From weimer@argus.EECS.Berkeley.EDU Wed Oct 9 18:27:07 2002 Path: news2.east.cox.net!cox.net!newsfeed.news2me.com!arclight.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!agate.berkeley.edu!agate!not-for-mail From: Westley Weimer Newsgroups: alt.games.baldurs-gate,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg Subject: IWD2: Stunning Explained Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 19:13:33 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 68 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: argus.eecs.berkeley.edu X-Trace: agate.berkeley.edu 1034018013 9177 128.32.42.200 (7 Oct 2002 19:13:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 19:13:33 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/1.4.5-20010409 ("One More Nightmare") (UNIX) (SunOS/5.8 (sun4u)) Xref: cox.net alt.games.baldurs-gate:321574 comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg:2999864 X-Received-Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 15:13:33 EDT (news2.east.cox.net) Just a little note on Stunning in IWD2. As with BG2, it is fairly easy to get protection from Hold and whatnot but very difficult to obtain protection from Stun. Here is a quick rundown of all of the non-scroll items in IWD2 that can stun opponents. "Name" is the item's name. Chance is the percentage chance that a hit will cause the possibility of a stun. Time is the duration of that stun. Fort Save is the fortitude save PENALTY. A number "X (!Y)" means that the textual description claims Y but the number in the ITM file is really X. An IWD2 combat round is 7 seconds. Also note that the textual descriptions never tell you what the fortitude save penalty is (with one exception). The list is sorted assuming the fort save penalty is most important, followed by the chance per hit. Name Chance Time Fort Save [00SWDL89.ITM] Bhaal's Fire 15 3 NO SAVE [63HFHBPB.ITM] Pudu's Fiery Blight 25 3 39 [00MACE92.ITM] Mace of Stunning Frost Burst 100 3 30 [00MSTR91.ITM] Stunning Star of Speed 50 3 30 [00CLUB90.ITM] Club of Dazing +5 100 3 27 [00SWDL91.ITM] Stunning Longsword of Corrosion 100 3 27 [00SWDB94.ITM] Miasmic Bastard Sword 25 3 27 [63HALBPB.ITM] Pudu's Blight 24 (!25) 3 20 [00AROW98.ITM] Stunning Arrows +1 100 14 14 [00BOLT93.ITM] Stunning Bolts +1 100 14 14 [00BULL92.ITM] Stunning Bullets +1 100 14 14 [51HFSFRH.ITM] Ryomaru's Harmless Tanuki Staff 10 2 14 [00DART03.ITM] Dart of Stunning 100 7 11 [00SPER89.ITM] Spear of Stunning +2 100 3 8 [00DAGG82.ITM] Stun Throwing Dagger +2 25 3 8 [00DART83.ITM] Returning Stun Dart +1 25 3 8 [00HAMM89.ITM] Stunning Frost Hammer +1 25 3 8 [00STAF80.ITM] Bruiser Staff 25 3 8 [00SWDL80.ITM] Stunning Longsword +2 25 3 8 [00SWDS87.ITM] Short Sword of Sanctuary +1 25 3 8 [51STAFRH.ITM] Ryomaru's Harmless Staff 10 2 8 [00AROW88.ITM] Stunning Arrows +1 25 (!50) 3 5 [00BULL88.ITM] Stun Bullets +1 25 3 5 [00CLUB82.ITM] Stun Club +1 25 3 5 [00FLAL87.ITM] Stun Flail +1 25 (!50) 3 5 [00WAND03.ITM] Wand of Paralyzation 100 70 4 Some things to note: in IWD2, by the time you get any of these items you will have more than one attack per round. That means that despite the fact that most of these stun for 3 seconds, you can still keep someone stunned forever (this was the big advantage of Celestial Fury) just by hitting them fast enough. I have seen this happen in games, particularly with the Stunning Star of Speed (which gives 2 extra attacks). However, I did not notice the huge disparity in fortitude save penalties until I did a methodical examination. A save penalty of 30 effectively means "you will fail" -- bear in mind that the base Fort Save for a 30th level Warrior is 17, and then enemies don't buff quite the way the players do. The interesting bit from a game balance perspective is that it doesn't matter. In BG2, Celestial Fury cleaned house with its stunning ability. Here even giving one of these weapons to a solo character at the beginning of the game would not keep it alive -- there are just too many foes and they always hit you. Still, fun to think about. The IWD2 Ease of Use mod bugfix section may eventually fix the bugs I've noted here. [ This list culled from the item list at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~weimer/bgate/iwd2.html and the item codes were verified using Near Infinity. ] - Wes