Automatic weapon switching - how does it work?

jmerry

If a character is set to prefer ranged weapons and an enemy closes to melee range, they'll switch to a melee weapon. Or they'll switch to a ranged weapon once nobody's close. Similarly, a character set to prefer melee weapons will switch from ranged to melee as soon as there isn't an order overriding it.

But ... what if the character has multiple melee weapons in their quickslots, or multiple ranged weapons? How does the game choose which one to use?

For example, the Archer I'm playing right now has three quickslots - a crossbow, Spider's Bane +2 (1d10+2 damage), and Albruin +1 (2d4 +3 damage) with a +1 medium shield. He's proficient in bastard swords but not two-handed swords, with no relevant weapon style proficiencies. Therefore, he has better THAC0, deals more damage, and has a better AC with Albruin.
Without fail, every time an enemy closes on him, he switches to Spider's Bane. This happens regardless of which weapon gets the #2 quickslot and which one gets the #3 slot. If I want him to use the weapon he's better with, I have to switch manually.

There's clearly a rule being used here. Equally clearly, it's not choosing anything a player would recognize as "the best".

lroumen

The action used is to equip the most damaging melee weapon. I know it does not check elemental damage or added effects. Your findings suggest it only checks maximum base damage before modifiers or such

Balrog99

You don't have to switch them if you have both 'Des' and 'Troy'!

gorgonzola

at least the item name and alphabetical order is not used so a player can have some control over it, as long as he don't have to use the weapon slots to carry weapons that he don't need to use only because the other slots are filled.
the mages don't have that control with their simulacrums, no matter in which order they decide to memorize the spells, the level drained clone retains them using the alphabetical order.
using as priority the way the weapons are placed in the slots, giving priority to the one that is closer to the left side, would be certainly better.
feel free to send a feature request about it, i don't do it as i love micro managing and i have almost always the ai turned off, so i don't feel right to load the developers with work that i will not benefit of.

jmerry

gorgonzola wrote: »

... so a player can have some control over it...

Not really. The rule is apparently "highest maximum damage", ignoring on-hit effects and everything not printed in the weapon's description. You can't affect that by choosing proficiencies. You can't affect it by ordering things a different way. It's the same order for anybody, and that's not something you can control as a player.

When a warrior chooses weapons to put in their quickslots, they'll start with the weapons they want to use regularly, then add weapons based on special abilities - such as free action from Spider's Bane or Detect Invisibility from Albruin in the example I used. You choose those extra weapons based on attributes other than combat effectiveness, and then you're stuck with the game engine making wrong choices about which one to use in combat sometimes. Changing to the weapon you're actually best with is easy enough at two clicks (select character, hit button), but it requires noticing the issue. I'd rather not pause every two seconds during combat, myself.

Yes, giving priority based on which slot they're in would be best; that gives complete control to the player while still being very simple.

gorgonzola

i agree that it would be better, but a warrior can remove from the quick slots the weapons he don't want to have automatically chosen by the engine, so has control.
for a mage that cast a simulacrum there is not the possibility of doing something similar, the clone retains the spells in alphabetical order, maybe retaining some spells that are not useful at all for that battle. so there is not a real way to control the thing.