Enemy archers don't miss?

Eliteseraph

It's something I've noticed fairly often. It's not so much that they never miss, but their chance to hit seems extremely high. I noticed the trend first in my playthrough of BG 1, but I especially noticed it in the early stages of BG2. I have a character with a -10 AC, and in several encounters I have paid careful attention while testing this character against archer type enemies. In almost every case the archers would land hits with almost every shot.

Now, I could be that the enemy archers just have a really low THAC0, but it seems that the accuracy of these enemies is unusually good. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, so I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed this?

I'm using BG2 tweaks and BG2 Sword Coast Stratagems, although only for general AI changes. Could this be responsible? I know that the AI is supposed to be improved, but its not supposed to actually cheat(which is what this feels like).

Or is this just normal for BG2 EE archers? I'll admit I haven't played BG2 since its initial release, but I don't remember it being like this. Any advice or input would be much appreciated.

Edit: Oh, and to add insult to injury, these archers usually only carry nonmagical bows and ammo.

elminster

Ctrl+Q on one and see what its thac0 reads as.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Eliteseraph

Hmmm..I suppose that might explain it. Although the frequency of hits against such a low AC still strikes me as a little strange, especially without magical equipment. I'll have to run through the readme of SCS, since I don't remember seeing anything about adding kits to NPCs, but I could easily be mistaken.

JohannesN

You can also enable an option which shows rolls in combat. So you can see how high they roll, and what they need to roll to hit.

Lord_Tansheron

Enemy THAC0s in BG2 in general tend to improve quite a lot over the course of the game, and reach truly ludicrous levels in ToB. I suspect it's to force people into strategies other than stacking AC, which works well in BG1 but not so much in BG2.

SCS of course adds to that, improving things even further.

semiticgoddess

@Eliteseraph, I'm sorry you've experienced this, and I'm sure it's very frustrating, but what you're describing is impossible. That's not how the game engine works.

Enemies will miss, regardless of their THAC0. There is always at least a 5% chance of a critical miss. And if you have -10 AC, then BG1 enemies are not going to land every hit--they simply don't have the THAC0 to get a 95% hit chance. In BG2, they'll hit more often, but even then, they are not going to hit all of the time. The only way anything in BG1 or BG2 can get a 100% hit chance is for them to either use the Critical Strike or Smite HLAs (and you haven't seen those if you haven't reached ToB or Watcher's Keep), or if their target is disabled. If your Charname fails a save against Hold Person, then everyone can hit you regardless of your AC.

No, SCS and BGTweaks are not cheating and letting the archers make every attack roll. Putting aside the fact that that's not what those mods do, that's not even possible within the game engine. And I have difficulty believing that anyone could beat BG1 if all enemy arrows always hit, unless they never actually fought any archers. I assume it looks like they're landing every hit because you don't notice the arrows that have no effect.

Go to the game options menu and check the box that shows attack rolls in-game. Then you can see what the enemies are rolling on their to-hit rolls when they're attacking you. They will roll 1s and 2s sooner or late, and on those 1s and 2s, they will miss your character with -10 AC. They may get lucky streaks, and roll three critical hits in a row, but that's just the luck of the draw.

Rest assured, your AC is keeping your character safe. If you feel archers are hitting too often, then get your AC lower. Enemy archers do miss.

Jarrakul

I'm pretty sure the thread title is hyperbole. From the first post, OP doesn't think enemy archers literally never miss, but only that they hit almost all the time, which seems improbable against a -10 AC.

xscott71x

Equip Reflection Shield

/thread

semiticgoddess

Reflection Shield isn't much help in BG1--it doesn't exist. But in BG2, it grants immunity to almost every projectile. The only exceptions are the arrows from Catti Brie's bow (I think), Minute Meteors, Sol's Searing Orb, Fire Seeds, and Jan's flashers, none of which are particularly important.

zol

I can confirm that something is wrong with archers. My swashbuckler with ridiculous AC -23 (and even wearing fortress shield with +7 bonus vs missile) was hit with first shot from simple goblin archer (sewers).

semiticgoddess

Turn on the attack roll feedback so you know what the archers are rolling. If the goblin rolled a 20, there's no amount of AC that would stop it. If it rolled a 19, then it shouldn't be hitting you, not with a subzero AC. Maybe you could take a screenshot and post it here... or better yet, your save file.

zol

Yeah, critical hits is the matter here, indeed. Still it is somewhat frustrating (even having regeneration): why should we care about so weak creatures at all? Maybe their chance of rolling 20 should be lowered or even made never happen? Thoughts?

Yannir

zol said:

Maybe their chance of rolling 20 should be lowered or even made never happen? Thoughts?

Their chance to roll "20" is 1 out of 20. That's how the rolling system works. The only way to reduce that chance is by making the roll bigger, say 1d25, or by giving it a secondary dice roll.

I think there should NEVER be a 0% chance of something hitting or damaging you. I've seen enough underdogs triumph in the face of overwhelming odds to know that winning is NEVER guaranteed. I once saw this UFC-match where a 260-pound heavyweight boxer was dropped with a single blow by a 160-pound boxer. Turns out that the big pile of meat had a glass jaw. The same principle can be applied to any situation. There's always the dumb luck shot.

Jarrakul

Of course, there's something to be said for some actions having a less than 5% chance of succeeding. Sadly, D&D rules don't have enough resolution to measure such probabilities, so we're left with 5% or 0%. And yeah, between the two of those, I think 5% is definitely the better option.