The World of Avlis

I've looked and looked and looked, but without going and buying a 3rd Ed PHB I can't seem to figure out how they work rate of fire for ranged weapons such as ... say... bows, these days? I know in my single player module adventures I've shied away from ranged weapons because melee worked so much better in every situation I tried (not that I tried everything, of course), but in PnP games I LOVE playing the elite, snooty, arrogant, elven archer type with a penchion for putting arrows in nasty nasty places from two miles away (exaggerated, but only a lil!).

Any of you experienced NWN peeps care to give me a run down on what's different in 3rd Ed AD&D and the NWN engine in particular from archery in the 2nd edition game?

What is different?

1. PNP range is one heck of a lot further away than you can even get on screen with NWN. There is a Camera hack to take care of some of this.

I can't speak of 2nd edition, I was a little too late in the process for it.



You are right about the melee working generally better if you are soloing or SP. The bad guys are just in your face before you've done sufficient damage, and there are usually too many for you to keep using a bow.

On the other hand, in a multiplayer world, you'll love having tanks to hide behind. In fact, I wouldn't let melee/ranged viability dictate what class you play. Play the RP concept that you enjoy the most and don't worry about how much damage you can do or how much you'll be able to contribute to the group.

Yah, see, the one I enjoy the most in terms of playability is different from what I enjoy the most in terms of personality. I love playing the all-knowing wizardly type, but it's way too much of a pain in the ass to keep that 'type' alive for me to bother with. I have a loose tongue

I genuinely enjoy playing 'rangery' types. Not necessarily rangers as a class, though they're definitely cool, but I very much enjoy (even before I read the stupid books) the "Aragorn" archetype, followed with the "Legolas" archetype as a close second.

Now, what I'm really considering doing, just cause it'd be fun as hell.. is a character named 'Nakor the Blue Rider', pretty much yank him right out of the book that Raymond Feist so graciously put him in. For those that have read and know, testify to the fun that could be. To those that haven't read and don't know, you're depriving yourselves... really.... get the man's books.


I guess what I'm trying to decide is whether to focus on melee or missile combat at the start of my character's career. I'm very seriously looking at the Avenger prestige class, so I'm going to want the two to be balanced later on, but I've never bothered with a bow in the single player mods past level 3 or 4, so I don't know what it's like past there... ANd I just recently got ahold of SoU, so I know nothing about the feats and what not available there. Was just hoping someone could gimme some primers on what to expect out of mid to late game archery.

characters with names taken form literature or history will be remade adn renamed at the team's discretion. Just a heads up for you.

Er, yah, kinda figured I'd rename him... but you gotta give credit where credit is due Thanks for the warning, though.

Archers can be very effective if they have someone to hide behind, especially in a cave system.

Teibidh wrote:how they work rate of fire for ranged weapons

That's because there is no rate of fire anymore. You get as many attacks with the bow as you would with any other weapon. Or 1 every 5th point of BAB. You can however take the rapid shot feat, which gives you a extra attack per round, but you take a -2 per shot to your attack roll.

3e is a completely different game from 2e, most everything of 2e, is no longer true of 3e.

However, if I remember correctly you had to reload and crank crossbows (full action or partial action?) in 3e limiting your attacks per round.

Last I checked however, NWN doesn't implement this granting you as many attacks per round as normal with a crossbow. Come to think of it, does the rapid reload feat they put into SoU do ANYTHING?

When SoU was first released and I tested the feat I couldn't tell if the feat had any effect whatsoever. It didn't seem to change your attacks per round and having both it and rapid shot did not allow you to use the rapid shot feat with the crossbow.

Insights?

The crosbow only seems to give you half your attacks per round, and the rapid reload takes this to all your attacks per round.

I could be wrong as I only play with a crossbow, and I am not a serious user of one.

Could quite possibly be, I haven't checked since before SoU was patched. However I know that before SoU was patched, the character sheet most definately had 4 attack bonuses listed even though I did not have the rapid reload feat.

The character sheet shows how many attacks per round you can make, but it doesn't account for things like what weapon you're using, flury of blows, rappid shot, ect...

Crossbows are limted to 1 attack per round in NWN, unless you have the rapid reload feat.

Vanor wrote:Crossbows are limted to 1 attack per round in NWN, unless you have the rapid reload feat.

Guess I'll have to test it when I get a break from being raped by midterms. I was sure Tri'as went nuts and blasted off 5 shots per round when I tested an x-bow with him soon after SoU came out (no rapid reload). So either I was on crack at the time, Tri'as is just too uber, or they changed something in one of the most recent patches.

Could be they broke something.

I think when NWN first came out, X-bows did in fact give the same number of attacks per round as other bows did. But I know at one point in time that was not true, and you did in fact only get one attack per round with a x-bow.

EDIT: My first double post

Damn. There I was thinking bioware were just stupid.

I mean, heavy crossbows do more damage than longbows, with a simpler proficency, and had no documented penalty.

SO bioware just suck at Documentation then?

Perhaps for the above, heavy/light crossbows have reload times?

Yep, you're right Vanor, crossbows only allow 1 attack per round right now.