hey
I can't find those gauntlets, I heard they are suposed to be in the pool of blood in the spiked room, but I only get a description of the pool when I click it
i also read that i am suposed to meet minsc here but i haven't seen him.
Thanks

You only find the gauntlets here in chapter six. As for Minsc, I don't know what you're reading, but whoever wrote it must have been stoned. Minsc is at the start in a little jailcell about three feet from your own.

thanks but I think I smoked a couple too much. Who I meant was Drizt, but maybe the answer is the same, he will only be there in chapter six, right?

Sorry Armisael, but I got those Gauntlets in Chapter 2 or 3 after killing the vampires. I don't really see too much to shout about anyway. I can't see any stat' changes unlike the gauntlets of dexterity.


P.S. Your interests (profile) are spot on with mine mate....good stuff

You sure? I know when I looked at that pool of blood in chapter three it just gave me a little overhead description. Maybe it's different depending on who you side with (thieves or vamps). The gauntlets themselves add one to THAC0 and two to bonus damage, which is nothing to sneeze at, since bonus damage is always welcome. Took my bloke's natural hit and damage up to three and seven.

Hey, yer right. See, Brits and Aussies still share something in common. : )

They both get put on the Discovery Channel by us Americans?

Yanks put near everything on the discovery channel. Wonder why. : P

Hi.

Armisael, yes definitely 2 or 3, (pretty sure it was 3), I'm only on Chap' 5 now. I sided with the thieves btw, did I miss much? I read somewhere that you get some good items off of the bloodsuckers...no, don't tell me....yes do...no..yes, aaarrrgh I hate this bloody (no pun) game sometimes . I'm sure whatever it was, there's better to come.

Sorry mate, but how do you decipher natural hit and damage?
Quote "Took my bloke's natural hit and damage up to three and seven". Would you mind explaining this for me, I'd like to know what my blokes doing. Is three normal damage and seven bonus?

Discovery Channel, with my drinking habits the TV never stays still long enough to watch it...maybe a Recovery channel might suit me better.

(Seriously, Discovery is pretty much the only TV I watch....when sober/ish).

Hahahah! A'ight, lessee.
When you put a certain amount of points into strength, you get a natural addition to yer to hit (a bonus to THAC0) and damage (a simple bonus to however much damage you do with each hit). So if my natural THAC0's six and I have a to hit bonus of three, my THAC0 becomes three. Say my strength's 18/98 and I'm wielding a normal two-handed sword with specialisation in two-handers. The sword can do one to ten damage. The specialisation gives me an extra one to hit and two to damage. My strength gives me an extra two to hit and five to damage. My natural THAC0 is six, so with these bonuses it becomes three. That means that if the enemy's armour class is zero, I have to roll a three to hit him. Now, before I even roll to see how much damage I've done, I'm guaranteed it's going to be at least eight (five plus two plus the minimum damage a two-hander can do, which is one). If I roll well, I can do up to seventeen damage.
Bah, I'm terrible at explaining things. If you didn't quite catch that, ask Tobbin, he's a DM. I'll just leave it at the fact that to hit and damage bonuses are always welcome. : )

Yeah, I'll go with that, a bonus is a bonus.

Cheers mate.

OK. Base THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class Zero) is a measure of how hard it would be for you to hit something with AC (Armor Class) = Zero. Meaning what you have to roll on a twenty sided dice (1d20) to hit that person/creature/thing. Experience, Class, Dexterity, and what Armor the person/creature/thing is wearing affects what their AC is.

What Determines your THAC0? What Level your PC is, what type of Character, and how Proficient you are with your weapon of choice.

If their AC is, say 2 and your THAC0 is 5. If you need a 5 to hit armor class 0, then you need a 3 to hit an AC of 2 (the lower your AC, the harder it is to hit you). But what if their AC is -2. If you need a 5 to hit AC 0, and AC of -2 is harder to hit than 0, that makes your roll on a 1d20 needs to be higher than your THAC0 minus their AC of -2. So you would need a 7 (or higher) to hit AC of -2.

Here is the Formula: Take your THAC0 and SUBTRACT their AC (remembering if you subtract a negative, you are really just going to change the second number to a positive and add). Any questions?

Base Damage goes the same way. Each Weapon has a hit dice associated with it. A two handed sword has a 1d10, while a long sword has 1d8. Mace 1d6, Daggar 1d4. The 1dX means that you roll an X sided die with and whatever number is on top, that is your Base Damage. So if you Hit with a long sword, you roll a 1d10. You get a 9. You did 9 points of damage to whatever you hit. So whatever you hit has 9 less hit points than it did a second ago.

The Tricky part comes in with the modifiers.


On Melee Weapons, if you have a high enough Str, you get certain pluses onto your rolls. Take Minsc with his 18/00 STR, he gets a +3 on his To Hit rolls, and a +6 on his damage rolls. So if his Base THAC0 is 5 add his Stregth bonus to his 1d20 roll. His Damage is done in the same way. Just add +6 to whatever you roll for the damage.

In order to use the weapon with no minuses, you have to have one Proficiency slot used on it. (ya know, the pluses beside the weapon). This allows you to not be clumsy with the weapon. Which makes sense. If you have never seen a bow before, does it make sense that you will brandish it nearly as well as the sword that you have practiced with for 6 months? The more Proficiency slots (pluses) you have, the more your pluses. See your guide or manual for a more accurate account.

AND there is the weapon itself. If it is a PLUS +5 HOLY AVENGER, then add 5 to both your to hit roll and your damage roll.

SO, if you have a +5 Holy Avenger and you are double proficient in it and you have a STR of 18/00, you get +1 for you proficiency, +3 for STR, and +5 for the sword itself, for a total of +9 on top of what you roll on the 1d20.

Damagewise (with same scenario) +2 for proficiency, +6 for STR and +5 for the sword gets you +13 on your damage rolls.

WHEW. The worst thing is, this all changes slightly with 3rd edition rules. But you get the idea. It is a lot easier than it sounds. On the above character, when you roll your to hit roll, just add 9 to it. When you roll your damage, add 13.

Hopefully, this answers your question. Armisel is right. Bonuses are good.



BK

Hey, great answer BK.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, it's really appreciated. Yeah, things are in the manual accepted. IMHO the manual isn't laid out too good and there seems to be a lot of back and forth within the pages to find definitive answers to definitive questions. It's usually during play that my questions come up, personally I've found that I can spend too much time raking the pages for answers...time that I would rather devote to the game itself. It's easier (I don't mean to sound lazy) to post a Q on these boards and I must say that the answers are more descriptive and in depth than those in the manual, as is proven by your great post above....Thanks again.


P.S. Is there a method to find out a creatures/opponents AC prior to or during an attack?

P.P.S. You're obviously informed, are there any ways to permanently increase any of your stat's in BG2...ie the books/tomes in BG1?

Nope, no tomes in BG2. At the end you get a few pluses to yer stats, but like I said, it's at the end, and I won't spoil it for you. Only way you can find the AC of something is to check it out in an AD&D monster manual - go here for the online version, BG2 monsters are fairly accurate to their AD&D counterparts - or check it through infinity explorer, which is trickier.