Was Avenger Sword Spider Nerfed?

alastair93

I'm playing a new game of BG2 on 2.5, and I noticed that the Sword Spider form no longer does poison damage.

I may be misremembering, but I recall that this was one of the big bonuses of the shapeshift form. Has this been changed recently?

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Noobacca

From memory, the sword spider form isn't immune to web either, even though it's description says it is.

alastair93

Hmmm. I've been reading old Reddit/Beamdog posts and it seems lots of people used to use the web+ sword spider poison strategy. I also found a video of a mage shapeshifting into a sword spider and applying poison, and I'm fairly certain that the same applied to the Avenger shapeshift once upon a time. This must've been changed for a recent patch right?

Anyone know of any mods to apply the poison effect to the sword spider form?

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AstroBryGuy

alastair93 said:

I'm playing a new game of BG2 on 2.5, and I noticed that the Sword Spider form no longer does poison damage.

I may be misremembering, but I recall that this was one of the big bonuses of the shapeshift form. Has this been changed recently?

In the original BG2, the avenger's sword spider form did poison damage (http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6324).

As others have pointed out, this is inconsistent with sword spiders in the game and in AD&D. Sword spiders do not have a poisonous attack (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/spider.php). It has been corrected for the EEs. Not sure which release, however. And the lack of web immunity has been corrected as well.

So, sword spider form gained web-immunity, but lost poison damage. I wouldn't call it a nerf; I would call it a correction, since a sword spider should be immune to web effects but not have poison.

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monico

The sword spider form from the avenger has high APR (4 or 5, I don't remember the latest behaviour, previously it was 5 with automatic haste on the transformation).
No poison indeed, but the high APR more than makes up for it.

The spider form from Polymorph Self spell (lvl 4 arcane) has only 2 APRs, but does poison damage (also changed in EE, before I remember it having higher APR, but I don't remember if it also had poison).

Both have web immunity as of now.

gorgonzola

tested now in EE 2.3
aerie at top level using spider form, and it should be sword spider at that level, then using a spell trigger whit holy power RM and IH gets 25 str and 10apr, so 5 not hasted, reason why i am sure that she is in sword spider form. i sent her against a lev 22 sarevok and she was able to deal like 130 dmg in a round (due to RM and IH ti should have been 180 dmg round + poison dmg, but he saved the to hit roll few times), then she retreated and mr tob died cause poison.

so in EE 2.3 it seems that the polymorph self sword spider does poison damage.
she has -14 AC with the best shield (must be equipped before she turns into spider) and -7 thaco, 18 dmg/hit.

so from my testing @alastair93 is correct, the Sword Spider form no longer does poison damage, at least compared with the EE 2.3 version where it did.