Ricochet Shot

[ThornsM]

Ricochet Shot seems to have a few possible issues with it. I've been testing it with 4 levels of Warsling Sniper.

Besides being unclear whether the mode is on or off, I get occasional spurious messages saying that it deactivated. Sometimes it does become deactivated, sometimes it remains active, the only way to be sure is to reactivate it once or sometimes twice afterward.

It seems to trigger multiple times within a round, possibly once for each attack in the first flurry and multiple times from manyshot. With three attacks a round, rapid shot and manyshot, I have seen it trigger four times on the first flurry of two attacks, with all four hitting the same opponent.
After this first flurry, it seems to go quiet for an extended period, not triggering for maybe four subsequent rounds. Sometimes it does not trigger again until I deactivate it and reactivate it, and then sometime after that I may get two or four spurious messages saying it has deactivated again.

Then there is the damage. The sling I've been using is a Stunshot Sling with +4 enhancement bonus, 1 piercing, 1 sonic and 1 electrical. The debug message specifies iDamFeatBonus=2 despite having weapon specialization and ranged weapon mastery, so one of them seems to be not included. The message lists d6 sneak damage, even though I have no sneak attack and regardless of long range, not flanking and being clearly visible. Other than that, the weapon base damage, weapon enhancement and strength modifier appear correct, but weapon added piercing, sonic and electrical are not applied, nor is the fire damage added to the sling from spell effect. Also, there is a 4 point bludgeoning damage is always appended as a separate damage total.

It was curious to see a stone ricochet off a goblin's head, through a nearby closed door and into a darkened room where it clouted an unseen goblin, but I guess not much can be done on that.

I don't think I've witnessed the -4ab caused by having the mode active, and if applied it'd be quite a stretch with penalties already from manyshot and rapid shot on top of heavy range penalties, and then cover penalties which oddly turn up at point blank range on open fields.

Given the abilities of the documented class, maybe it would have been better to implement one of the simpler class features instead, such as bonuses to the sling critical profile?

[Rasael]

I think its decently playable and fun right now. But it could use polish to make it better.
- It was released with the intent of letting the community generate feedback (while having fun).

Polish for this class is sort of a work in progress. If I recall correctly one of our devs was interested in picking it up (at some point). Or I might take a crack at it myself.

I made ricochet because its unique in NWN2. There's nothing like it. Which makes it feel really cool. And I still love seeing those bullets ricochet.

Thanks for your bug report.

[blacksoft]

I think its decently playable and fun right now. But it could use polish to make it better.
- It was released with the intent of letting the community generate feedback (while having fun).

Polish for this class is sort of a work in progress. If I recall correctly one of our devs was interested in picking it up (at some point). Or I might take a crack at it myself.

I made ricochet because its unique in NWN2. There's nothing like it. Which makes it feel really cool. And I still love seeing those bullets ricochet.

Thanks for your bug report.

Just curious, has Warsling Sniper been updated (or polished) since this statement from its creator. (It has been 3 years, so just wondering)

[chad878262]

unfortunately no. At one point a dev was taking a look at it (IIRC it was around the time when at least a part of Order of the Bow Initiate was fixed - kind of). They never got to WSS as a lot of the coding for OOBI and Warsling is relatively complex (as I understand it anyway) so it was frustrating to try and figure out what was going wrong. And if you don't know what is going wrong, fixing it is not possible in a realistic manner. Sure, you could try fiddling with things, but when you do that without knowing what is going wrong you stand the risk of breaking it worse, or even breaking something that was previously working.

This is all conjecture by the way since I have zero development knowledge, just what developers in my company have told me when discussing bug reports from clients where the issue can't be replicated. While customers can be upset, you just have to keep going back and forth until whatever the client is seeing can be seen and understood dev side. Otherwise it's like trying to plug a hole with water coming through, but you have no idea where the hole is, or how many there are, or if certain holes are required for drainage to maintain overall integrity... Super fun stuff!

[blacksoft]

Can I get some input from Dev what Ricochet and Improved Ricochet are supposed to do in-game?

The wiki and in-game descriptions do not match. The in-game description for ricochet and improved ricochet contradict each other:

Ricochet In-game: "Once per round at cost of one attack and -4 penalty...ricochet hits TWO additional targets"
Ricochet In wiki: "Once per round as a mode at you may use your expertise with the sling to deliver a ricocheting bullet. The ricochet hits ONE additional targets beyond the initial target. The ricochet counts as a free attack originating from the previously hit target at a nearby new target, and occurs at a -4 Attack bonus penalty."

Improved Ricochet in-game description: "Ricochet hits TWO additional instead of just ONE. Ricochet NO LONGER made at a -2 AB penalty"
Improved Ricochet in wiki: "Ricocheted bullets may now hit THREE additional targets instead of ONE. You still need to hit each target to get a subsequent ricochet. You also do 1d6 more damage bludgeoning damage on a ricochet shot"

So how would I even know which is really correct?

Even the in-game description for Ricochet and Improved Ricochet sound contradictory in terms of how many extra targets you are expecting to hit

Now, I am aware that the official wiki is currently down, but what I posted here from the other wiki sounds exactly what I read from the official wiki.

From gameplay I know that Ricochet gives one additional attack once a round to a nearby target (not two per in-game description). I am not aware of penalty or loss of attack.

I also only seen that improved ricochet gives two additional attacks once per round, but am not certain of this. I am not aware of whether the 1d6 damage is added or not per wiki and not in-game description nor wether you recoup some of the AB loss for a ricochet.

Thanks for your consideration.

P.S. Either way I am having fun using this ability