exile 3 ruined world How do you poison arrows?

[cst1992]

I know that you cannot poison thrown weapons.

 

But regular arrows, you should be able to poison so that if you shoot someone with them equipped that monster will be poisoned.

 

Well, it's not working. Both poisons and the Envenom spell (though I suspected this in the case of the spell) only poison my PC's melee weapon and not the arrows.

 

What gives?

[Aoslare]

Poisoned arrows were definitely a thing since the very first game.  The in-game tips even talk about them.  (And "poisoned weapon" is just tracked by a simple status effect -- it applies to the PC, not the specific weapon.)

 

I dunno -- can you be more specific about exactly what you're observing?  You're following exactly the same sequence both times, but melee attacks are applying poison but ranged attacks never are?

 

What do you have equipped?

[cst1992]

It's fairly simple to replicate, really:

 

1. Equip a melee weapon and a missile weapon (on the same or different characters)

2. Apply poison or cast Envenom on the character(s). PW shows up for the character(s).

3. Attack two different monsters with the melee and missile weapons

4. Observation: the monster attacked with the melee weapon shows as poisoned in the log (and subsequently takes poison damage) whereas the one attacked with the missile weapon takes normal damage as if attacked with a non-poisoned missile, plus does not show as poisoned and does not take subsequent poison damage.

 

Of course, by "missile weapon" I mean a bow or crossbow only; not throwing knives/daggers or darts or javelins or razordisks.

 

The final objective is to exploit the claim in the training window that "poisoned arrows are extremely powerful".

[Aoslare]

What bow and arrows specifically do you have equipped?

[cst1992]

A cavewood bow and the cheap generic arrows you can buy in bunches of 12 at one gold each.

[Aoslare]

Weird.

 

I assume you get the same behavior when using other bows and arrows, when attacking other monsters, when the PC has more skill in archery or poison, etc.?  Just trying to think of any possible unknown edge case that could explain this...

 

I assume from your other posts this is just in Exile III, right?

[cst1992]

That's the only Exile game I've played, so maybe.

 

My PCs have about 6 in archery and 3-4 in Poison skill.

 

Also, like I said, Envenom has this same issue (which is not dependent on Poison skill).

[cst1992]

I tested with all the combinations of bows and crossbows and all combinations of arrows from the regular ones to magic ones and none are working. If I had to guess, the game code is treating arrows as non-poisonable (like it does for thrown weapons). That could be a good place to look first.

[Aoslare]

I wonder if it's an emulation hiccup.  Saying this because there's no record of anyone on the internet reporting this before (and given how heavily E3 and BoE were discussed on these forums 20+ years ago, I can't believe no one ever tried to poison arrows), while there are some reports of being experiencing really weird things using OTVDM with BoE.

 

Notably, there is a report of Capture Soul always using slot 1.  Which slot Capture Soul picks is random -- well attested -- which suggests something really goofy is going on with the RNG call, when played under OTVDM.  The same post says there are other "sometimes" glitches -- it doesn't elaborate on them, but that could also be consistent with an RNG issue.  Emulation can affect RNGs due to initialization values, etc.  Usually we're used to seeing old systems suddenly have better RNG when emulated (think about the old exploits for NES games where you'd restart, perform a specific series of actions, and then guarantee a particular encounter or whatever), but I guess this could be working the other way around.  And it's definitely possible that something about the poison chance RNG is different for ranged attacks vs melee (maybe just in terms of order of things in the code rather than an intended gameplay difference).  (The report was for BoE, but something similar could presumably happen here -- they share an awful lot of code.)

 

There are also reports in that thread of text inconsistently missing values... which could point to something weird going on with memory read/write.  Definitely a possibility with emulation, if the game is handling it in an unusual way.  (Looks like OTVDM has had issues in the past with heap sizing that are attested, could be something like that.)

 

And here's another thread that suggests truly bizarre RNG with OTVDM, this time E3 itself.  I don't think E3 even had a door strength setting that could produce such low chances for success at bashing a regular door with 18 Strength.

 

If you have a way (and the time) to try out a different emulation method (like just DOSBox) with a transferred save, it might be worth seeing if you experience the same behavior.

[Ess-Eschas]

With apologies for posting in this thread, Slarty/Depth Delection.

 

I think I know what’s happening here, cst1992. At least, I hope so. As I understand it, the poisoned-weapon status only applies to the *first* weapon a character has equipped in their inventory list, not to any others. Since melee weapons are usually placed above missile weapons in that list, that means the melee weapon will have priority. If both are equipped, the melee weapon will be poisoned, but the missile weapon won’t be.

 

In order for your missile weapons to be poisoned, you need to *unequip your melee weapon*. That will ensure that your missile weapon is the first equipped weapon listed in your character’s inventory, so the poison will apply to it.

 

That makes your testing a little annoying, I’m afraid. But hopefully a single test should be enough. Try doing this, and targeting a monster with your arrows. The monster should – I hope – get poisoned now!

[cst1992]

8 minutes ago, Depth Delection said:

Notably, there is a report of Capture Soul always using slot 1. 

I can already debunk this one in case of OTVDM - Capture Soul is not always using slot 1. I tried to capture a Champion in a random town and it got saved in slot 2. Then I went to Shayder and tried to capture more people - a Witch (Judith) - slot 1. Then a High Priest (Ahonar) - slot 4. Mage (Sara) - slot 3.

 

19 minutes ago, Ess-Eschas said:

That makes your testing a little annoying, I’m afraid.

Not really - I can just drop/readd using whatever location I want - I have the editor!

I'll test this and report back.

[cst1992]

Yup, that did it! I was able to poison 4 roaches in a single turn!

 

A worse bit of news is that this resulted in my melee weapon not being poisoned at all. I am effectively forced to choose between poisoning arrows and poisoning blades.

[cst1992]

Found another annoying thing.

 

When I bought more arrows for my characters, it re-sorted the items I had for the selected character. That means my blade got in front of my arrows again.

 

The order is roughly thus :

1. Scrolls
2. Potions
3. Thrown weapons
4. Melee weapons
5. Missile weapons
6. Equippable armor (e.g. shields) and worn armor (e.g. boots)
7. Alchemy ingredients
8. Other items (e.g. unicorn horn, sapphire)
9. Worn items (e.g. shirt, pants)

[Ess-Eschas]

I’m glad that worked for you!

 

With the way Exile is designed, I’m afraid you can only have one weapon poisoned at a time. So yes, you will need to choose between poisoned melee, or poisoned missiles.

 

That being said, there might be a way around the problem – with the caveat that I’ve not tested this myself recently, so it might not work. The poisoned-weapon status applies only to the character, not to their particular weapons. So, in principle, the topmost equipped weapon will *always* be the poisoned one, regardless of when and how the poison was applied.

 

Let's say you start with only your missile weapon equipped, and apply the poison. Your missiles are poisoned, great! Now equip your melee weapon. So long as the poisoned-weapon status still holds, now your *melee* weapon should be poisoned (but not your missiles).

 

In other words, I *think* you should be able to switch between which weapons are poisoned in the middle of a combat, simply by switching out which weapons are equipped. Give it a try and see! I know it’s a bit annoying, but I think that’s the only way this could be done in the engine.

 

And remember, all that matters is that the chosen weapon is the first *equipped* weapon. So you don't need to go juggling items around in your inventory if you want a particular weapon to be poisoned. Just make sure there are no more equipped weapons above it! Non-equipped weapons are fine!

[cst1992]

Personally, I'd stick to poisoned melee weapons.

 

Do you want me to test the scenario of equipping/unequipping in the middle of combat? If not then I'll just stick with poisoned melee weapons. Poisoned missiles can easily be substituted with Venom Arrows anyway, and if what I observed is correct, the poison status inflicted by a poisoned missile is fairly weak.

[Aoslare]

Crazy!  Good catch Ess.

 

I guess this just never came up because people rarely bothered with archery in Exile in the first place.

[Ess-Eschas]

5 hours ago, cst1992 said:

Do you want me to test the scenario of equipping/unequipping in the middle of combat?

 

There’s no need to test it! I just made the suggestion in case you wanted to switch between melee and missiles. If you’d prefer to use melee only, then that’s just fine!

[cst1992]

9 hours ago, Depth Delection said:

people rarely bothered with archery in Exile in the first place.

Yeah, that's right.

 

Arrows were light and cheap, but you still kept running out of them. In the Avernum series you just had to buy the bow and keep it equipped, and forget about it. Much more convenient.