Apr. 11, 2013: Ammunition Assistance

Today I added several new items and a function addition that should help those using arrows, bolts, and bullets produced by an everfull quiver, everfull case of bolts, or everfull bag of bullets.

First, you can now use a crystal of smiting on these ammo generators. Doing so will give produced ammo a +1d4 damage bonus (piercing or bludgeoning, depending on the ammo).

Second, I added several new items, called "bane fluids" (such as animal bane fluid, and demon bane fluid). You can add one of these to an everfull ammo maker at a time, each imbuing the generated ammo with a +1d6 damage bonus vs. the race the fluid is tied to. Adding a second (or later) fluid to an everfull item will replace the first fluid with the new one (so you can change your ammo from "animal bane" to "demon bane" to "giant bane", and so on).

Third, for the next module update, I'm randomizing what order the damage properties are added to the generated ammo, so there should be some variety in the VFX that shows on firing the ammo each time it's replenished. Hopefully this will give some relief from the constant "acid" VFX. I tested today with just changing to fire.

Awesome addition... will the "bane fluids" be usable on any other weapon types or just on ammunition ?

Does the 1d6 damage bonus vs. X still apply to a Ranger with Bane of Enemies against one of his favoured enemies ?

If you get/have a Ranger that uses Bane Fluid (possibly matched to their favoured enemies) on the ammunition does it get any special damage ~say a 1d8 instead ? (( The ranger would know exactly how/where to coat the ammunition for a possibly better effect))

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Crystal of Smiting added to a melee weapon gives the "Keen" property, which doubles the effective critical range, is this not possible for ranged weapons?... Am I missing something here ?..... ((1d4 extra damage has got to a cool bonus though ))

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With the VFX switching are any of the NWNCX effects included or is it just the standard ammunition VFX's (Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Sonic, Divine) that can be cycled through dependant on what has been used on the "everfull" ?

RustyDios wrote:Awesome addition... will the "bane fluids" be usable on any other weapon types or just on ammunition ?

No. They sit in the bottom of the quiver/case/bag, and are only good for the everfull ammo generator items.

Does the 1d6 damage bonus vs. X still apply to a Ranger with Bane of Enemies against one of his favoured enemies ?

Yes. The new "bane fluid" is completely independent of the Ranger's Bane of Enemies ability.

If you get/have a Ranger that uses Bane Fluid (possibly matched to their favoured enemies) on the ammunition does it get any special damage ~say a 1d8 instead ? (( The ranger would know exactly how/where to coat the ammunition for a possibly better effect))

No. The business end of the ammo (or the whole thing, whatever) is what get's coated, so Rangers don't get something special from this.

Crystal of Smiting added to a melee weapon gives the "Keen" property, which doubles the effective critical range, is this not possible for ranged weapons?... Am I missing something here ?..... ((1d4 extra damage has got to a cool bonus though ))

Ammunition does not get the Keen property, so I figured just extra damage of the base type of the ammo would be nice.

With the VFX switching are any of the NWNCX effects included or is it just the standard ammunition VFX's (Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Sonic, Divine) that can be cycled through dependant on what has been used on the "everfull" ?

Just the standard VFXs. Ammunition doesn't get extra VFXs (or assignable VFXs) like melee weapons, it's just based on the elemental damage type...and it seems to be that whatever the first damage type added is what determines the in-flight VFX missile shown.

Ooh, nice. I'll have to dust off my Arcane Archer and give this a spin!

The Amethyst Dragon wrote:

Crystal of Smiting added to a melee weapon gives the "Keen" property, which doubles the effective critical range, is this not possible for ranged weapons?... Am I missing something here ?..... ((1d4 extra damage has got to a cool bonus though ))

Ammunition does not get the Keen property, so I figured just extra damage of the base type of the ammo would be nice.

Yeah, the only way to up the critical ratio of range weapons would be to put the keen property directly on the weapon, not the quiver..

Actually, even that's impossible. The only way is to get the improved critical feat. Keen and ki critical don't work for ranged weapons.

Thank you hugely, , for providing even more effectiveness for the bow!

I know, right? I'm very much looking forward to exploring these new avenues of ranged possibilities! Thanks so much, !

The next module update will change the damage type for the bane fluids (from extra piercing/bludgeoning to magical). Turns out when you add more of the same damage type, the game ignores it.

The Amethyst Dragon wrote:Turns out when you add more of the same damage type, the game ignores it.

As a cautionary note to all of you who are upgrading your equipment, this is something that the wiki led me to believe is true for upgrades, that adding the same damage type [piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning] to a weapon as its base damage type will make the engine choose only the highest of the same damage types.

Correct, it doesn't ignore it, it simply picks what it considers the highest damage.

So if you make a +5 Longsword and then give it +6 slashing damage, you get +5 AB and +6 damage total.

However, if you gave it +6 piercing damage, you'd get +5 AB and +11 damage total (and all of the physical damage would be considered slashing).

Note that this not apply to things like spells giving a damage increase - those do stack (and are unresistable) up to 200 total damage (and get multiplied on a crit, but only to 200 damage maximum).

Changing the extra damage from using the crystal of smiting to slashing so it stacks.