Which bonuses are cumulative?

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I was trying to optimize my party's abilities but I saw that some magical items have cumulative bonuses and some have not.Are here any rules to tell which bonuses from magical items are cumulative or do I have to apply trial-and-error to all possible combinations?(gulp)

 

I've had the same questions. I've got a few AC enhancing rings that don't do anything because of other bonus items. Oh well.

 

The general rule is that bonuses are not cumulative - you get the highest bonus of all that apply. Examples ... Ability enhancements are not. Saving throw enhancements are not. Spell resistances are not. Attack (to hit) bonuses are not. AC bonuses are not. Initiative bonuses are not.

Movement bonuses may be cumulative (not sure there), and I think damage bonuses are, but that last one is hard to verify.

The areas that are unclear are damage multipliers and critical threat ranges. Not sure how multiple bonuses in these areas stack, and in addition to damage bonuses. I know they do, otherwise I shouldn't be able to do 150+ HP damage in a single hit!

BTW, I finished the game for my first time about a week ago. I ended up with a 16/14 Half-Elf Cleric/Paladin and 16/13/2 Half-Elf Sorcerer/Rogue/Barbarian. The final boss battle(s) were a breeze with these two. Sharing all the uber items and stat increases between just 2 characters made these guys unstoppable, although the first couple of levels were tough in spots.

Thrasher

 

Hmm.What is protection then?eg amulet of pretection +2.What does it protect you from?
And about critical ranges,sometimes they don't work!My fighter wields a weapon that in the manial says that it has a critical hit on 17,and he has the feat of improved critical,so he should make double damage at 15,right?well he doesn't!Damn!

 

An amulet of protection +x, increases AC +x and Saving Throws +x.

None of the weapons in the manual have a critical hit on 17, although some of the magic ones in the game do. I imagine that the improved critical feat may only double a weapon's nominal (non-magical)threat range. If it's not better than the increased range due to an enchantment, then it may have no effect?

Thrasher

 

Congrats Thrasher. I guess normally you don't praise people for finishing a video game but hey POR2 is sooooooo rediculously long it deserves a congrats!!!

 

@thrasher:
yes,you're right.It was a magical weapon,a warhammer tha says it has critical on 17.So I guessed I should also have imporved critical on 13+(8 numbers).But I don't.Maybe it's that thing you say,that the improved critical doesnt double the magical range...
how did you manage 150 on a hit?please tell me!

 

Todd -

Thanks for congrats. It was the journey that made it worthwhile! I should also thank those that made the POR Speed Utility, without which I would have lost my patience and put RoMD on the shelf unfinished!

Base -

You have to score criticals using a high max damage weapon like the deathspike, or later in the game you can get the dreadsword daemonic which is almost as good. You need a high combination of strength and base attack (a high level paladin, fighter, or barbarian is best for this). There are some fantastic deamonclaw gloves that give you something like +7 attack and +7 strength bonuses plus nominal double damage that help a lot, and other lesser items that increase strength. Use them! Another way is to have a high level thief - you get up to +6d6 bonuses on your sneak attacks. Confuse them with your sorcerer then sneak attack them continuously with your thief while they are confused. Devastating and fast!

Important feats to have for max damage are improved critical (obviously), and for easy to hit targets (like fleshy undead) power attack is useful to increase the damage. You get these feats earliest as a fighter, but paladins get them fairly early too. Luckily thieves get improved critical early too.

Hack away!

Thrasher

 

Hey thanks for the info.
Another question:
Sometimes,when Emmeric rolls a 17+ on his longsword ,he doesn't get a critical.Some other times though,he does,and also the text says he used the improved critical feat.
Sometimes he eve doesn't roll a critical on a 19 with a longsword.What's going on?

[ January 25, 2006, 10:58: Message edited by: Base the Bass ]

 

Base -

Was your base attack roll (sorry, no pun intended) a natural 17 or was it 17 after your magic bonus from the sword, high strength, etc? Threat range for critical damage is determined by the base attack roll, before attack bonuses are added.

The way criticals happen is that you first have to get a natural attack roll in the threat range (in your case 17-20). After attack bonuses if this is not a hit, then you miss ( although a natural 20 always hits and is in the threat range). Otherwise, to determine if you actually score a critical hit, there's another roll. If you would hit on this second roll with bonuses applied, then you score a critical. Otherwise, it's treated just like a normal hit.

The attack roll display is a bit cryptic.... The base roll is the first number on the left, I think, that's checked against the threat range. Not sure if the second roll is shown in the attack roll display.

Yeah, it's a bit arcane, and RoMD doesn't provide very good visibility into all these rules. Neverwinter Nights does a better job in its verbose display output, but it leaves stuff out, too. Guess you have to just go with the engine..... Note that many have said the ROMD doesn't implement all the rules correctly . Haven't heard much on whether the attack rolls were done correctly.

For the latest rule set that most of these sort of games are designed to, go to http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm . That said, they are ambiguous in some areas and can be "subject to interpretation." The only way to know for sure what RoMD does in all cases (as in most any software) is to look at the source code.

Give UBISOFT a call. I'm sure they'd be willing to hand it over.

Seriously, though, just try to enjoy it for what it is!
Thrasher

 

Oh ok,I knew that it wat about the natural roll without the bonuses but I didn't know that there was another roll involved...or maybe it's just that he didn't hit..Anyway you're right,I'll just have to enjoy the game.I have played baldur's gate 1 and pools of darkness(1990) and I prefer the later,that's why I had so high hopes on this one..but it's kind of slow (unplayable without the speed patch).And do you have to check all of those barrels that look alike?I thought you could ignore them and check the different lookins until I found some minor treasure in such a common object-I don't remember if it was a care or a barrel or a table.
Hey,if you haven't played pools of darkenss get it from an abandonware siteQ:freeoldies.com , abandonwarering.com are 2 nice search engines where you should find it.Get the manual also it's necessary.If you don't find it mail me(dimvasiadis@yahoo.com)

 

Base -

Hey thanks, I may try it out. Right now I'm playing a NWN community module, and need to get back to finishing BG1. I got bored with the slowness of BG 1..... But wanted to do it before BG 2, and the Icewind Dales. Next on the list is Planescape or Fallout. So many to choose from! RoMD attracted me because of its hugeness, advancing to level 16/16, and because it's manly a giant dungeon crawl. Are there any other dungeon crawl games that are as huge as RomD?

Yes the speed utility makes it quite fun! About halfway through I discovered you could ignore barrels unless they are colored red. It's not too much trouble to right click on all objects (table, barrell, bed, shelves, etc) to see if it has an action other than smash. That can save a lot of needless smashing. Also, right clicking is useful if you're not sure what to do with an object. I even found a bed once that had something in it!

Thrasher

 

I guess you have tried older RPG's already?I mean,series like Ultima,Wizardry etc
Another question.What does it mean whne you find an armor and it says AC+3 armour bonous +2?what's that?is it total of +5?because when I put such items on,the total benefit is about to +1,I guess that's because I have other items which are not cumulative with the armour,but it's frustrating I can't guess my bonus and I have to try almost all combinations of items on a character.MY strategy is this.Get all the good items and echantments on one character,send him in to do the job,the foes wont be able to hit him,and let the others help him or die in the process.

 

Base -

The oldest RPG I've played is BG I. Which ones would you recommend for maximum character development, hugeness to explore, and turn-based? I have Wizardry 8, started the demo, but found the user interface complicated and different enough that I thought I'd save it for later.

I think armors and shields have an AC modifier and an armor bonus. Armor bonuses are not cumulative. But I think a shield's AC modifier is cumulative with an armor's modifier. Both armor and shields have associated max dexterity bonuses. So you may loose a bonus to your AC when you put on armor or equip a shield. Max dexterity bonuses for each kind of armor are described in the armor table in the manual. Some magical armor and shields have greater max dexterity bonuses than others. To see what your max dexterity bonus is with a piece of armor or shield, put it on, and look at one of the character pages (I forget which one), and it tells you your max dexterity bonus. You can also see the effect in the bonus number to the right of your dexterity on the character page.

I only had one character, a paladin/cleric, that could benefit from 99% of the heavy armor and shields. So it was easier to manage. My other character, a sorcerer/thief, could only use the arcane armor and shield. Later, I didn't need to use the shield at all because it just hampered spellcasting.

I agree the huge amount of loot in this game with a large party could consume LOADS of time to re-optimize your equipment allocations. From a tactical point of view, its much more deep to have a larger party. Instead I opted for my 2 person party so I could level them the highest. Plus, I like to use area of effect magic, and would feel overly restricted by needing to avoid other party members.

Thrasher

 

I started Wiz 8,which is great on character development point of view,but also got disappointed from the interface,especially in combat.
I would recommend,though I don't claim to have tried all the great titles,from older RPG's Phantasie 3,Pools of Darkness,and Ultima 6 and later.Might and Magic (I haven't played it though,just heard) 6 and later is also cool,but 9 is a disappointment.

 

Base -

I've gone back to finishing BG+ToSC. If you think this game is slow.....

Wish there was a speed utility for BG

Thrasher

 

If you own BG2 you can use the tutu mod which changes the BG1 engine to the faster BG2 engine.
There are side-effects of course.

I also got bored while playing BG1 and interrupted it for playing Might and Magic 7 (great game like MM6).

 

kmonster -

I got some advice to turn up the framerate in the config file from 30 to 60, and sure enough the tedious leisurely strolls were changed to fun frantic dashes. Load and save times are still excruciatingly slow though..... I've stayed clear of BGTuTu because of the side effects you mentioned.

Hey I've heard MM is good from a variety of sources. What do you like best about it? Maybe i should check it out....

Thrasher

 

I cannot highlight a special thing about the MM games. Everything just fit together and was fun.
Although testers rated different I like the MM graphics more than the BG 3D graphics for example.
Somehow BG sometimes just felt like the conversion of AD&D rules to the computer while MM was made for computergaming.

 

Another thing with the older games is that you HAD to use your own fantasy more since the graphics etc weren't that enthusiastic themselves,so you got a totally different feeling.You were a lot much into the story if you know what I mean.