Cormyr and the Dalelands

Hay. So. Bit of a suggestion! As the title says, about bows and buff spells.

At the moment, enchantment doesn't work on bows. Neither does elemental weapon, Blade Thirst, Holy Sword, Bramble, et cetera. A lot of those are for a reason. (I mean, it's in the name of one of them, though it can be used on any melee weapon.)

My suggestion is thus: Let Greater Magic Weapon and/or Elemental Weapon be cast on bows. 

Why? Bows are rather under-utilized on the server by what I've seen. A lot of them get Mighty +5, though that's easy to hit with a Mass STR + normal STR spell. You can't dual wield them. You don't get nifty on-hit effects for most like the netherese or vampiric weapons. (I haven't seen any beyond the normal +2d4-2d6 unlimited ammo. Maybe it's on higher tier/more rare weapons than I've ever seen, but by what I've seen of the tier 4 stuff, seems to mostly be variations of the Semberholm longbow.)

I have seen 3 characters use bows with any regularity and 2 of them were mages. I might just be missing things, but a lot of people like to stick to spells or just go in melee, it seems. 

What might the two spells do? A little more damage. Maybe enough to get one or two people to stick back and fling arrows, if there are already a lot of people with swords in a party. Make AA, ranged Rangers, and wizards who have run out of spells (Or who aren't tanky) a little better to keep around. A little love for those people who just want to reach out and touch someone.

Puts bows a little more on-par with melee weapons. With melee, a character has several options. With ranged...you have 2 types of bows, 2 types of crossbows, darts, throwing axes, or a sling. (Which could also be improved with this idea and might make for interesting specialists.) And without being able to spell them, they will pretty much always be worse than their melee counterparts. 

Little bit of a confusing post, might clean it up later. 

~BR

You can cast GMW and Keen on bows.  But you have to have it in-hand and target yourself, not the weapon.

Can't do anything with elemental weapon and bows, as damage increases have to go on the arrows.

Though I believe there's a scripting solution to this, an alternate solution would simply be to improve bows server-wide. The combination of the inability to EMW them along with a strong bias of prestige class abilities towards casters and melee fighters leaves them at a rather undesirable disadvantage at the moment.

There are more bows in loot than almost any other weapon type in the higher level tiers. They are rather powerful, and don't need improving.

I find the vast majority of them rather underwhelming compared to a buffed melee weapon, and I think the lack of bow-using characters is a testament to that. That said, I think the problem is more prevalent at the sub-ensorcelled tiers.

As a quick mathematical exploration of the problem...

Decent longsword (because 1d8 base) at ensorcelled tier--Blade of the Heavens, 1d8 base, 1d6 sonic, 1d4 divine, 4 massive crits, +4 from enhancement

Ice Dragon Bow: 1d8 base, 1d6 cold (unlimited), +5 mighty, 2d8 massive crits -- I picked this because it is very much in line with several other ensorcelled bows I have seen.

Now throw in several factors:

1) elemental weapon on the longsword
2) the longsword's str bonus damage isn't limited by mighty, whereas a bow's is (and it's easy enough to get +6 on even base 10 str characters, which would exceed the ensorcelled bow listed above)
3) bows do not get a damage bonus from enhancement, melee weapons do -- and most of the bows I've seen only have a +1 or so along with whatever unlimited ammo bonus

But for the sake of being nice to bows in this argument, let's pretend the elemental damage bonus is 2d6 rather than 1d6, as I believe I have seen such at ensorcelled or the next tier, as well as +1 on the unlimited arrows. We're also going to be nice to the bow and assume a buffed base 10 str character is using both the longsword and the bow, rather than 14 or higher as would be common. We'll be even nicer and assume that the elemental weapon is only being cast by a 10th level caster (1d4+5 dmg), as per the scrolls you can buy, as opposed to say a 20th level caster (which would give the full 1d4 + 10).

Longsword damage calculation = 1d8 + 1d4 + 1d6 + 4 + 6 (str) + (1d4+5) -- min 19, max 37, avg 28
Bow damage calculation = 1d8 + 2d6 + 1 (unl. arrows) + 5 (mighty) -- min 9, max 26, avg 17.5
For lulz, longsword without EMW = 1d8 + 1d4 + 1d6 + 4 + 6 (str) -- min  13, max 28, avg 20.5

To review:

I was being generous to the bow in several ways from the outset, as detailed above.
Longsword already beats out the bow without elemental weapon, and demolishes it with EMW.
The EMW was only scroll level.
We were assuming a 10 base strength character using a longsword (unlikely).
Feel free to throw another +5 to all of the buffed longsword numbers above for full EMW, and and another +2-5 from strength for a typical melee fighter. These are bonuses melee weapons can easily attain that bow has 0 way to account for.

Now in terms of tactical options, bow allows you to engage (potentially) more safely from a range, or without introducing more clutter, but a 1 handed melee weapon introduces benefits of its own in the form of a shield--the shield not only provides extra AC, but often other statistical benefits. A two handed melee weapon benefits from 1.5x str bonus, and a 2 handed user will almost certainly be rocking more than the 10 base str assumed above.

In addition, the primary melee enhancing prestige class (WM) absolutely blows the primary bow enhancing class (AA) out of the water in terms of increased damage potential. Not that bow wasn't already at a disadvantage. All of the above is even worse when you compare sub-ensorcelled gear.

I congratulate you if you have an absolutely god-tier bow that can keep up with an equal tiered melee weapon statistically, but the fact is, bow needs help, as evidenced in the (utter lack of) player base and a simple numerical breakdown.

Edit: Just to have a little more fun with this, I'll give you numbers for an easily attainable longsword character (level 16, ecl 0) that has the same longsword with level 20 EMW cast on it vs a completely ridiculous fantasy bow the likes of which I've never seen on CD:

Character str: 32 (16 at lvl 1, +4 from levels, +6 from buffs) -- +11 modifier
Longbow stats: +2d10 elemental damage and +3 unlimited arrows, +6 mighty

Longsword calc: 1d8 + 1d6 + 1d4 + 4 + 11 + (1d4+10) = min 29, max 47, avg 38
Longbow calc: 1d8 + 2d10 + 3 + 6 = min 12, max 37, avg 24.5

Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaa....

Damage bonuses on bows is just a 2da switch. Doesn't even take scripting to enable it.

There are some -very- nice bows in loot.  

As I said before, you CAN put GMW and Keen on bows now.  But you have to target it on the person holding the weapon.

I'm not increasing base Bow damage.  That would make an area like the epic Gnolls, which is already lousy with archers, impossible.

What I am doing:  With the hak update, Arcane Archer will be loosing its racial restriction and gaining another perk or two.  So roll up an AA once I do that.  

Problem is, GMW doesn't add to damage, EMW doesn't add at all, and bows are already typically disadvantaged to melee weapons from the get go. Even with a buffed AA, they fall very sadly behind. See the above number crunching for details. Even with the nice bows in the loot tables, and a completely imaginary overpowered one I made up, it still loses to a very ordinary melee character using a very ordinary ensorcelled longsword.

The easiest solution is the aforementioned 2da edit that will make longbows EMWable (I think the same or a similar 2da edit makes the GMW/enhancement damage bonus apply).

I imagine the low amount of bow-using characters is less due to the lackluster traits of current bows in loot (because, again, our longbow selection is pretty awesome; shortbows not so much admittedly, we're working on that) but rather the vast array of awesome melee weapons is larger, and as Vincent said the race limitation on AA, which is soon to go away.

The X Dragon Bows are decent, but they're kind of midrange as far as power goes for their respective tiers. Wheras the Blade of the Heavens is one of if not the best longsword you can get at purple tier.

Throwing in my two coppers worth here as to why bows aren't used as much: AoO.  Once enemies get within melee range, using bows is simply not viable.  The only time you can really make use of bows in combat is on slow moving opponents, since so many of them spawn fairly close to the party.  This is purely from my own experience and standpoint, mind.  I could be doing something wrong in terms of combat, but there ya go.

AA Archers get some really insane AB if I remember right. With the racial restriction removed, is the "elvish art" background still to be associated with it? So like a human who becomes an AA, need they some reason why they learned an elven style? Just a RP based question from someone now thinking of making an AA when the restriction is removed!

Yeah, if you're using the dragon bows for comparison, you haven't seen the better bows of their tiers.  

That part of the lore will either be removed or downplayed, to where it was a style that may have started among the elves but has since moved to other cultures. All it will require now is the arcane and martial training and the willingness and ability to combine the two.

Likewise for the class formerly known as Dwarven Defender (new name not quite yet decided).

This is another big part, yes. If you're not used to traveling with a group and everyone having a good understanding of personal positioning, it can be very easy to get the party swarmed and to have ranged characters and casters at a disadvantage due to enemies being too close.

To play an archer you really need to be regularly traveling with someone who can keep enemies in melee while you plink away, and unlike a full caster you can't just summon up a (level-appropriate) tank to do that job for you.

It's less of an issue among players in groups that are very practiced or very good at working together, but it all revolves around the same basic concept - being willing to let the party spread out a little. Scouts in front, fightery types (heavy armor martial classes, melee clerics, Dragon Disciples, etc. etc. etc.) in the middle giving them space to work, and squishy or ranged types (arcane casters, archers, non-scout rogues, etc.) in the back, where when things spawn they've got some distance between them and the enemy. The second trick is for those groups in the back to wait and let the first two groups engage first, holding the enemy's attentions, THEN join the fight. If an archer starts shooting as soon as enemies spawn, before the meleers can get their attention, quite often the enemy AI will decide to charge the archer and ignore the fighters.

Might I suggest Drunken Dervish for the new name?

Pretty sure that's what Geno is   ; )

Dwarven Dervish.. Drunken Dervish.. same thing reallly.

Honestly? If any ranged weapon is in need of any improvements on anything... it's the Crossbow. Seriously. There is absolutely no difference between using a longbow, and a long crossbow, except for the fact that you need rapid reload feat to fire more then one shot per round for a crossbow. That makes crossbows completely useless on CD, and even in NWN in general.

While it is true that historically speaking, crossbows take longer to reload then a bow, they have always held more accuracy then a longbow, and even continued to have a place in warfare when muskets were made and being refined, depending on where you go and the time period. I would actually say that it is Crossbows that should get the damage bonus... At least a bonus damage on critical hits. Something. Because right now, a crossbow is more trouble then it's worth to master, except for RP (Which, I've NEVER seen, on any server).

Haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but I can attest to this, as Mouse is something of a pack rat and has several incredibly good bows that are great for ranged characters (most of which she uses for varying occasions). I promise, there are bows that are good on their own in the loot - you just have to find them.

We're trying to branch out away from the dwarf-centric nature of the class, not more toward it

This is unfortunately the nature of the beast not only in NWN but in D&D and related games in general. Crossbows stink regardless.

Heck, with the advent of "unlimited cantrip usage" in Pathfinder, Crossbows have even ceased to be "that weapon the mage hopes to roll 20s on when s/he runs out of/doesn't want to spend spells".

There's really nothing we can do to change that other than completely changing how the weapon works, utterly divorcing it from any semblance of its PnP counterpart.

Making quality crossbows widely available at all tiers would certainly be a start.  Crossbows suck in NWN because NWN tends to play significantly differently than PnP.  In PnP, one will typically spend a considerable amount of time at low levels, during which time, the crossbow is king.  Other than the lack of iterative attacks, a heavy crossbow is simply a better weapon than a longbow.  In NWN, one tends to blaze through their lower levels, so the crossbow has less time to reign.  It tends to become a self reinforcing cycle, in that, because quality crossbows aren't available at high levels on most servers, nobody bothers investing in them.  Because nobody bothers investing in them, nobody bothers to make quality crossbows.  The big question is whether or not getting crossbows into the hands of the adventuring populace is a big enough concern for the staff to necessitate creating a bunch of crossbows.

Edit: The other thing that makes crossbows suck is the unwillingness of item creators to put the Mighty property on Crossbows.  Admittedly, since crossbows are designed to use mechanical power to overcome the need for a strong user to pull on the string,  it's a little more tricky to explain how to make a crossbow mighty.  These could be explained simply as crossbows that have such a high draw strength that they require a strong user to properly turn the winch and get the most out of the bow.  Don't be afraid to mighty the crossbow.

Huh. I thought NWN didn't allow Mighty to be put on crossbows. But I just checked it and it apparently is allowed. Interesting.

But yeah. Even in PnP, I've never seen anyone use a crossbow, now that Pathfinder has unlimited cantrips. There's simply no need for them, even at low levels.

That's the problem, though. I wasn't using the dragon bow for comparison because I stated upfront it was clearly outclassed just based off a glance. I first created a good bow and it got beat out by both EMW'd and non-EMW'd longsword, and then an entirely hypothetical and totally fantastical bow that would likely never see the light of day on CD and it still gets badly outclassed by the melee alternative. I highly recommend reading the post and its numbers in depth.

Just to review, though:

Bow with +1, 2d6 elemental arrows and +5 mighty: min 9, max 26, avg 17.5
Sword of Heavens (decent tier 4 longsword): min  13, max 28, avg 20.5
Sword of Heavens with EMW:  min 19, max 37, avg 28

This is assuming a base 10 str character with +12 str worth of buffs using the longsword and a spell level 10 EMW (scroll level). The sword does 60% more damage.

And then I did this ridiculousness:

Bow with +3, 2d10 elemental arrows and +6 mighty: min 12, max 37, avg 24.5
Sword of Heavens with level 20 EMW: min 29, max 47, avg 38

This is assuming a base 20 str character (easily achievable with ECL +0) with +12 str worth of buffs using the longsword. The sword does 55% more damage.

Again, I'd like to point out that a tier 4 sword under exceedingly normal conditions is outclassing a bow of a power level that doesn't exist even at tier 5 by 55%.

The underlying problem here is that bows:

1) Have str bonuses capped by mighty (this isn't a problem if not for...)
2) Do not benefit from enhancement damage (+4-5 avg dmg per hit)
3) Do not benefit from EMW (~ +7-14 avg dmg per hit)

Fix 2 and 3 (which is doable) and bows can start being competitive. Hell, I play a character that uses god-awful double weapons (horrible investment, mathematically) but even I won't touch bows as anything more than a very secondary weapon.

As far as crossbows go, they're a mechanical disaster in NWN and 3.5 and really only have value on first shot/sneak attack/HiPS.

As far as I'm aware, NWN does not calculate bonus damage for ranged attacks off of the bow.  It's done off of the -arrows-.

Elemental Weapon spells apply an OnHit anyway, which won't do jack off of a bow even if the above turns out to be wrong in testing.  So even then, you'd have to put it on the arrows, not the bow.  


Bow damage is lower?  Here's a thought as to why.  Because it's safer.   You get the safety of standing behind the fighters and lobbing arrows at the big ugly with the Nopesword who would otherwise have a change to cut you in two if you picked up that higher damage sword and waded into melee.   So there's your tradeoff.

That said, I've seen some very well made archer builds do a fair bit of damage, so maybe the fault isn't entirely in the bow?

It doesn't by default, no. It requires a 2da change, as Perihilion noted. But it's fairly simple. Having seen his work implemented before, I'd suggest to hit him up for it. (I promise, I'm not putting you on the spot <.<)

I've seen decent archer builds that can do decent damage on CD.. the problem is simply that they could be doing (much) better with melee, mathematically, in almost every instance.

And it's actually not as "safer" as it sounds. CD's AI is actually not completely derp at times. And mobs will charge, or attempt to charge, lower AC characters. As by using a bow you're sacrificing AC by not using a shield, and simultaneously doing some damage (most bow builds do at least have decent AC), they get targeted quickly.

Lower damage is to be expected... if you look at my numbers for unbuffed tier 4 bow vs unbuffed tier 4 sword (albeit on a 10 str character), they're not that far off. 20% difference or thereabouts. Acceptable. The problem occurs in that bows currently don't get the rather massive damage output boosts that both enhancement and EMW give.

To investigate, here's what it would look like if you had a 10 str archer character using a +5 mighty bow with +1, 2d6 elemental arrows bow and +4 attack bonus (that'd be a solid tier 4 bow) would look like if you had the enhancement damage bonus + EMW damage bonus, vs a decent tier 4 sword (using Sword of Heavens again) also with EMW, with a 20 base str/32 buffed char using it. We'll use level 20 EMW for this example.


Sword of Heavens: min 29, max 47, avg 38
Example Bow: min 24, max 44, avg 34

This scenario gives the sword 11% or so more damage, and is much a more reasonable difference given the situational safety advantage the bow user has (keep in mind, probably lower AC, so = higher value target, in addition to not having any other statistical or defensive bonuses that a tier 4+ shield may have on them--DR, saves, etc). The melee user also has other possibilities to increase their DPS output (dual wield or 2 hander instead of sword and board) that the bow simply does not have.

The NWN engine can handle bonus damage based on bows; it just requires a 2da swap and then the bows will accept damage boost properties - this includes both spell buffs and it also includes just normal damage boosts. The damage boost works (I have tested), and also stacks with arrow damage boosts if they are of different types. So it is 'possible'. Though additional work would be required to add extra damage bonuses onto loot bows, if that was desired. None of this would be particularly technically demanding though.

As for the second comment, I'm not so sure that the AI used here actually makes aggro management vastly easier for ranged characters than for melee characters. There is some advantage to it, but not nearly enough to justify the loss of AC and damage associated with bow use: a careful melee character can stay a step or two behind his friend and only draw aggro from OnDamaged events - an archer often has to deal with the same issues.

In my mind, the difference between melee and archery in NWN boils down to this:
-There is only one way to build an effective archer (AA PrC). This build fills a niche in taking down epic AC targets that melee doesn't have enough AB to connect with
-There are oodles of different ways to build an effective melee build

Yes, I'm aware of sneak archers, divine might archers, and the like, but those builds are almost always more effective with a sword than with a bow.

I'm gonna be honest... got the same problem going here as we do on the Paizo boards. Soon as the number crunching starts spilling out, my eyes cross.

Actually, one of the best builds for archers I've seen yet didn't involve AA at all.

As I said, I am aware of other archer builds! I'm curious to hear more details of the build in question, though.

Well, that's what us number crunchers are here for.

I think his point was that when the number crunching starts, it's a pain for him (and probably quite a few others) to follow, and so they don't give the thread the attention that the original poster believes it deserves and hopes it would receive.

That said, I understand why the numbers were included and why they're relevant, but I think the earlier point that was made about bows being a trade off is a fair one - and it's not just safety alone - it's the ability to attack from a distance to strike foes you can't otherwise reach. Less damage, but the advantage of not having to close with a foe you may have trouble reaching, otherwise, and potentially taking out (or softening up) some hardcore spawns before they close with the party. Not to mention that archers, like casters, are better off in groups rather than solo play (not that they shouldn't be allowed to solo, but some classes simply are less viable for that, being, of necessity, sometimes, a squishier build). So comparing bows with swords is a bit unfair. I think a better comparison may well be between archers and casters.

Yea, I did point that out. The problem is right now the trade-off is TOO heavy, which is why I was using numbers. Right now, the trade-off is something like 60% damage difference. That's a bit.. harsh. 10-20% would be more reasonable.

Checking back on this one, given the math and the relative situation bows are in, is there any reason -not- to allow GMW and EMW to affect bows (since this is fixable), or can we look forward to doing this?

I believe Vincent already said no to this one, although the argument continued in spite of such.

And, as he said earlier in the thread GMW already is castable on bows, as is Keen.

Fun thing I just found out: Elemental buff like Darkfire and the like does work on Throwing Axes. Haven't tried darts, but I'd guess yes.

Yes.. they do... and throwing daggers... my IB uses them all the time. 

What the devil is EMW?

Elemental Weapon. Basically Flame Weapon but with options for Cold, Electric, and Acid damage also. Available for Wizards/Sorcerers and Druids.

Clerics get Darkfire, Dark Ice, Dark Shock, and Dark Corrosion to choose from, though unlike EMW they have to be prepared individually, while EMW just prepares the one spell and picks the element of choice off a radial menu.