Seasoned Roamer Fatman Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 It's been over a decade since I last played Exile 3. I'm planning to specialize one of my characters with crossbows but I remember hearing from someone that crossbow's effectiveness is actually governed by the thrown missile skill instead of the obvious archery skill. I want to know if this is true before I dump a bunch of skill points into archery for my crossbow user. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 I've never heard that before and I'm pretty sure it's not true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 That said, prepare to be underwhelmed and overloaded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Nephil Thief Posted March 11, 2016 Share Posted March 11, 2016 Short version: what Slartibus said above. Long version: Crossbows are marginally more effective than bows, in terms of damage and hit chance. That might be hard coded, or it might not. From the CBoE sources, barely anything improves ranged damage. Not any of the skills, and not launcher bonuses. Ammo bonuses help; as does Bless status, though not by much; and finally the Accuracy item power. Damage and hit chance both decrease with distance, and with the number of foes in the way, and also both go down precipitously at point blank range. Poisoned bolts might be useful in some situations. OTOH they have high nuisance value, since you must first unwield any melee weapons, or the poison won't be applied to the bolts. ... I suppose a part of five or six archers, with poisoned ammo, might be effective. One archer is probably going to be pretty useless though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seasoned Roamer Fatman Posted March 12, 2016 Author Share Posted March 12, 2016 So my characters will never be as good as an empire archer even if they have completely maxed out dexterity, archery skills, equipped with the best crossbow/bow and best arrows/bolts... Now I think I know why I never bothered with ranged combat with the exception of spells in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Thaluikhain Posted March 12, 2016 Share Posted March 12, 2016 In my experience, missile weapons are marginally useful if there's nothing else you can do...if you are in a narrow tunnel when only the fighter in front can hit, and people are queued up behind, for example. I'd not put many points in their at all unless I'd given up on playing fairly and was using the editor (towards the endgame, or when fighting golems, usually). But throwing the odd rock, or dart of returning...may as well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Slawbug Posted March 12, 2016 Share Posted March 12, 2016 Yeah, enemy archers use a completely different, mostly hardcoded archery routine. Empire Archers have a damage range you likely won't ever reach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Celtic Minstrel Posted March 18, 2016 Share Posted March 18, 2016 I have no evidence for this, but it's quite possible that the bug of thrown missiles skill governing archery (assuming it ever existed) was only introduced in Blades of Exile due to a copy error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Thaluikhain Posted March 20, 2016 Share Posted March 20, 2016 Actually, just struck me...IIRC, literally none of the monsters of NPCs use crossbows. You can buy them, but seemingly if you do you are the only 6 people in the continent that will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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