Do weapons and shields you have equiped but are not wielding effect your wielded weapon's stats?

[Hrafnskald]

For example: Archer has bow as primary weapon they are shooting. Their melee weapons equipped are Goblin Cleaver (plus 1 to Deadly Blow) and shield (minus to hit chance).

 

Is the bow they are wielding effected by the modifiers from these? Likewise, would equipping 2 melee weapons apply the dual wielding penalty to the bow being used?

 

Avernum 3 remake if the version matters.

 

-Hraffy

[TriRodent]

I'm not completely sure & someone who plays with the stats will probably be along soon with an accurate answer.

 

That said...  I think armor bonuses (good & bad) are always factored in no matter what your actions.  Similarly you get bonuses (good & bad) from all weapons no matter the type of attack (melee or ranged).  Generally any dual wielding guy that I have doesn't have a lot of skill points in archery to begin with so I've never noticed them missing more because of the dw to hit penalty (or just wrote the miss off as being a lousy shot to begin with).  Then too I try to give everyone a point or two in both mage & priest skills so they could toss a fireball/minor heal.  So he'd probably be using a spell rather than his bow anyway (& I think magic has a different to hit calculation so the dw may not even come into it).

 

So it pretty much boils down to ... I dunno {shrug}.  Interesting question though.

 

[Randomizer]

Okay I tried Avernum 3 remake with a magic user firing a bow with two weapons equipped and with only one where both times I got the same to hit chance of 14%. It took me some time to find a save where I could equip the second weapon and not have a 95% to hit chance. So Jeff had it only calculate for melee attacks.

[Hrafnskald]

Randomizer: Much appreciated-now I can happily stack random weapons in both hands on my mages

 

-Ed

[Slawbug]

All actual modifiers attached to items themselves affect your character globally.  In the example above, Deadly Blow from the cleaver will affect missile attacks; the hit reduction on the shield will, too.

 

The dual wielding penalty is different.  It isn't a modifier on an item, it's just something that applies when you make a dual wielding attack.

[Hrafnskald]

TM Paladin: Thanks for clarifying that. I had wondered, give the number of useful one handed weapons that add bonuses to things other than melee attacks. 

 

I love the way Jeff creates meaningful choices with interesting tradeoffs. I like games where there is no one overwhelmingly obvious right answer. 

 

-Ed

[Slawbug]

Unfortunately this isn't always the ultimate outcome of even Jeff's games 😅 but on the level of individual weapons, definitely.

 

There is a positive trend over time here, at least.  A3:RW and Queen's Wish are both a lot more like this ("no one best answer") than A:EFTP and A2:CS were.

[Triumph]

On 7/8/2020 at 3:45 PM, TM Paladin said:

There is a positive trend over time here, at least.  A3:RW and Queen's Wish are both a lot more like this ("no one best answer") than A:EFTP and A2:CS were.

 

The Parry Guardian of G2 and the Vlish Horde of G3 also spring to mind...  😂

[Slawbug]

If I were gonna rank all the games in this regard -- how much strategic choices end up gravitating towards a single party+PC setup as opposed to diverging into a variety of interesting choices -- I think it would look something like this:

 

Nethergate: Resurrection

G4

G5

A3: RW

Ava1

QW

Nethergate

Avernum 1-3

Exile 1-3

A6

G1 (shaping)

G2 (parry, tho also introduced daze and creation creep began)

A:EFTP (rush to adrenaline-filled spellcasters, dual-wielders with two specific weapons)

Ava2 (sarcastic tinkermages + megahaster)

A5 (adrenaline-filled everything)

Ava3 (double damage tinkermages + megahaster)

G3 (vlish)

A2:CS (adrenaline-filled direct damage spellcasters)

A4 (divinely touched nephils that shoot bows for kicks)

 

Not 100% set on this but after giving it a few quick thoughts, yeah.