Alright folks..bows need some more thought

[ATI]

My lvl 16 bow, Bow of the Forest, adds 3 to attack is mighty 3 and 2d6 massive critical.

Now, I don't know about you guys...but this is way lamer than most lvl 16 items.

The star of the north does 2d6 extra damage, does 1d6 positive energy(no res) damage, 2d6 massive critical, enchantment +3 (awesome because it adds to AB AND damage) and it glows white 15meters !!!! (the glowing is the awesome part)

Anyways...do you guys see some inequity here? Also there is only one way to get better than lvl 13 arrows...make them...which wastes WAY too much exp when at lvl 20 you can only get a max of 15 exp per kill, who wants to waste that precious xp on arrows when it means they have to kill 1k rats to get back the exp?

Furthermore....When you cast weapon enchantment on a bow, it says the following "Target item is either not a weapon (a blatant lie) or is not equipped (Hark! Another lie!)" I tried the spell on an arrow, and holy crap!! same message. Now I don't know...but thats lame. This means that while EVERY other melee weapon does 3 extra damage and can pierce through damage resistence -/+3. All the ranged weapons have no such ability. This means if a char has 20/+1 the lvl 20 bow won't be able to pierce through the resistence (and thus will do either no damage or little damage), while a simple lvl 9 item that is +2 can pierce through. Thats weak!

Two things need to be fixed.

1: All ranged weapons should be able to have the spell weapon enchantment on them making them have the possibility of becoming a +5 weapon at lvl 15 for clerics. This makes it so that the weapon can, in PvP situations can be used against epic mage armor and so forth. If you think its unfair....I'll refer you to a regular cleric. A lvl 20 cleric can cast weapon enchantment on a melee weapon (making it a +5 weapon) thus bypassing the +5 armor bonuses the epic armor and mage armor and other spells provide. This should also be afforded to bows and arrows. At this rate...my sword does around 12-22 damage against a lvl 22 mage with epic mage armor. My bow? either does 0 damage(being that the weapon can't pierce through +1 armor, why could it pierce +5? IT CAN"T!) or it does a max of 5 damage, which is crap in PvP.


2: For gods sakes...make the bows have +1 through +5 like all other weapons. Its not hard, and it makes plenty of sense. Come on guys...a lvl 16 item, that is melee looks exactly the same across the board. All melee lvl 16 items do 2d6 damage, are keen, do 1d6 special damage 9if they are unique like the north star) and they have a +3 weapon enhancement (while also glowing).

My UNIQUE lvl 16 bow doesn't even closely stack up with this.

+3 attack bonus is cool, but honestly why not make it a weapon enhancement, i can't pierce through ANY +4 or +5 armor unless I flood the enemy with damage.

+3 mighty? WTF? Does this even matter? That means if I have +3 to STR i can add 3 damage right? thats lame....three damage is it?

Take the mighty and the attack bonus...group them together make a +3 enhanced bow. Simple as that.

2d6 massive criticals? What? Criticals only happen on a natural 20 (rare) which is lame. Why isn't this removed and replaced with this : 2d6 extra piercing damage.

then give special unique bows an additional 1d6 damage (positive energy or something, fire damage i don't care)

and then give the bow a keen modifier.

And FINALLY make the bows glow at lvl 16!.


What it comes down to is this...lvl 16 melee items are BY FAR better than bows. The lack of a +3 enhancement means that bows don't EVER do as much damage as a sword, mace, katana, wooden club +3, or a tak +3.

There is just no comparison to melee and ranged items here. The only thing I can think of is that its a sacrifice for taking ranged weaponry....and that is a crappy excuse. Sacrifice for taking a ranged weapon? Why should I have to sacrifice for wanting to hit from afar? I already lose 6-10 ac (which means if you get to me, i'm dead) because I can't use a shield, and I can't parry. And! since experience gift radius has been reduced, i have to be pretty close to anything I want to kill if I want the exp for the kill, meaning that I can't get exp for any monsters at the end of the screen. another minus for using a bow. You can even talk to Odlaw II about this...his char was AFK for 5 minutes...the ENTIRE clad guild saw me take out my bow....I fired 100 arrows into him... 90 of those arrows hit, and not ONE of them did damage unless it was a critical (and then it was only 10-20 damage). That is lame!! thats not a sacrifice its a serious impediment, its a handicap, and it makes ranged chars utterly worthless.

Please devs, lets fix the bows they are way unequal at this point. I mean seriously, CLAD Odlaw back me up....i sat there for 5 minutes, and not ONE arrow did damage (unless it was a critical). I switch to my sword and im dealing 12-20 damage like normal. I could run more tests if you would like. I'll show ANYONE this test, and i'll bet people will see the horrible inequity from lvl any of the melee items to ANY of the ranged items.

Just look at the stats between the lvl 16 melee items and the lvl 16 bows, event eh lvl 16 unique bows vs lvl 13 melee items are unfair. Lvl 13 melee items are WAY better than lvl 16 UNIQUE bows. If you guys need...i'll show you some pictures.

[satantrik]

Two important points:

1. Enhancement bonus, as implemented by 3e's designers, is more than just bonus to hit and damage. It bypasses certain monster's innate and spell/special ability damage resistance. This is why monk's get "Ki Strike +1, +X". They don't get any extra to hit or damage from the ability (and later epic feats), but it is invaluable to a monk who otherwise can't get an enhancement bonus on their gear. This is going to be a huge problem for missile weapon users if they don't get any enhancement bonus. I'm not sure how it should be rebalanced, but reverse engineering the current bows will be a lot easier than reverse engineering every +X/X damage resistance that exists in-game.

2. Massive Criticals. I've mentioned this before <a href="http://www.nsrealm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=14115&highlight=#14115">here</a>, but again, massive critical is disproportionately useful to lower crit range weapons as compared to weapons with a higher crit range. It is my opinion that Massive Critical should be removed or at least adjusted according to crit range and multiplier to account for how the numbers work.

Anyways...good post, lots of great points raised!

[TheBestDeception]

It would seem right now that an archer is useless unless levels of AA are taken. With those, you actually do get + enhancements (1 per 2 levels), and it adds up damage-wise.

Unfortunately, AA cannot be used if you want to wield a sling, x-bow, or throwing weapons...so the problem is in no way "fixed".

But yes, ranged weapons are extremely underpowered. Some will point to Forest Imbued Arrows...but those are rare and quickly used up. Perhaps a fix could be made by adding the property of "Unlimited Ammo: Forest Imbued Arrow" to the Bow of the Forest (or other high lvl bows). This way, ammunition would not be such a dire problem.

(BTW, I think FIA do 2d6 pierce and 1d6 acid)

EVen then, the enhancement bypass remains.....

[TGPO]

This is the kind of discussion we have been looking for during the beta. While there have been a few they are few and far between. All things being equal I would first like to point out that not all of the equipment that has been designed for the module has been included yet as it is for zones that havent been opened up to date.

That being said it is clear that there is a valid point being made here, so I would like to tie it into another topic of a sorts. Specifically would you (archers) prefer to see the bows and ammunition primarily as drops or instead have the ability to craft them? Perhaps a bit of both.

I'll leave it at that and let you all debate the pros and cons of each of the cases.

[Bob]

For an item that costs XP in addition to gold & gets used up, the crafted arrows/bolts should be substantially better. The crafting time delay on ammo should probably go too - they don't persist like a sword or armour when they get used.

Might be hard to balance cost vs use on improved store-bought arrows until the gold hoards on most players goes away, but at least we could test the effectiveness of damage improvements until a p-wipe or gold wipe.

[TheBestDeception]

Unfortunately, any archer with Cleric is incapable of crafting arrows that are meaningful. Therefore, I haven't even bothered to try and see for crafted arrows.

Having the arrows drop from the enemies is just too darn rare...You have to raid Melencia several times over to simply pull a pack or two of the FIA. I typically carry over 3000 arrows when I travel; 200 is not but a dent in my bag.

[ATI]

I think bows should definitely be dropped by enemies. High lvl bows should technically be hard to find. Just like all the really good weaponry (gnoll chief longsword, tag's hammer and so forth) are only dropped by specific people, so should the best bows be dropped by only high lvl specific chars.

This scenario, IMO, doesn't work for arrows, mainly because it doesn't make sense for only high lvl chars to drop good arrows, it means that there is less dissemination of the arrows (which means less actual arrow count and more conservative use of the arrows). Making the arrows drop from normal monsters is also not a very good plan because the arrows are dropped from monsters that either a) wouldn't normally use arrows[makes no sense] or b) are carried by specific monsters (or faction chars) that would hurt people of those factions from being able to attain such arrows.

So for arrows I would suggest that they be given the following options:

Ultra Unique arrows (the ones that are just ridiculously good) drop 25% of the time from a unique and hard to kill char. This is a crazy arrow, has vorpal, 10d6 damage whatever, but only drops in bundles of 10, and you cant have more than one bundle in your inventory. These arrows would represent highly lethal arrows that you have to work hard to get, and will make your next combat with anyone (most likely) tip in you're favor.


Bought arrows: Im sure we'd all be willing to bay 1mil-5mil gold to get a hand on 3000+ arrows that deal 2d6 damage. I think arrows that go with the normal damage increment of the items in NS4 should be bought because arrows propose a unique problem to NS4, in main, a melee weapon does not have to be constantly refound (unless you find a rust monster ) arrows on the other hand have to be stocked, rebought, and so forth. So instead make arrows that have the regular damage increments of hte melee weapons, and allow them to be bought at substantially higher lvls.

Finally for crafter arrows: I would suggest the almost super unique kind of arrow here, but without vorpal, and only maybe 5d6 damage. However, the kciker would be the arrows have a +5 enhancement on them or something like that. This would mean that you would be spending exp to guarantee your arrow pierced the the armor of your enemies on this server.

I agree with satantrik on both his points:
Massive critical on a bow (that as of yet aren't keen) menas taht with improved critical the best the bow does is on a 19-20 with only 2d6 extra damage (i don't know if the 2d6 gets multiplied by the critical hit or not). Its not a very good tradeoff compared to 2d6 additional damage, 1d6 unique damage (unique bow) keen, weapon enhancement and also glowing ( i really love glowy weapons )

Monsters and chars all have armor enhancements whch are nigh impossible to pierce because bows have no weapon enhancement themselves. If a char casts epic mage armor ( which most casters I have fought use) the bow becomes efectively useless because there are no +5 bows, nor any ability to make a bow +5 (through spell) this should be changed around so that lvl 1-9 bows are +1 lvl 13 bows are +2 lvl 16 bows are +3 and lvl 20 bows are +4(or 5) enhancements maiking it easier to pierce natural armor and other forms of armor like melee weapons do.

[Hulgaru]

I think this is where I would normally step in and start pulling down people's requests to uber-fy some class or ability.

I can't bring myself to do it with Bows, arrows, X-bows, and bolts. Haven't looked into darts or slings or throwing axes all that much, but I can say that bows and arrows seem mighty subdued considering one of the major benefits of the ranged character class is the fact that you're supposed to be able to hit from afar. And let's face it... how often are PCs able to take advantage of this?

That said... I'd like to see one of two paths followed:

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Choice #1: Re-work a number of maps to have more elevated positions with protected access. Essentially, the strategy here is to give Archers more places to ambush from, while not uber-ing out their weapons. I'm thinking more map designs like the Gnoll canyon map... stretches of lower ground, surrounded by higher ground. And having only a few ramps to the higher ground. There are a number of ways to improve the availability of terrain that archers can use. This would allow archers get a few shots off before they're closed down by melee types.

With this choice, as Bow weilders won't have to 'mix-it-up' melee so often, most Bows and Arrows won't need adjustment to their abilities. Here, we'd only have to modify how bows and ammunition are distributed.

Drawback... these areas also become extremely useful for spell casters as well, and as such devalues the melee type of character considerably.

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Choice #2: ala ATI's suggestions... but to a more limited (not so uber) extent... I'd adjust bow and x-bow drops as well as ammunition drops as follows:

Bows and X-Bows: Create one or two unique Archery shops. At these shops sell bows that focus on separate styles of play. Short Bows and Composite Short Bows that add to stealthy pursuits or add poison to attacks, or other Rogue related ideas. Long bows that add to spots, move silently, as well as increasing damage from Piercing, and maybe rate of fire. Add X-bows that focus on Massive Crits, or Different damage types, attack bonuses etc.

As for Ammunition: give bolts a more spread flavor of damage types, like maybe Fire and Sonic on one, Sonic and Cold on another, Holy and Cold on bolts that can be used by Good alignment only, and Negative and Electrical for bolts that can only be used by Evil... or some other combination therof. Have arrows more limited in damage types granted, but have the damage increased. This differentiates between the types of players for each weapon type. X-Bows for the more balanced damage portfolio, Bows for more precise (and therefore more lethal) damage types.

On the upper level bows, like the 16th level or the epics, I wouldn't mind seeing an AC bonus too... indicating that reinforced epic bows can be used, by proficient weilders, to parry attacks.

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Irregardless of which of the two above choices are chosen a new method of distributing bows, x-bows, ammunition, and thrown weapons should be enacted.

Here's a sample spread:

Thrown Weapons: Bundles of 5 or less dropped by low-mid level monsters.

Bows: Low-level archers drop common bows, Boss types use Mid-level bows when possible, High Level bows have boss-types designed around them, drop rarely, or are found in big treasure chests after defeating boss-type creatures.

X-Bows: Low-Mid level x-bows used by organized monsters (city guards, gnolls, amazons, dwarves, and other militant creatures) Mid to High-Level X-Bows used by boss types, and dropped rarely. Uber X-bows should be either dragon treasure or used by crafty/difficult boss types with groups of meat shields.

Ammunition: only low-level arrows (and bolts for all examples) should be dropped by low to mid level creatures. Mid-level arrows should be rare drops for boss-types. High level arrows, if ever dropped, should be dropped as single arrows or at most 2 or 3 arrows. I'm torn as to whether or not the most Uber Ammunition types should be craftable... only because I have trouble justifying making expendable resources so expensive (in both XP and gold).

I'll let someone who is more familiar with ranged weapons chime in on how they should be handled... but I imagine they're in the same boat as bows and x-bows.

[Serac]

Unfortunately ATI, the highest damage bonuses possible in the toolset (short of 2da hacking, which in turn requires a hak pack) is 20 OR 2d12.

Also, Arrows, Bolts, Bullets, Bows, Crossbows and Slings CANNOT have Enhancement Bonuses placed on them. However, it seems that the attack bonus property actually counts as Enhancement for attack Damage Reduction (a la Stoneskin). AA's Enchant Arrow also counts.

My suggestion is to make craftable arrows not cost xp, and be worth a smaller amount of gold to sell (currently you can make a profit, except for the xp cost). Or just have certain vendors sell high level arrows, instead of having them be high level drops - just have the vendors hidden, possibly protected by the things that drop those high level drops

Then treat the actual ranged weapon (bow, sling etc.) as though it were a melee weapon - just have a boss drop it. And maybe some uber ammo.

[Lokey]

Dev-crit bow would be a possibility, but can't think how that would encourage anything but RDD levels. Would need to hak to change the reqs on something engine based anyway, bah.

I'm not all that happy with ranged weapons in NWN anyway, too many bugs. (So what else is new?)

We can think about doing something from the scripted side as opposed to the item property side (some things can be snuck by the engine like any amount of mass-crit damage, but this just makes for an uber weapon that monk/cler/druid with zen archery would get the most mileage out of, not a class with a strong ranged element like ranger or rogue).

I need more convincing about the general suckiness of archery though (ok called shot stupidness notwithstanding...wonder if that's fixed?).

[Bob]

I seem to remember reading something about alterations in the new patch to enable dev crit on bows for AAs as epic feats (as per the epic description in the manual). No idea how that would work though (dex based? str based?).

[Denort]

I seem to remember reading something about alterations in the new patch to enable dev crit on bows for AAs as epic feats (as per the epic description in the manual). No idea how that would work though (dex based? str based?).

Dev Crit feats for bows has always been available, it just didn't do anything. The reqs for dev crit bow are the same as melee weapons. High str, various combat feats (cleaving feats I think) which all seem pretty useless for archers.

[ATI]

I don't know...I work with bows with HotU and it seems a whole lot easier than SotU. But doing that would force the req of HotU which is no good.

However, there is a way to make more damage, just by adding repetitive modifiers....ala 2d6 piercing...then adding another 2d6 piercing. Although this works.... using those die rolls are just too powerful.

I'm actually surprised that no one thought I was trying to uberfy the archers. And I like the elevated positions scenario Hulgaru was talking about.

Dev crit would be way crazy, get an archer that takes imp crit.....gets keen on his bow....now he does a crit from 17-20 and when you fire off 6 arrows a round (4 normal attacks, rapid shot, and haste) that means a crit is almost guaranteed in 1-3 rounds. That crit then becomes devestating which means next to insta death rolls. All they char needs is a 1 and they die. That seems drastic.


As for more convincing...i'll setup my test again...i seriously shot at Odlaw II 100 times. 90 of the arrows hit, and only one (a crit) did damage and it was 15. Perhaps scripting bows to be able to have weapon enhancement cast on them. The other problem, like I said, is that bows don't work in PvP in the slightest. Most High lvl chars have epic mage armor, deflect arrows, high discipline, or +5 armor (clerics and their damn magic vestments!) or a druid that has Premonition soak up to 100 damage (a decrease per hit) with a +5 armor modifier. None of the bows have any enhancement so right off the bat, the arrows lose 5 damage. Then there is the fact that almost ALL the higher lvl armors have pierce resist (like gnoll chief gnork's plate with 25 percent imunity and then you get the gnoll chief shield, which is anoter 25 percent immunity and 25 resist) that means a 50 percent more damage is taken away, and the rest is resisted, meaning you deal a whopping total of maybe 2-5 damage per hit, which after 6 shots (assuming all hit) is at max 30 damage.


With a melee weapon if I cast magic enhancement on a Star of the North (2d6 extra damage of bludgeoning and 1d6 extra positive energy damage [no resistence to that]) thats a guaranteed 1d6 damage that goes through. Then the weapon is a +3 which is another guaranteed 3 damage and 3 to hit. The star does 1d6 damage normally, so thats a total of 1d6+3 guaranteed damage[positive damage plus the weapon enhancement], with another 3d6 bludgeoning damage from the weapon and the damage bonus.

Now assuming every roll is at max and you get the same 6 hits and also assuming you are fighting someone with 50 percent bludgeoning immunity and res to bludgeoning.

3d6 at max is 18. If you halve that its 9 damage, then you get the +3 from rweapon enhancement so thats 12, then you get another 6 from positive energy, thats 18 damage normal (and thats about what I get). If the char has +5 armor on, then i lose two damage and it becomes 16 damage at max per hit with a Star of the North (remember I've maxed both rolls from the north star and the bow of the forest)

So...if I hit 6 times with a north star.... thats 16 times 6 that is 96 damage in one round (of course in normal fighting this wouldn't happen, but this is a case of everything being equal between max bow damage and max melee weapon damage).

so the melee weapon after 6 hits in one round is 96 damage. The bow is only 30 damage after 6 hits. That means the melee weapon is 3 times better than a melee weapon

This is about what my tests in PvP have shown to me. (this is absent anything like knockdown or called shot). but most of the time my arrows don't even do damage and my melee weapon does around 30-50 damage per round.


I think my math on all that was correct. Either way....there is a serious problem just by the numbers on bows vs. melee weapons to a very serious detriment to archers.

[Lokey]

Immunity plus resist needs to be looked at anyway. Having permanent damage of a type for which no defense exists also needs to be sorted out.

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- Attack bonus on bows counts for piercing soak. Soak from spells (the only soak in the game) needs to be looked at also.

- Didn't know that same damage type would stack though, how does it react to damage resistance (applied together or individually)?

- Keen property work on launchers now? It never used to do anything.

- Can try temp item props on arrows, see what weirdness happens.

[ATI]

Well in teh toolset there is an option extra piercing damage, and I have no idea what that means (considering it doesn't tell you how much extra)

And for arrows you can just add 2d6 upon 2d6 of piercing damage.

I think if you keep adding one type of damage they all stack if done on arrows. I need to give it a shot though.

I think Keen works on launchers but there is also teh possibility of just giving the spell keen on the launcher which might do an end run around the actual property keen starting on the bow.

yeah...anyone that gets soak from a spell automatically renders an archer useless because the archer can't get his bow surpass soak by 3 (assuming the AB on a bow counts as a weapon enhancement).

I don't know though....why didn't the damn Bioware nerds just make bows have the weapon enhancement modifier? stupid bioware.