POLL: Flail of Ages +3 or Celestial Fury +3?

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You're a genius, knightlight - cut through the Gordian knot and resolve the problem! Can't believe no-one else thought of that.

 

I do wish dual-wielding in BG2 was a bit more "realistic". Imagining someone trying to dual-wield a flail with *anything* makes my head hurt (not to mention what someone attempting it would be hurting). But the game has no problem with someone wielding a stick with 5 ball and chains on the end in on hand, and a long curved sword in the other. Go figure.

 

How do you calculate this? IIRC the target must make a save vs spells everytime they're hit. The % will be much higher.

 

I never had Celestial Fury before the third latest game (a few months back). I'd just never read any walkthroughs about how to get it (I generally browse them only when I'm stuck somewhere or don't remember something I should), and always forgot about the hints about its existence here in SP.

I'd always had FoA with me since it is one of the best weapons in SoA that early on. But my game was at least 3 times easier when I got Celestial Fury for the first time. Mages among many other dangerous beings died of being unable to defend themselves at least half of the time. And the same advantage continued to ToB. All that FoA has ever been good for me is clay golems that fall easily enough with a reserve hammer I keep for the fighters anyway (even if they have no proficiency points in that, the golems are still so weak), and for the occasional troll or other type of monster that needs fire / acid damage etc, and can penetrate the normal protection (ie. stoneskin, immunity to +3 weapons etc). FoA gets replaced by Crom Faeyr (if it was that) towards the end anyway. You can hardly compare those two afterall.

I'm surprised at how many voted for FoA, I've never deemed it that good a weapon, and CF appears to me as one of the best fighter weapons in all of SoA and ToB combined, even if it is just +3.

 

IMO it depends on the enemy you are fighting. Against any type of magic user Ages is your weapon of choice. The elemental damage can make the difference between an easy battle and a disaster. The same applies to enemies who require crushing damage of course.

Against anything else Fury is way more powerful. If the critter you are pounding can be stunned he will be stunned sooner or later. In my first BG2 run I had Valygar equipped with Fury and he cleared out both mindflayer towns nearly all by his own with a simple divide -> sneak -> stun -> kill tactics. I thought they were pushovers until I fought them without a sneaking Fury-wielder. So no doubt Fury is, in most cases, the most powerful weapon until you get to TOB.

 

Would dual-wielding be the best way to go with this then? Have the Flail of Ages in the main hand and the Celestrial Fury in the off. (obviously cause the Flail is better) I think I'm gonna give this a go on my next run. Has anyone ever tried this combination of weapons and was it a powerful setup for a dual-wielder?

 

Both weapons are worthy of beeing held in the main hand imo. CF in the off hand wouldn't be any good, you're not exploiting it's high damage and the stun ability will show itself seldom with 1 attack a round, you're better off using a weapon that gives non-damage benefits i.e res, ac, attribute bonus in the off hand.

 

Simple statistics my friend!

I assumed the following in my calculations:

1. That you would hit your opponent 5 times per round.

2. That there is a 5% chance of stunning someone.

3. That the chance of stunning someone with each hit is independent of previous results (meaning it is possible to stun on consecutive attacks, not just once out of every 20 strikes).

4. That the target was NOT allowed a saving throw (which actually makes the chance go up).

With a 5% chance per hit, and 5 chances per round, the chance of stunning someone is 5% * 5 chances or 25%.

However, since a saving throw is allowed, it makes the calculation more difficult as different enemies have different saving throws, and saving throws can be effected upwards or downwards by various spells. Considering that the chance is 25% per round without a save, it stands to reason that if the enemy IS allowed to make a save, then the chances of success would have to be lower.

 

Aldeth, one of us is confused (and it's likely me).

Where do you get the 5% from? From the CF description, there is a 5% chance of doing extra damage; I believe there is actually a 100% chance of stunning, subject to a save.

Here is the CF description from Dan Simpson's item list:
Equipped Abilities:
Lightning Strike: Once per day
Blindness: Once per day
Combat Abilities:
Booming Thunder whenever the sword strikes an opponent
(Stun, Save vs. Spell)
Shocking Blow chance when sword strikes an opponent
(5% chance of 20 additional electrical damage)

 

Yeah that's what got me baffled too.. I think you're confusing the shocking blow and booming thunder abilities.

 

I'm an idiot as my name implies. I forgot the exact discription, and as dmc said, based on his post, I thought the 5% was the chance to stun, not the extra damage. So yes, it's subject to a save versus spells. As dmc points out - the really tough enemies have only a 5% chance to fail a save, so for the really tough enemies, you'll have a 25% chance per round of stunning someone. For most enemies however, who have a save versus spells of more than 2, the odds increase dramatically. In fact, for saves of 4 or greater, the odds of stunning someone are greatly in your favor.

 

Maybe it's just my shades of gray personality but I find them equally useful. CF tends to be my main weapon, while I whip out the FoA for specialty situations. I usually dual CF with Belm (more attacks = more chance of stunning), and when I run into say, trolls or golems I dual it with FoA.

I keep many different weapons for different situations. It works well for me.

 

A sidenote on statistics:

Hi Aldeth,

If it only were that simple.

The chance of scoring a shocking blow thus dealing 20 pts of electrical damage to a critter is 5 %. No matter if you try it 5 times per round or less or more.

The answer as to why this is so you gave under point 3 in the quote above. You're right, the computer doesn't look back and doesn't know the words "it's about time". Every time you hit with Fury he rolles 1D20. If the result is a 20 - bang! shocking blow, is it less nothing happens. This is done for every hit regardless of previous hits or misses. So statistically the chance stays nailed down at 5 %.

BTW if you do your above mentioned math on Ages assuming 5 attacks per round you end up with a possibillity of 33 x 5 = 165%. But in this case it is the same as with Fury. The chance of scoring a slowing hit is 33 % no less no more.

A real life comparison might illustrate this further. If you have a 6-sided die the probabillity of rolling a 6 is 1:6 (16%) no matter how often you roll.

I don't know if my english is good enough to express my thoughts right ...

 

No matter how much I turn it in my head I still can't follow your line of thought KaraBen. I would very much like further explaination.

Say I roll 1d6 3 times my chance of rolling a given number, should statistically be 50% according to my logic.
The more times you roll = the bigger chance of rolling what you aim for.

I won't completely dismiss your reasoning since I don't remember half of the math I was taught :/

[ September 30, 2004, 23:58: Message edited by: Crynus ]

 

dmc, you're a lawyer - where the heck do you get off pretending you know something about math and stats?

It's just a good thing for you that you're right.

This is one of those situations where you have to determine the chancce of something not happening, and subtract that from 1 to get the chance that it does happen. Which is exactly what dmc said.

 

Errr, Ok then.

Statistics aside, I just wanted to point out that the bloody katana , unlike the flail, can be used for backstabbing... damage galore!

 

Ahh yes, thank you dmc. I wasn't quite sure because I remembered something about it not being as simple as that. Thanks for clearing that up

 

Apples & oranges, really.

The slow effect is *really* nice in ToB. You can slow everything from golems to dragons, which means a -4 penalty to AC and THAC0, plus fewer attacks. Ignores MR and saving throws, 33% chance of success (easy with Imp. Haste, GWW, etc.).