Intrigued by Alson's comments, I went to test out the sling.

If you use any sling other than the Sling of Seeking, with normal bullets. No STR damage bonuses.

If you use any sling, with enchanted bullets. STR damage bonuses are applied.

I was appalled. Bows suffer enough as it is already, what with the fact that enchanted arrows do not get damage bonuses compared to bolts and bullets.

A normal arrow deals 1d6 dmg. An arrow +3 deals... 1d6 dmg.

The slings are not supposed to work this way, if Baldurdash's comments are anything to go by, but apparently this bug got overlooked. Thing is... would it be easy to make a patch that removes the STR damage bonuses from enchanted bullets? If it is, I would love to have it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Crikey... other than the cool factor and roleplay, an Archer might as well break his bow and huggle his slings and crossbows, because hey! Bows got shafted.

I agree.

Right now I am pondering what a Blade armed with a nice crossbow and Offensive Spin might be able to do. I am thinking big fat disgusting damage rolls.

If you want extremely revolting damage rolls, ;) [img]tongue.gif[/img] , why not just use an Archer? A Blade is feasible, but I imagine that he/she will be like an artillery cannon. Slow, but painful.

<font color="white">"Fire the bolt! Fire the damn bolt NOW!"

And then... there was BOOM.</font>

Told ya! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Ribbing aside, if it matters so much to you, you can post a request for a fix in the Bladurdash Remix forum.

What's interesting, to me at least, is that it's commonly held that melee rules BG2. We all know how Bg1 was dominated by bows (Kivan!) and I suspect that most people naturally gravitate to bows for the primary missile weapon. could it be that missile fire could rule BG2 as well?

If that's the case, why were *just* Bows reduced in power by so much?

How many Halfling archers will suddenly appear?

Jaheira "Where is the crossbow support?"

Minsc "Butterfingers is winching his crossbow as we speak."

Jaheira "Tell him to hurry!"

Nalia "Hurry up so we can go help the needy!"

Anomen "Erm, hey, is a crossbow meant to be winched that tight?"

Minsc "What do you mean?"

Imoen "Oh hell! DUCK!"

THWAP! (Sonic boom)

(Party watches in amusement as Neeber is now pinned to a post)

Been there, done that. ;)

Ended up with THAC0 of -25 or so... :eek:

This reminds me of that Troll constable in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. His name escapes me at the moment unfortunately( Detritus?), but nevermind that, the reason I mentioned him is because he wields a crossbow. Not just any crossbow, but the crossbow, because you see, Troll ain't wimpy-sized in the Discworld. We are talking tree-trunk-sized bolts here. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] When the bolt is launched, it is propelled at super-sonic speeds, causing it to vapourise into a super-heated wood-chip cloud of doom. Targets aren't so much as impaled by the bolt, but incinerated and flayed alive. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

I love reading the description of the process. It was nearly one page long. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Detritus rocks (ha ha)

I believe it was a modified arbalest.

Time to create a new BG2 weapon [img]smile.gif[/img]

I think an Elven Archer can beat that, but... it is pointless really. After -20 THACO or so, there is practically no difference. An Archer will be hardpressed to have THACO problems unless you purposely ruin him/her. Damage and ApR will be more important to an Archer.

Post in the remix? I was thinking of e-mailing Kevin Dorner actually, but I highly doubt he will be free to do this. He should be working on another game by now already.