Arrow of Detonation

[NiGHTMARE]

This arrow should do 1D6 damage and have no THAC0 bonus. Instead it does 0D2 damage and has a THAC0 bonus of 32767 (!).

 

Fix:

 

COPY_EXISTING ~arow06.itm~ ~override~ // Arrow of Detonation
 READ_LONG   0x64 "abil_off"
 READ_SHORT  0x68 "abil_num"
 FOR (index = 0; index < abil_num; index = index + 1) BEGIN
READ_SHORT  ("%abil_off%" +		("%index%" * 0x38)) "type"
PATCH_IF ("%type%" = 2) BEGIN // ranged ability check
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x14 + ("%index%" * 0x38)) 0  // THAC0 bonus
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x16 + ("%index%" * 0x38)) 6  // dice sides
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x18 + ("%index%" * 0x38)) 1  // # dice
END
 END

[DavidW]

I'd imagine this is probably deliberate... ideally what you'd want is for a missed shot to miss the target, hit something nearby and explode anyway. Since that's not possible, it's not a bad compromise to make it hit all the time and do only explosion damage.

[CamDawg]

Arrows of Detonation are unused in BG2.

[Azazello]

Yet it is one of the many items that modders will re-introduce (and many players have asked for) -- especially after it's been given blessing by the fixpack team.

 

DavidW's description sounds on-the-mark.

(Pardon the pun.)

[berelinde]

Um, not for nothing, but I think there might be a mod out there that reintroduces arrows of detonation to BG2. This post is not terribly helpful, as I no longer remember which one.

[SixOfSpades]

Arrows of Detonation are unused in BG2.

They can be found (rarely, and singly) as random drops, and I'm 90% sure they are sold by Perter, the fletcher in the upper levels of Waukeen's Promenade.

[devSin]

Moot. The explosion always runs, even if you miss (and you get a fireball that has no effect on anyone). Probably why you don't really see exploding ammo in BG2.

[WizWom]

Looked, no, not refered to by any store. But yes, in RNDMAGIC.2DA

 

Worth fixing, though, at least for BGTutu?

[CamDawg]

Changing arow06.itm wouldn't affect Tutu--it converts resources from BG instead of using existing BG2 resources. It would affect BGT and mods that want to use it, yeah.

[CamDawg]

Moot. The explosion always runs, even if you miss (and you get a fireball that has no effect on anyone). Probably why you don't really see exploding ammo in BG2.

Can we work around this by using the regular fire arrow projectile and doing the explosion via a cast spell effect?

 

They can be found (rarely, and singly) as random drops, and I'm 90% sure they are sold by Perter, the fletcher in the upper levels of Waukeen's Promenade.

Didn't know about the random drops (confirmed); however Perter sells Arrows of Dispelling, not Detonation.

[CamDawg]

The explosion damage is tied to whether the arrow hits or not. So if we make Nick's changes, a miss by the arrow means that you get an explosion that does zero damage to the target and anyone in the AoE. (Tested and confirmed).

 

I'm hoping we can change the projectile and effects somehow to uncouple the physical arrow damage from the explosion damage.

[NiGHTMARE]

Making the fireball only trigger upon a succesful hit would be easy, as it could be done just like the Club of Detonation and Harbinger.

 

I can't think of any way to make a fireball triggered upon an unsuccessful hit actually hurt people, but we could fake an unsuccessful hit instead (i.e. leave THAC0 and damage as they are, and add an HP: Damage effect for 1D6 missile damage that only has a certain probability of working).

[CamDawg]

Ah, okay. Replacing the Thaco bonus with a significant value, replacing the projectile with the flame arrow projectile, and replacing the damage with a spell cast on target will evade the scenario devSin described - though using the one of the fireball projectiles for the damage spell will result in a fugly little blob trailing after the arrow. What you want then is projectile NONE for the arrow and ARROWEX for the spell cast on hit (all tested )

Nah, because then you'd not see an arrow traveling on misses. At any rate, it's still the same issue. The effects attached to the ranged ability, whether they're straight damage or a cast spell effect, only go into effect on a hit. So we have a choice of two bugs:

• The original bug: the arrow always hits
  
• A new bug: the arrow can now miss, but the explosion no longer occurs on every attack
  

Of the two choices, I'm prefectly content with the original bug as I happen to think it's slightly less egregious and definitely more inline with the intent of the developers (it worked this way in BG as well).

[NiGHTMARE]

What about my suggestion of leaving THAC0 and damage rolls as they are, and using an HP: damage effect to fake a critical miss?

[CamDawg]

IMO it's just another bug substitution. An arbitrary 20% or 50% or 75% of 1d6 missile damage is not that different than the current arbitrary 100%. The arbitrary 100% was at least selected by the game developers, sparing us the need to defend it.

 

(For those scoring at home that's erring not on the side of caution, but on the side of laziness.)