Bows/ Ranged Ammunition Questions

[Chongo]

I'm fuzzy on how all this worked, if someone could help jog my memory I'd love 'em for it.

So what stacks/ overwrites on bows and/or ammunition?  And what spells work?  Actually - I'll throw this out in #'d fashion for ease...

1) What spells work?  GMW and darkfire I know, but don't they stop functioning if you have unlimited ammo?  What about bless weapon, deafening clang, blade thirst, holy sword, or any others I'm not thinking of?

2) What stacks in the form of enhancements from rods?  An additive example: 500 ammo enchanted with 1d8 acid, plus gmw and darkfire, plus unlimited ammo training, plus a bow like Ilsare's with 1d6 fire unlimited already.  What would mix?  What wouldn't?

3) If you're a level 29 AA, and have +15 naturally, would a +5 gmw give you any partial bonus or is it a straight up overwrite?  I used to know this answer hrm hrm.

4) Does the unlimited ammo you add raise the level requirement?  Substantially in most folk's experience?

5) Any other useful information on the quirks of using a ranged weapon?


Thanks!

[darkstorme]

The ones I know about:
[list=1]

• GMW applies to the bow, not the arrows, since it's used to calculate overcoming DR, rather than damage bonus.  Deafening Clang, Blade Thirst, and Holy Sword are melee or creature only.  Darkfire, I have no idea.
• As far as I'm aware, special bows (like Ilsare's), cannot be trained for unlimited ammo.  GMW can be applied to a bow with unlimited ammo, see 1.  Bows cannot be trained with rod-enhanced arrows.  Bows with unlimited ammo won't fire any arrows but their unlimited supply.  Darkfire, again, I have no idea.  On individual stacks of arrows, you can apply one elemental enhancement, and one metal enhancement.  These will overwrite the feather bonus and the arrowhead bonus, respectively.
• The AA bonus applies to the arrows, not the bow.  GMW would give you an attack bonus, but no DR bonus, since the AA's enchanted arrows are the only ones that count towards DR penetration. [1]
  
• Yes, it does.
• Most notably, that for DR, it's the bow that counts, not the arrows.  Yew arrows won't overcome 20/2 DR, but a yew bow will.

([1] Enchant arrow - NWNWiki, the Neverwinter Nights Wiki - your guide to the game of NWN)

[Dorganath]

Off the top of my head, which is the best you're going to get for the moment...heh.  Some of this I'll have to look up.

1) What spells work?  GMW and darkfire I know, but don't they stop functioning if you have unlimited ammo?  What about bless weapon, deafening clang, blade thirst, holy sword, or any others I'm not thinking of?

As far as I know, it's only MW, GMW, Darkfire and Flame Weapon. I believe Darkfire/Flame Weapon will stack, but I don't have an unlimited ammo bow, so take this with a grain of salt.

2) What stacks in the form of enhancements from rods?  An additive example: 500 ammo enchanted with 1d8 acid, plus gmw and darkfire, plus unlimited ammo training, plus a bow like Ilsare's with 1d6 fire unlimited already.  What would mix?  What wouldn't?

GMW/Darkfire/Flame Weapon do not apply to the ammo. Only the weapon.  I don't think you can train unlimited ammo w/elemental enhancements. If my memory holds (and it may not) that was one of the trade-offs.  An elemental rod can be applied to multiple stacks of 500 arrows, however.  It all balances out overall.

3) If you're a level 29 AA, and have +15 naturally, would a +5 gmw give you any partial bonus or is it a straight up overwrite?  I used to know this answer hrm hrm.

GMW is not affected by your attack bonus.  GMW acts on the weapon itself.  Having said that, I seem to remember GMW being changed to actually stack with weapon bonuses rather than overwriting it with +5 regardless (or whatever the caster's max would have been).  This means that a Copper sword with GMW will no longer be just as good as a Mithril sword with GMW. This was part of this whole revamp a couple years ago.

4) Does the unlimited ammo you add raise the level requirement?  Substantially in most folk's experience?

It raises it yep. I'm not sure how much, though I do seem to remember at least a few people ending up with a bow they couldn't use after training it.  I would use the same sort of guideline you use with melee weapon enhancements.  If you're at the required level for a weapon, don't enhance it until you've gotten a few more levels.

5) Any other useful information on the quirks of using a ranged weapon?

They draw aggro. *winks*

The other thing to remember is that only Hickory and Mahogany ammo (or copper and adamantium for bullets) can be used for training.  Oak and Yew arrows cannot be used for training.  Again, this was a trade-off for balance purposes. The intent was that a serious, focused archer would have two bows.  The first and primary would be a standard bow with standard ammunition. Most likely this would be a good of a bow + ammo combination as one could make. Of course, the long complaint has always been that high-level archers (especially hasted Arcane Archers) literally bleed arrows, which is where the unlimited ammo training comes into play.  This would be the backup weapon...not quite as good as the primary bow, but it won't run out of ammo, and it will keep you in the fight.

[Chongo]

Alrighty - confirmed the gaps.  Thanks.

The rest is mostly here: LORE: Unlimited Ammunition Training

[miltonyorkcastle]

GMW is not affected by your attack bonus. GMW acts on the weapon itself. Having said that, I seem to remember GMW being changed to actually stack with weapon bonuses rather than overwriting it with +5 regardless (or whatever the caster's max would have been). This means that a Copper sword with GMW will no longer be just as good as a Mithril sword with GMW. This was part of this whole revamp a couple years ago.

I don't think that GMW stacks, Dorg. Pretty sure a copper sword with GMW gives the same AB and Dmg bonus as a mithril sword with the same GMW on it.


And Chongo, if you haven't already, see here as well: [LORE]Item Enhancements[/LORE]

[Hellblazer]

Flames do not work anymore with unlimited bows. since they have been fixed against the use of  the rods. I have found that out first hand with Tyillaan.

Code: [Select]


[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Sat Jun 25 17:16:27] Tyillaan Selaama casting Flame Weapon
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Sat Jun 25 17:16:29] Tyillaan Selaama casts Flame Weapon
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Sat Jun 25 17:16:29] The spell can not be cast on ranged weapons with Unlimited Ammunition imbued.
[CHAT WINDOW TEXT] [Sat Jun 25 17:16:36] You close your eyes briefly and impress your soul upon the land.


[lonnarin]

Fairly certain GMW does not stack with arcane archer bonus.  Have regular Magic Weapon with +1 AA bonus and they overlap wit no additional bonus.  The MW, GMW and AA bonuses do however stack with a bow's +to attack, so an oak bow with +1 attack and magic weapon or lvl 1 Aracane archer will have an overall +2 attack with +1 to damage.  If you were to find a bow that was just +2 bow, likely it would overlap with the AA, GMW or MW bonus

[Hellblazer]

Hmm I don't know if it stacks or not but Ty only has a +3 GMW still can't hit much of the GF giants with it. But I certainly can pin their thick hide off when I do have a +5 gmw casts on her bows by Tralek. At this point she has a +3 enchant arrow from her AA levels. But then again, the aa enchant arrows adds damage to the arrow, and doesn't help bypass DR.

From lore fore the enchant arrow

Notes:

    * Contrary to the description, this feat stacks with magical arrows.
    * The enchant arrow bonus does stack with the attack bonus on the bow. However, the damage reduction penetration uses the higher of the two bonuses.
    * The enchant arrow bonus does not count in the +20 AB cap.
    * The enchant arrow attack bonus is reported on the character sheet for all ranged weapons, but that is a display error; in combat, this feat only operates for bows.

[Dorganath]

I don't think that GMW stacks, Dorg. Pretty sure a copper sword with GMW gives the same AB and Dmg bonus as a mithril sword with the same GMW on it.

I know it was like that, and I also know orth and I talked about changing that...because it's silly.  It's one of the things we have to look up.  Either that, or we raised the cap....one of those.

[jrizz]

I know it was like that, and I also know orth and I talked about changing that...because it's silly.  It's one of the things we have to look up.  Either that, or we raised the cap....one of those.

The cap was raised. But a copper weapon with GMW greater then +3 is the same as a mithril weapon with the same GMW cast on it. GWM now goes up to +6 I think but it does not matter what the weapon is made out of, it caps at +6.

GWM +6 cast on a copper sword results in a +6 weapon.
GWN +6 cast on a mithril sword results in a +6 weapon.

[Filatus]

+6? Yikes. Not sure I've seen that yet, though I guess you need a pretty high caster level for it.

[davidhoff]

I don't think GMW goes to +6, based on Lore it is stated its maxed at +5.

As Jrizz said, casting a +5 GMW on a copper or mithril sword will result in the same effect...they will both be +5 enchanted and do the same attack/damage.

I'm pretty sure GMW casted on an AA's bow will stack with bonus of their enchanted arrows, but don't have an AA so can't test.  To see if DR is bypassed the higher of the AA's enchant arrows or the bow attack bonus (which can be increased by GMW) is used I think.

Darkfire and Flame weapon do not stack with eachother...I'm pretty sure of this.

Darkfire/Flame weapon goes directly on the ammo, so if you change ammo in battle or the equipped stack runs out, then you lose the darkfire/flame weapon properties.

One interesting thing about arrows.  If you add an elemental enchant rod to a stack of arrows it only overwrites the base damage from the feather/shaft, not the versus damage.  This can provide an advatage in going after "versus" creatures.  For example, say you are attacking an Iron Golem.  If you shoot it with a "regular" mahogany/stirge/iron arrow it will do less damage than if you shoot it with the same arrow that has had an enchant rod applied to it.  This is because the regular arrow will only apply the "2d6 negative vs construct" and not the "1d6 negative" general damage.  The two negative damage properties don't stack.  But, if you throw a 1d6 Electrical rod on that stack, then you get the "2d6 negative vs construct" plus the new "1d6 electrical" general damage.

[miltonyorkcastle]

GMW still only goes to +5.

I can confirm that GMW does not stack with the enchantment bonus on Steel's mithril sword. It overwrites it for the duration of the spell. That said, while GMW does not stack with another enchantment bonus, it may in fact stack with an added attack bonus such as what bows have. I have yet to test this IG, but could possibly do that tonight. If such is the case, then bows definitely get the AB advantage over melee weapons, but since melee weapons can do much more damage given strength bonuses, I personally don't mind such a trade-off.

[Lance Stargazer]

Flames do not work anymore with unlimited bows. since they have been fixed against the use of  the rods. I have found that out first hand with Tyillaan.

Flame blade and dark fire didn't work with unlimited ammo trained weapons since the release of the training for ranged weapons. GMW works though .

This has been as this since this option was implemented and also [LORE]Unlimited Ammunition Training[/LORE] says it so.  

That page tells you most of the can or can't of this system

Cheers

[gilshem ironstone]

I can confirm that GMW stacks with the AB from bows as well as Enchant Arrow.

GMW still only goes to +5.

I can confirm that GMW does not stack with the enchantment bonus on Steel's mithril sword. It overwrites it for the duration of the spell. That said, while GMW does not stack with another enchantment bonus, it may in fact stack with an added attack bonus such as what bows have. I have yet to test this IG, but could possibly do that tonight. If such is the case, then bows definitely get the AB advantage over melee weapons, but since melee weapons can do much more damage given strength bonuses, I personally don't mind such a trade-off.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Thank you, Gilshem. I'm not sure if this is what you and orth has planned, Dorganath, since you mentioned you also thought GMW would stack with the bonuses (enchantment) on melee weapons, but as I mentioned before, it sounds like a trade-off between AB and damage. That said, if you had in fact meant for a mithril weapon with GMW to be better than a copper weapon with GMW, then it 'sounds like' the bonuses on melee weapons would need to be changed from enchantment bonuses to attack bonuses like what the bows have so that the AB from the spell and the item would stack.

[Dorganath]

OK, having consulted the Book of Armaments, it seems my memory was faulty in this case.

It is capped at +5 and does temporarily replace the existing enhancement bonus on the weapon.  What changed is the ability to cast it on ranged weapons and monk gloves.

Sorry for any confusion I caused.

[davidhoff]

Just tested Tralek's gmw on the Shadon Trapping bow that has a +2 Attack Bonus and Tra's +5 GMW did not stack with the bow's attack bonus.  He only got a net 3 increase in his attack bonus with that weapon, as his gmw overwrote the bow's lesser attack bonus.  So, looks like bows are working same as mele weapons regarding gmw stacking.

[miltonyorkcastle]

I can confirm that GMW stacks with the AB from bows as well as Enchant Arrow.

And

Just tested Tralek's gmw on the Shadon Trapping bow that has a +2 Attack Bonus and Tra's +5 GMW did not stack with the bow's attack bonus. He only got a net 3 increase in his attack bonus with that weapon, as his gmw overwrote the bow's lesser attack bonus. So, looks like bows are working same as mele weapons regarding gmw stacking.

.... conflicts. Gilshem, do you think maybe yours is different because you are an AA, and your Enchant arrow plays funny with the bow's AB? My experience has always been what davidhoff said.

[gilshem ironstone]

Not sure.  I will get in game to do some testing tonight.

Is Tralek's AB according to the character sheet or combat messages?  Maybe something there?