND a strength modifier to thac0. No other slings in the game are doing this and adding a strength modifier to thac0 of a ranged weapon is just plain wrong anyway. Strength bonus to damage should be added, yes. To thac0? No. I will review the rest of your post for errors in a bit.

Tresset

@Illydth
Ok, so it sounds like we have some dichotomy going. We have 45 weapons to condsider:

*Tansheron's Bow
* Bow of Gesen
* Firetooth
* Sling of Seeking
* Everard's Sling

Each of these has 2 options: Fire it's own projectiles or Fire equipped projectiles.

(Tresset's Corrections)

Firing It's own Projectiles
-----------------------
* Bow of Gesen: 0 - 0 Base Damage, 1 - 8 Lightning Damage, +2 Piercing Damage, +4 THACO
THAC0: +4
Damage: 1d8 + 2 (3 - 10)

* Firetooth: 1 - 8 Base Damage, + 4 Missile Damage, + 2 Fire Damage, +6 THAC0
THAC0: +6
Damage: 1d8 + 6 (6 - 14)

* Sling of Seeking: 1 - 4 Base Damage, + 2 Missile damage, +2 THAC0
THAC0: +2
Damage: 1d4 (1 - 4)1d4 + 2 (3 - 6)

* Everard's Sling: 1 - 4 Base Damage, + 2 Missile damage, +5 THAC0
THAC0: +5
Damage: 1d4 (1 - 4)1d4 + 2 (3 - 6)

*Tansheron's Bow: 1 - 6 Base Damage, +3 THAC0
THAC0: +3
Damage: 1d6 (1-6)

Firing Supplied Projectiles (+1 base ammo)
------------------------
* Bow of Gesen: 1 - 6 Base Damage, 1 - 8 Lightning Damage, +2 Piercing Damage, +5 THACO
THAC0: +5
Damage: 1d6 + 1d8 + 2 (4 - 16)

* Firetooth: 1 - 8 Base Damage, + 4 Missile Damage, + 2 Fire Damage, +7 THAC0
THAC0: +7
Damage: 1d8 + 6 (6 - 14)

* Sling of Seeking: 1 - 4 + 1+ 2 Base Damage, +2 Missile damage, +3 THAC0
THAC0: +3
Damage: 1d4 + 1 (2 - 5)1d4+4 (5 - 8)

* Everard's Sling: 1 - 4 + 1+ 2 Base Damage, +2 Missile damage, +6 THAC0
THAC0: +6
Damage: 1d4 + 1 (2 - 5)1d4+4 (5 - 8)

*Tansheron's Bow: 1 - 6 Base Damage, +4 THAC0
THAC0: +4
Damage: 1d6 (1-6)

Tresset

@Illydth said:

Off the top of my head, I'd say that Bow of Gesen and Firetooth are working differently from each other. Either Gesen needs a 1d6 additional base damage or Firetooth needs to lose 1d8 base damage to work like the other does.

Gesen and Firetooth do work differently, and I believe this is intentional.

@Illydth said:

And it looks like Sling of Seeking and Everard's Sling are both missing a single +1 on their bullets.

Not sure what you mean by this...

Sorry for triple posting, but it would have been quite the headache to do all that at once.

Smilge

And it looks like Sling of Seeking and Everard's Sling are both missing a single +1 on their bullets.

Not sure what you mean by this...

I think Illydth is proposing replacing all the "phantom ammunition" with the equivilent of unmagical ammunition in terms of damage and THAC0. So for the gesen bow, that would be replacing the 0d6 with 1d6, firetooth stays the same, and the slings get 1d4+1 (currently they get 1d4, which is less damage than non-magical bullets).

It's probably the simplest "fix" (this is technically a feature request since these items haven't changed from vanilla BG2 AFAIK) that can be hoped for. Slight buffs to the slings, nice buff for Gesen's, and Firetooth stays the same. Magical ammunition will still be superior, especially for bullets that get a bonus to THAC0 *and* damage, but overall it makes much more sense.

If this doesn't end up happening I wouldn't lose any sleep though, since it seems like quite a bit of work for something that inconsequential in the scheme of things.

Illydth

It may not be much work at all. We'll see.

Summoning @LiamEsler!

Liam: The thread is a bit mathy and long so let me see if I can shorten it up for you:

All of the magical bows and slings that fire their own ammunition seem to be working EACH a bit differently from each other and in most cases, incorrectly. The most correct SEEMS to be Firetooth which I would think works as intended. The rest of the weapons fire some subset of normal ammo as their own with the closest being the slings (they fire 1d6 bullets instead of 1d6+1 which is what normal bullets are) and the most agregious of which is Gesen which actually fires 0 damage projectiles.

In all cases but firetooth, you do not get a benefit from firing the weapon's own unlimited projectiles, in all cases (other than firetooth) you benefit from firing your own projectiles (even normal/basic projectiles) over the bow's inherent ammo.

While each of these weapons SHOULD benefit from firing magical ammo, I would think each ranged weapon should be AT LEAST as good as firing that ranged weapon with basic ammo.

This has not changed since vanilla BG2, so we're probably in "feature request" land here, but I'm mostly asking if this is something you see as a feature that we'd want to look at or if this is "as intended".

LiamEsler

@Illydth Agreed, I'd think this should be changed. Tagging @AlexT and @Ardanis, this is more your field than mine: opinions?

CrevsDaak

This worked like @Smilge mentioned since vanilla, I think this shouldn't be fixed, but there are some exploit-haters role-players also.
Anyway it is a bug so there is a duty for all of you to fix it.
Maybe restricting the use of Arrows while using the mentioned weapons helps, like what was done with Evenmemory in BG:EE and the Ring of Wizardry in BG2:ToB.

Illydth

Feature Request 7413 has been added as per suggestion by @LiamEsler. If @AlexT or @Ardanis wishes to nix this, they can close the request as "Won't Fix".

Not a bug so will not be tracking.

Thanks for bring this up @Smilge