Ranged attacks?

[fragment]

What are the mechanics of the ranged attack (with a sling, should that matter)? Would anybody please link me to some info?

Regards!

[gruntgruntson]

1) Choose target
2) Roll 1d20, add AB and compare to foe's AC. If higher (or equal?), then is a hit, and rolls damage.
3) Repeat for each attack.
4) When foe is dead, move target to nearest alive foe.

AB is BAB + Dex Mod + Weapon Enhance + Feats + Modifiers (e.g. Penalty for being in melee combat)

Same as Melee attacks, really.

Or were you thinking of something else?

[fragment]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of, but with all the details E.g. the formula must contain a max(DEX, WIS) modifier if the zen archery feat is taken. I was also interested in the damage calculation, in all its glory, so that I can estimate if 3 attacks with great strength is better than 4 weaker attacks.

For the moment it seems what I really wanted to know was, if the STR modifier plays any role for the attack roll. I wanted to make use of the +16/+17 mighty modifiers.

I just tested it out in the test chamber, it does not, and the STR divine slinger comes out 12 or so short AB-wise. Unacceptable.

Regards!

[cathedralmaster]

fragment said:

For the moment it seems what I really wanted to know was, if the STR modifier plays any role for the attack roll. I wanted to make use of the +16/+17 mighty modifiers.

I just tested it out in the test chamber, it does not, and the STR divine slinger comes out 12 or so short AB-wise. Unacceptable.

You could have just checked the wiki in this regard:

Mighty is a ranged weapon item property, allowing some of the character's strength modifier to be added to damage for ranged weapons attacks. The mighty modifier applies up to and including the PC's strength modifier, but no more than the mighty amount.

www.nwnwiki.org/Mighty

Mighty as you found has no effect on the ab which is computed using the characters dex or wisdom modifier for ranged weapons.

[ekstroem]

fragment said:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of, but with all the details E.g. the formula must contain a max(DEX, WIS) modifier if the zen archery feat is taken. I was also interested in the damage calculation, in all its glory, so that I can estimate if 3 attacks with great strength is better than 4 weaker attacks.

I went through the same considerations for a STR assassin I was working on and I wrote a bit of code to estimate the average damage done for a given combination of attacks, AC, crit multiplier etc. I couldn't find it just now (so much for reusable code) but I tried to write up the code again. It's written for the statistical software program R, but should be fairly easy to read for anyone. The original code I made took dev crit DC and enemy fort save into account so I could decide if 3 attacks with a higher DC was better than 4 attacks with a slightly lower DC.

WARNING: not thoroughly tested!

damage <- function(ab=c(65, 55), ac=60, threat=12, multiplier=2) {

if (threat<1) stop("Strange threat value")

attackdiff <- ac - ab

tohit <- pmin(19, pmax(1, 21 - attackdiff))*0.05
tocrit <- (21 - pmin(pmax(threat, attackdiff),20))*0.05

list(tohit=tohit, tocrit=tocrit, avdmg=sum(tohit), avdmgwcrit=sum(tohit-tocrit) + multiplier*sum(tocrit))

}

So based on this my Bard/AA with 78 AB yields

> damage(ab=c(78,73,68,63,78,73), ac=75, threat=19, multiplier=3)
$tohit
[1] 0.95 0.95 0.70 0.45 0.95 0.95

$tocrit
[1] 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1

$avdmg
[1] 4.95

$avdmgwcrit
[1] 6.15

tohit and tocrit lists the percentages of hitting and critting for the different attacks. Avdmg is just the sum of the hit probabilities while avdmgwcrit accounts for the threat range and the crit multiplier. So with a Dustbone bow my bard/AA does (on average) 6.15 times the damage on the weapon per round against an opponent with no conceal and AC 75. My Tin Can toon has slightly lower damage output:

> damage(ab=c(73,68,63,58,73), ac=75, threat=18, multiplier=3)
$tohit
[1] 0.95 0.70 0.45 0.20 0.95

$tocrit
[1] 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15

$avdmg
[1] 3.25

$avdmgwcrit
[1] 4.75

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Claus