Party creation questions, and some other questions

[Wraith[x]]

Wouldn't things like Bless, Aid etc also have a similar effect to Luck on the critical threat? Say I have someone with Bless, Aid and Chant active on them, would they get +3 bonus to their attack rolls, so instead of Criting on 20, they'd effectively crit on 17-20 (16-20 with Luck)? Or would the attack roll effects not stack?

[kmonster]

For critical hits only the natural roll counts, bless and aid only affect the AB.

[Jelaweb]

Wraith, do you mean Critical Threat or Critical Hit?

The +3 AB in your example is a good question depending on which you mean. Aerich, when you roll a natural 20, you score a critical threat. The computer then rolls another D20, and if it is higher than the opponents AC, you score a critical hit. By this mode of thinking, Wraith's question does have its merits.

The manual states:
"To find out if it's a critical hit, a critical roll is made immediately, this is another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll just made."

Unless the manual is lying, then your Bless, Aid and Chant spells DO have an effect on the "critical roll", i.e. the actual critical hit - but NOT the critical threat, i.e. rolling a natural 20 during a normal attack.

So the other question would be "Does luck affect the critical roll?"

If not, it means that even if a character has 2 Tymora's Loops, Neds Lucky Knucky, Executioner's Eyes and Luck, he/she would not get a critical hit if "character AB + D20 roll < enemy AC".

[Wraith[x]]

So does that mean the Attack Boni would not increase the chance of threating a critical, but they would increase the chance of it actually turning into a crit?

Is there an upper limit where Saving Throw bonuses become redundant, like the 72 of Armour Class? I'm thinking mainly about Reflex at the moment, for sending my Rogue/Fighter in and Fireballing her..

On weapon enchantments, what message is shown if the enchantment is not enough to hit the creature? I don't think I've found anything that I need enchantments for yet, but I'm not very far in (About to do the Goblin Fortress at the end of C1)

[Aerich]

The answer to your first question is yes.

As for the second question, I couldn't put a numerical value on saves off the top of my head. The complicating factor is that saves are affected by both the saver and the savee (the caster's DC value). So if you've optimized your casters for AoE evocation damage, it will be harder for your rogue to save against. That's why rogues/monks with spell resistance are so valuable, because it means the caster has to succeed with two checks instead of one.

I suppose you could work out the spell's DC and compare it to the rogue's reflex save to figure out what number you would need. My experience is that rogues evade significantly more often than not, so go ahead and try it. It wouldn't be a bad idea to invest in some fire protection if you are nervous about the risk.

Alternately, you can figure out the radius of your AoE spells and make sure that your characters are just outside the edge.

On the weapon enchantment question, it should say "Weapon Ineffective". Unfortunately, you also get that message against regular damage resistances (and sometimes monsters are resistant against some types but not others), so it may be difficult to figure out if the enchantment level or the damage type is the issue.

[Wraith[x]]

Hmmm.. I thought the "Xxxxx was immune to my piercing damage" was for when they fully resist?


On the Reflex saves, the way I understand it is that the spell DC is 10 + Spell Level + Character's Cha/Int Modifier, so for my 19 Cha Sorceror casting Fireball, the DC would be 10+3+4 = 17, meaning I'd need to roll 18-20 to evade it.. so if I had a Reflex save of 17 or more, she'd evade 100% of the time?

[Aerich]

Hmm. Maybe I'm mixing up my messages with IWD1, but iirc you do get "weapon ineffective" if you can't damage them at all with that weapon enchantment level.

You could go by my rule of thumb: Use a magical weapon on anything remotely magical (e.g. were-creatures, strange types of trolls) and always have more than one damage type. Use +3 or better on golems and demons.

I think you have the DC calculation down correctly, but I believe a rogue can "critical miss" on an evasion roll. So at best you have a 95% success rate.

[Crucis]

Aerich, your "rule of thumb" should be just about a given in IWD2, since you have 4 different weapon/shield slot pairs to work with. I believe that having 2 different weapon types, blunt and slashing or piercing, is a must. And I prefer to go with all three types, if I have sufficient decent weapons, carrying capacity, and skill to support all three types.

As for dealing with golems, etc., that's why I rarely use any ammo better than +2 in normal monster slaying. I save the really good stuff for the absolute toughest baddies. If the Everlast Arrow is sufficient, that's what I'll use. This becomes particularly true in HOF where your characters, particularly any archers, will be firing 3-4 or more shots per round and you can go thru ammo like crazy. The Everlast Arrow is a must use ammo in HOF, if only to conserve the great ammo, and even the decent ammo.

[Aerich]

I know. That's why I call it a rule of thumb. It's just good practice to have various weapon types.

I am an ammo conservationist as well. However, I sometimes wasn't until I installed the ammo stacking component from the mod. Otherwise inventory management is just too painful. There's an everlasting flaming bullet, too (random drop, iirc). There's lots of returning throwing weapons, too.

[Crucis]

Vis-a-vis magical throwing weapons, I'm of the opinion that non-returning magical throwing weapons are a waste of time to create, from the magical weapon maker's perspective. If I were going to enchant a throwing hammer, etc., the first enchantment would be a returning enchantment. About the only reason to use non-returning, magical throwing weapons is if you find them as treasure and there's no place to sell'em nearby and your inventory slots and carrying capacity is just about maxed out. Might as well just use'em in that case to get some value out of them.

Regarding your other comments about ammo, I agree. One of the things about IWD2 is that there are sooooooooo many types of ammo that you really can't afford to keep many small piles of multiple types of ammo around. They just quickly use up slots. When selling isn't an issue, I'll just burn off lesser ammo on the cannon fodder monsters. There's really only a handful of ammo that's so good that you need to hold onto it, such as Holdfast Arrows and Force Bullets, and +3, +4, +5 ammo as well, of course.

[Wraith[x]]

I just got the Weidu Stacking mod, and it just make things so much easier.. No more full inventories, easy to find and assign ammo.. it doesn't break the game, or make it any easier to beat enemies, but it's just so good, it makes snipers far more fun to play.. it should've been added when they made the game, IMO.

While we're on the subject.. what ranged weapons do you give to your characters? At the moment this is what I have..

Wizard (18 Dex) with a Bow
Sorceror (18 Dex) with a Bow
Cleric (18 Str/18 Dex) with a Sling
Bard (15 Dex) with a XBow

My thinking is, the Cleric is the only oine with +Str, so she should use the Sling because as I understand it they get a Str bonus added to their damage, even though it isn't shown in the character sheet. And the Bard has lower Dex, so I gave her the XBow, then she wouldn't suffer from the -5 penalty to secondary attacks, because she just wouldn't have any.. does that sound sensible, or would you recommend changing the weapons round?

[Aerich]

That breakdown is fine. I like to have at least one user of each type (bow, crossbow, sling), and the rest is just gravy. It looks like you've paid attention to their individual capabilities when picking the weapons, too, so I wouldn't change anything.

I sometimes just sell off the lesser ammo, particularly in the normal game before the stacking mod. And I hate non-returning throwing weapons. I sell all the darts I can get my hands on, except occasionally in HoF if I'm running short on ammo.

[Crucis]

Wraith, your ranged weapon choices were solid. One thing I often do is give my sorc an Xbow, rather than a box, since they're usually not elven and usually have lower DEX's. And with their lower BAB's and # of attacks, I like the extra AB that Xbows will give and I tend to be happy with one solid hit, if I'm going to use ranged weapons with my mages, at all.

Slings are great for characters with some STR. So are returning throwing hammers. Darts can be useful in the right situation, but those situations are so limited that one can hardly justify worrying about them too much. About the best situation for darts is when you've set up a magical kill zone with entange/web and some cloud spells, and you don't want to get too close, darts can be a nice way for your really strong tanks to reach out and touch the immobilized baddies and get to add their STR. But for that narrow situation, it's not worth hauling around darts, only using the ones you've collected since your last trip to the "Adventurer's Mart".