Bows, bows & more bows

[ister]

Originally posted by wanderon: Why have one superb and one mediocre archer when you can have two excellent ones...

You get much better use out of the bracers if you give them to Kivan rather than Imoen. Kiven get 2.5 attacks per round, Imoen ony get gets 2. Imoen does 1-6 damage per hit (+ arrow bonuses) Kivan does 3-8 or 4-9 (+ arrow bonuses) depending on whether he has a long bow or composite bow. All the bracers do is increase the odds of hitting. Kivan attacks more often and does more damage when he hits. His attacks are the ones you should improve.

Basically if you're fighting an enemy that Kivan has no problems hitting you shouldn't care less whether Imoen ever hits or not. You are going to cream your opponents. If you are facing an enemy that Kivan has some trouble hitting Imoen is going to have a heck of a time hitting the enemy whether she has the bracers or not, and you're much better off optimizing Kivan's attacks.

[Berg]

Thanks for your thoughts. Here's what I've done:-

Kiven - LB of marksmanship with bracers of archery.

Shar-teel - composite LB with Spider's bane.

Imoen - still got the shortbow +1.

[wanderon]

Originally posted by ister: quote: Originally posted by wanderon: Why have one superb and one mediocre archer when you can have two excellent ones...

You get much better use out of the bracers if you give them to Kivan rather than Imoen. Kiven get 2.5 attacks per round, Imoen ony get gets 2. Imoen does 1-6 damage per hit (+ arrow bonuses) Kivan does 3-8 or 4-9 (+ arrow bonuses) depending on whether he has a long bow or composite bow. All the bracers do is increase the odds of hitting. Kivan attacks more often and does more damage when he hits. His attacks are the ones you should improve.

Basically if you're fighting an enemy that Kivan has no problems hitting you shouldn't care less whether Imoen ever hits or not. You are going to cream your opponents. If you are facing an enemy that Kivan has some trouble hitting Imoen is going to have a heck of a time hitting the enemy whether she has the bracers or not, and you're much better off optimizing Kivan's attacks. [/QUOTE]I disagree - neither Kivan nor Coran for that matter NEED any additional bonus to hit to be extremely effective with the bow more than effective enough to take care of anything they face - Imoen on the other hand can use all the help she can get - if she does less damage then all the more reason to help her hit more often - its also a good way to boost the groups morale to pass the goodies around to those that need them rather than using them to make the excellent characters little "gods"...

Sometimes you just have to do whats right and toss the math out the window...its a ROLEPLAYING game where you build a TEAM not a math contest where the highest equation wins...

[Sir Degrader]

Originally posted by wanderon: its a ROLEPLAYING game where you build a TEAM not a math contest where the highest equation wins... [/QB]

Tell that to the IWD2 forums.

[ister]

Originally posted by wanderon: I disagree - neither Kivan nor Coran for that matter NEED any additional bonus to hit to be extremely effective with the bow more than effective enough to take care of anything they face - Imoen on the other hand can use all the help she can get - if she does less damage then all the more reason to help her hit more often - its also a good way to boost the groups morale to pass the goodies around to those that need them rather than using them to make the excellent characters little "gods"... Sometimes you just have to do whats right and toss the math out the window...its a ROLEPLAYING game where you build a TEAM not a math contest where the highest equation wins...

I don't disagree, but I would point out that your decision to give the bracers to Imoen makes the team significantly less effective against any foe that offers a challenge. I can think of multiple opponent that neither Kivan nor Coran will be "efffective enough to take care of". Kivan and Coran do the most damage, they are the ones that need to have the best chance to hitt.

From a role playing perspective I like to think that I have a group of specialists, each of whom is spectacularly good at what they do, and doesn't lower themselves to do other things. Killing enemies with a bow is Kivan's job. It isn't Imoen's job, and that's a good thing because she's pretty awful at it. She's on the team to perform other tasks. When I run into anyone who is tough she will not be shooting at them with a bow anyway.

[wanderon]

@ister

Well not everyone gives the same jobs to the same team members- I happen to use Imoen primarily as an archer/scout and/or archer/scout/back-up mage depending on whether or not I DC her and I use Kivan both as an archer and a tank. By the time I get to the bandit camp Kivan is already deadly with his bow and I see no reason to "waste" the bracers" on him when he hits almost everytime anyway. Its often Imoens job to "snipe" the enemy with her bow then lead them back to our waiting arms so I find it helpful to give her a boost with the bow by giving her the bracers. In my party she uses a bow probably 90% of the time so anything I do to enhance her ability is a plus to the party. To say that its not or that giving them to Kivan is more helpful is simply an assumption or opinion with no real basis in fact.

You can crunch numbers all you want about how this weapon does this and that one does that but that really doesn't have all that much to do with how your party actually works or does not work when in the game and killing monsters. The numbers are all based on dice rolls and subject to luck and your own personal management plan. Some people set scripts and let their parties run almost all the time on AI others micromanage every single movement or attack of every party member and most fall someplace in between.

You may THINK that its a better idea to give them to Kivan but I'd be willing to bet that you have not given them Imoen and compared results - while I on the other hand have actually done both but only incidentally not as any sort of "test". Even so my conclusion was that I would "spread the wealth" and give them to Immy and I am convinced thats the most helpful to MY party with MY playstyle and thus I offer that advice to others to take or leave as they wish.

Then again I am often "at odds" with the "general consensus" on things BG - I prefer Kivan to Coran for instance even as an archer and rarely even take Coran in my party and almost every time I express this blasphemy I am inundated with responses attempting to refute my notion that there could even be any comparison as to which is the better archer what with Coran having this wondrous dex and all...

[ister]

Well you can bitch about math all you like, but how well you kill enemies is ultimately determined by that math. All the bracers do is make whoever is wearing them hit 10% more often. That's all. If you want to have the most effective party, the question is how can you best translate that extra 10% into dead enemies, particularly tough ones. Everything else being equal, Kivan will fire more arrows than Imoen, each of which would be 10% more likely to hit. Each time Kivan hits he does more damage. Those are the facts, so unless you're game play involves Imoen firing her bow about 25% more often than Kivan fires his, giving the bracers to Imoen results in less damage to your enemies. There is no need to run tests on this - we know how the engine works, so it's simply a question of facts. I'll take facts over opinion any time.

None of which is to say that it's wrong to give the bracers to Imoen. It's just making the game a little bit harder.

As it turns out I agree with you on Kivan/Coran. Coran's DEX is basically balanced by Kivan being higher level, so big deal. The only real advantage Coran has is the 3 stars in bows - which does make a difference. But Coran is only slightly better as an archer, and I'd rather have the extra hit points and the significantly better melee power of Kivan.

[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.

You say Kivan will do more damage with his extra 10% than Immy will - I say you do not know that becuase you don't know how many hit points his enemy has. If the orc has 10hps and he does 8 with his first hit the second hit can ONLY do 2 points so your "math" goes out the window. Why? Becuase every battle is different every time you play becuase every hit, miss, save, non save, amount of damage taken or given is done by a DICE ROLL. So what was a +8 hit this time is a miss next time or a +2 hit or maybe a critical.

how many of the party is atacking the same creature or how many kill creatures on thier own did that enemy get held or make its save did Kivan get charmed and start shooting at your mage or any number of other variables in ACTUAL GAMEPLAY.

So the FACT is your numbers do not necessarily reflect the FACTS when it comes to REAL gameplay anymore that most of the politicians so called facts and statistics have any relationship to reality. Its just MATH.

A mathmetician once said- figures don't lie but liars figure...

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. 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. Unless of course you think Kivan should just do all the killing and Immy sit back and pick her nose. Personally I like to have ALL my characters involved even my mages throw rocks at the enemy when they run out of spells and if you want to find out how bad THEY are with ranged weapons try an all mage game sometime...

[True_Moose]

Funny story. The first time my brother played BG he thought only mages could use slings, so that's what he had his mage do - that's all he did. That's gotta be the exact opposite of powergaming.

[Sir Degrader]

I call it "noobism", no offence to him, we've all done some REALLY stupid stuff in our time. My own was never doing the character quests. When all my guys starting leaving I could never figure it out.