Bolt of lightning enchantment.

[TinyMage]

I don't see the enchantment level listed anywhere in the text for a bolt of lightning.

 

I assume it is +1 or higher.

 

Same for the bolt of biting.

[Drew]

Both are flagged as magical but currently carry no enchantment level. The magical flag should either be removed (What I would do with the bolts of biting) or the enchantment level should be set to +1 (My preferred solution for bolts of lightning)

[Rastor]

My preferred method is to set both to +1 enchantment, as both have effects other than simple damage.

 

This one is going to be tough to fix as we do not know what Bioware originally intended. I can code up something that will solve the problem, but I want to know what the consensus is before doing anything.

[Caedwyr]

Then again, the enchantment could be something along the lines of the Flame Blade priest spell, which is quite specifically non-enchanted in the spell description. These arrows and bolts have always been good for hitting enemies that are immune to magic weapons. I'd say they aren't a bug.

[TinyMage]

Add the Paralytic bolt to that list.

[Drew]

My argument for removing the magical flag from bolts and arrows of biting (arrows of biting are flagged as magical too.) is that I always assumed that these weapons were poisoned through mundane means. I'm fairly ambivalent about the ultimate decision made about what you decide to do, but would advise checking every arrow/bolt/bullet to ensure some degree to ensure some degree of standardization.

[Drew]

I checked all the special arrows and bolts in the game with NI. ALL of them are classified as magical but have no enchantment level except Acid Arrows, Arrows of Piercing, Blessed Bolts (which never appear in the game) and Jan's Flasher Blaster Bruiser Mates. These are all enchanted +1. Arrows of detonation and the bolts of polymorphing are the only non generic enchanted arrows that don't need to be fixed. Arrows of detonation do the same thing whether they hit their targets or not and Bolts of Polymorphing don't appear in the game.

[Idobek]

It looks like this is a hold-over from BG1 where all non-standard ammo was flagged as magical. There are no enchantment levels in BG1, hence them having no enchantment levels in BG2.

[devSin]

What are the exact effects of these in-game? Do they bypass the resistances of characters that have some level of immunity to enchanted weapons? What should the solution be? If the arrows aren't magical, could you take your +5 long bow and still be unable to hit anything in the game? Was the omission of an enchantment level possibly intentional for that reason? The acid arrow and arrow of piercing both provide THAC0 and damage bonuses (Jan's bolts are supposed to, but don't), hence the reason for giving them enchantment levels (by default, the enchantment was missing from the acid arrow). What would the appropriate enchantment level be, or should they all be marked as non-magical?

 

Those are really my only concerns with this aspect of the game.

[devSin]

What are the exact effects of these in-game?

The game appears to supply a default value of +1 for enchantment if none is specified.

Do they bypass the resistances of characters that have some level of immunity to enchanted weapons?

No. Creatures with IMMUNE2 or greater (immunity to enchantment +1 or better) are immune to the magical missiles.

What should the solution be?

Unless the intent is to mark them non-magical, it doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference.

If the arrows aren't magical, could you take your +5 long bow and still be unable to hit anything in the game?

Since they don't bypass enchantment immunity, they're already unusable against creatures with enchantment immunities.

Was the omission of an enchantment level possibly intentional for that reason?

Idobek was probably right in that it's just left-over, especially since it doesn't matter and there's no real reason to change it.

What would the appropriate enchantment level be, or should they all be marked as non-magical?

I agree with Drew and went ahead and made the bolt of biting, arrow of biting, and dart of wounding non-magical, but the rest are fine as-is.

 

I currently don't think there's anything to be done here. They all work fine in-game (as if they were +1 enchanted weapons), and there's no clear indication that any of them are supposed to be non-magical (as far as the game resources go, enchantment is only really ever used to indicate attack damage and/or THAC0 bonuses, or additional bonuses conferred when given a "default" non-magical item, so these missiles not having an enchantment specified follows that convention). That and it makes no difference whatsoever in-game.

[Drew]

One more thing still needs doing. Some of the arrows flat out state that they aren't considered enchanted when determining what they can hit in the item descriptions, so either the items or their descriptions will need changing. I'll post a list of items to which this applies soon.

 

EDIT: here's the list: Arrows of dispelling, fire, ice, biting, and slaying all state in their descriptions that they are considered non-enchanted when determining what they can hit. Either the items or descriptions will need changing.

[devSin]

Kevin Dorner's "improvements" to the game text don't count. Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the default descriptions, so the game text update should be modified.

[Drew]

Agreed that the game text improvements sometimes weren't, but since the game text update is included then it should probably be changed. And while we're at it, we should revert the MMM description to its original as well. It currently says that they are +6 when determining what they can hit. (They are actually +3 and listed correctly in the original description)

 

 

EDIT: Nope.....I was wrong about MMM. You guys fixed this one already. In my old BD fixpack install the MMM are set to +3 with the description stating they are +6. I was too lazy to confirm this one in NI because I was going to have to reboot my computer first.

[Kish]

You sure? Melf's Minute Meteors are widely bruited as being able to hit Kangaxx. I've never seen anyone say "no, they can't." +3 weapons can't hit Kangaxx.

[Rastor]

Kevin Dorner's "improvements" to the game text don't count. Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the default descriptions, so the game text update should be modified.

 

I don't use the Game Text Update and at least a few of those items do say that they are not enchanted. In cases like that, I say that the description takes priority.

 

I thought Melf's Meteors were +5. They are not +3.