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Originally posted by wanderon: Actually it doesn't just boil down to the math becuase there is no way to determine what damage each attack will do or how many hit points a given target will have to figure out how effective those extra 10% of hits might be or might not be.

Yeah you're right. I should have said "on average". And on average the math tells you exactly how much more effective the bracers are on Kivan than on Imoen. If correct, the idea that this might not be true because we don't know how many hit points the opponent has would invalidate most of science. Statistics tell us that for a large number of tests (and in Baldur's Gate there are an extremely large number of to hit rolls) the outcomes are extremely predictable. If the game were only to last 5 minutes (after you get the bracers) you'd be right. But in general all the other stuff you want to talk about will average out. These are the facts. Central limit theorem, plus the fact that the game works on a very simple mathematical model.

Now you can certainly question my assumptions. These are
-Kivan does more damage per hit than Imoen (true unless she is shooting better arrows than him)
-Kivan will fire his bow more often than Imoen (might not be true)
-On enemies will reasonably often survive being hit by a regular arrow (otherwise the extra damage doesn't matter, and Kivan's extra attack won't come into play)
-The goal is to be to inflict as much damage as possible on enemies

If you accept those assumptions I don't see how you can't agree that Kivan should have the bracers.

So I have been thinking about your position and how I might be wrong. I would argue one of the following:
1) You'll tend to use Kivan in melee much more than Imoen, to the point where she will be going through a lot more arrows than Kivan. I don't use Kivan (or Imoen) that way, but if you find that she runs out of arrows significantly more frequently than he does it's quite likely that she should have the bracers. In fact you could limit the argument to hard battles - if in hard battles you end up with Kivan in melee for most of the battle while Imoen is firing arrows for most of the battle, there is no doubt that she should get the bracers. Not the way I play but it's a good argument.
2) The enemies that you most care about are enemies that cannot usually survive a single hit. In this case it doesn't really matter who gets the bracers. I think this is a harder argument, but if I have everyone on scripts until I run into something nasty, and my main concern in playing the game is to be able to leave them on scripts I think the case can be made.
3) Spell disruption is your most important action for archers. In this case we don't care about how much damage is done, or indeed how many hits per round we get, we simply care that we can get one hit in while the spell is being cast. So we want to minimize the chance that everybody misses. (Obviously this doesn't work if the caster has mirror images up - then we care about getting the most hits in as quickly as possible). In this case the character with the worst chance to hit needs to get the bracers.
4) Kivan isn't that much better of a choice to have the bracers, and having the most effective group isn't the be all and end all of the game. And that's an excellent argument.

For my money I'll go with my original statement: Why have one superb archer and one mediocre one when you can have two excellent ones.

Imoen with the bracers is still only a decent archer - nothing like as good as Kivan without them. The real decision is between making a mediocre archers quite a bit less awful, and making your main killing machine even more effective.

Both are important to the game- both will attack and kill enemies - if Kivan is facing one and Immy is facing one Kivan will kill his whether it takes two shots or three but without the bracers Immy might not kill hers and with them she might. Its not math its just common sense.

Well your statement here isn't right. It's never true that Kivan will kill any enemy in 2 or 3 shots. There is always a chance that he'll miss three times in a row no matter how crappy the enemy is. So really what your trying to do is increase the odds
that both enemies will end up dead in 2 rounds (for example). In that case Kivan will have 5 shots at his target, and will be able to use any left over shots (less the target change which probably costs one attack)against Imoen's target. Imoen will have 4 shots to take out her target and can use any left over shots agaisnt Kivan's target. In almost any combination of armour class, THACO, and hit points the odds that one of the two enemies gets through will be better if Kivan has the bracers. The obvious exception is when Kivan needs to roll a 1 to miss, but in that case giving the bracers to Imoen will take you from a ridiculously low chance that an enemy survives to an even lower chance that it survives.