THAC0 bonus while attacking hidden...

viktorh

How exactly does it work? I know that Rangers, Bards and Thieves get +4 bonus to THAC0 while attacking hidden (or anyone invisible actually), but I haven't been able to find out whether this applies for melee only or also for ranged attacks. To my knowledge, there is nowhere to find some definitive answer. Some people THINK that it's for melee only, just like some people think that high charisma lowers the chance of fights to death between party members...

Thanks

EDIT: It doesn't make much sense if it's melee only btw...

CrevsDaak

It's for ranged too IIRC, but it's given to everyone who's invisible, so your fighter can get the bonus too.
High Reaction makes the fights to the death to take more time to trigger.

TJ_Hooker

CrevsDaak said:

It's for ranged too IIRC, but it's given to everyone who's invisible, so your fighter can get the bonus too.
High Reaction makes the fights to the death to take more time to trigger.

Nope, just tested it out (in BG2:EE), no bonus to hit when using a ranged weapon. Also, I'm still skeptical about the the effect of a high charisma leader on things like intra-party conflict, morale failure, etc. I've never seen anything to back up these claims other than the odd piece of anecdotal evidence, which doesn't count for much in my books.

viktorh

Thank you both!

After all these years, with such a huge and active community and buttloads of mods, we still don't know some (rather fundamental) things about this game... Isn't that funny?

I'm curious though; what could be the decision behind not implementing ranged weapons too? It's just against common sense... Maybe devs thought that it was unbalanced? They overlooked it? Engine limitations (I wouldn't know)?

Could Beamdog do anything about it? I mean, aren't they forbid to alter these kind of things by their contract? It would be great, if they could. Especially for Rangers...

enqenq

viktorh said:

After all these years, with such a huge and active community and buttloads of mods, we still don't know some (rather fundamental) things about this game... Isn't that funny?

I think the THAC0 thing is a bad example. Anyone interested could have checked it by just displaying the attack rolls. Even vanilla BG2 allowed that maybe even vanilla BG1.

CrevsDaak

viktorh said:

I'm curious though; what could be the decision behind not implementing ranged weapons too? It's just against common sense... Maybe devs thought that it was unbalanced? They overlooked it? Engine limitations (I wouldn't know)?

Could Beamdog do anything about it? I mean, aren't they forbid to alter these kind of things by their contract? It would be great, if they could. Especially for Rangers...

It's because of how real life ranged weapons work, you won't be able to hit someone easier if they can't see you, there are just less probabilities of missing the shot. If you use a sword + you are invisible, it's very easy to hit someone that way, while if you have a ranged weapon, it's still the same. Or at least that's what I know.
Also, when an enemy is blinded you gain the same bonus, but also with ranged weapons, which makes even less sense :P

viktorh

enqenq said:

viktorh said:

After all these years, with such a huge and active community and buttloads of mods, we still don't know some (rather fundamental) things about this game... Isn't that funny?

I think the THAC0 thing is a bad example. Anyone interested could have checked it by just displaying the attack rolls. Even vanilla BG2 allowed that maybe even vanilla BG1.

Yep, you're right, just tested it again myself. I always thought that the bonus is separate in the roll (three numbers in the formula). Well, now I feel rather silly...

CrevsDaak said:

viktorh said:

I'm curious though; what could be the decision behind not implementing ranged weapons too? It's just against common sense... Maybe devs thought that it was unbalanced? They overlooked it? Engine limitations (I wouldn't know)?

Could Beamdog do anything about it? I mean, aren't they forbid to alter these kind of things by their contract? It would be great, if they could. Especially for Rangers...

It's because of how real life ranged weapons work, you won't be able to hit someone easier if they can't see you, there are just less probabilities of missing the shot. If you use a sword + you are invisible, it's very easy to hit someone that way, while if you have a ranged weapon, it's still the same. Or at least that's what I know.
Also, when an enemy is blinded you gain the same bonus, but also with ranged weapons, which makes even less sense :P

"there are just less probabilities of missing the shot" - Exactly! That's why I should have a bonus "to hit" roll, which THAC0 roll is. An enemy is not protecting himself and not moving (in unpredictable way)...

TheArtisan

CrevsDaak said:

viktorh said:

It's because of how real life ranged weapons work, you won't be able to hit someone easier if they can't see you, there are just less probabilities of missing the shot. If you use a sword + you are invisible, it's very easy to hit someone that way, while if you have a ranged weapon, it's still the same. Or at least that's what I know.

I disagree, it'd be a lot easier to aim an arrow at a vital section like the throat or an artery if the enemy isn't aware and therefore not moving. Technically this should count as a guaranteed critical hit, but there's no logical reason a sneak attack with a bow should be impossible. Lower multiplier? Maybe. Same as if the target was prepared to dodge? Nah.

Also, I find it funny that when a target is incapacitated you should logically be rolling free 20's against them for guaranteed crits but because you don't roll at all it's impossible to get a crit on a stunned enemy instead. Logic and video games are mutually exclusive.