Backstab Damage Problem?

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Alright, I've been noticing some interesting developements with my kensai lately. At 13 I dualed him to a thief and when I got back my kensai abilities I was immensly pleased but now something is wrong. At first my backstabs were doing around 130 damage, now even though I've got a more powerful weapon they do about 100 damage. Its pretty clear that even though it says I'm doing quintuple damage, I'm at most doing 4x. Also even when I use my kai ability, my attacks don't always do the same damage. For instance, when I test it on my berserker (no armor) a hit will do about 25 but when I use it on my wizard it will do about 30. And I can't correct the backstab problem because I can't find any place in SK to adjust it. Can anyone help?

[ June 29, 2006, 19:13: Message edited by: Blackthorne TA ]

 

You probably have the somewhat inaptly named "improved backstabing" component from Ding0 tweaks. This component is meant to counterbalance Ashes of Embers by causing larger weapons (even large weapons which are normally available to thieves) to give a backstab multiplier penalty. If you uninstall it, you shouldn't have any more problems.

 

All I have are tactics and a couple of npc mods. and I haven't changed weapons types or anything. The same weapon that before did 5x now does 4x.

 

Make sure you're not level drained (or any under any ability lowering effect).

 

First off if you try to damage a Barbarian vs. a Mage you should notice a difference in damage, level dependent. If the Barbarian has achieved their level for damage resistance than the Barbarian would receive less damage compared to your mage.

As for other charcter, I can't help you since I don't know what is going on behind the scense of the BG engine.

 

What weapons are you wielding?
If you went back to weapons that are not of the thieves class then the backstab will do nothing compared to a thieves weapon. also, if you are weilding 2 weapons, it could be the second weapons damage score that you are seeing instead of the main weapon. If you hit your beseker and it did 25 damage, that could have been the offhand which might have done less than the main hand.

 

Abdel, he was talking about berserker. So even in that case, there's something wrong.

 

@Demonic, yeah I thought of that so I tried it with one weapon equipped as well and it still was different. I don't even know how the game engine could be doing this, max damage from kai is pretty simple I don't even get how this bug could exist. I eventually uninstalled the entire game and reinstalled it. For some reason this didn't get rid of my mods (which I think are the problem) and the backstab still doesnt work. So out of frustration I started a new game with my level 32 barbarian and level 18/18 (or something) cleric/mage. Currently the amount devastation I'm causing is helping me to get over the whole thing. But I still want to know what's up, my first and favorite character is a max level fighter/thief and he's currently crippled by this lame bug.

Why can't I change my multiplier in SK, you would think that it would be possible.

 

To get rid of mods, uninstall and then delete the BG2 folder from your computer, and install back. Alternatively you could just uninstall mods, but this would be quicker, althought it would destroy saves...

 

One other thing, everyone keeps telling me how awesome it is when you get the staff of the magi and you can backstab people an infinite number of times. No you can't. Or at least I cant. Everytime I do it tells me that my weapon isn't cut out for it. What's up?

 

Anyone who tells you that not only hasn't ever tried it, but also doesn't know the rules for backstabbing. It only works if a single-classed thief could use the weapon. It doesn't matter if you've got UAI and staves are a thief weapon, a single-classed thief still has to be normally (read: without UAI) able to use the weapon for it to be effective for a backstab. Period.

The only backstabbing staff people talk about around here is the Staff of the Ram. Big power backstab plus knocking your opponent far away so you can re-stealth is a winning combo.

 

And how in the world do you get a quintuple backstab damage that isn't divisible by 5?! I swear, so much of this game doesn't make sense.

 

Quintiple damage means you roll the damage five times, NOT take the damage of the first roll and multiply it by 5. For example, if you backstab with a shortsword, you roll 5d6 for damage. You do not roll 1d6 and then multiply the number. So you most likely get numbers which are not divisible by 5. Hope this makes sense to you.

 

Ok, that clears things up a bit. But doesn't really matter until I get rid of this glitch.

 

I'm not sure if SS is right with respect to BG2, and I know for a fact that he's wrong with respect to BG1. You get x5 damage that isn't divisible by five, because the modifier does not affect everything. For example, a weapon's enchantment is not a function of your strength or skill, so why should it's extra damage get multiplied? In BG1 I would always get the exact same remainder when I divided if the circumstances were the same; I'd only get 17 or 21 or 25 or 29...etc. if my multiplier was x4. As for what gets multiplied and what doesn't, it's been discussed but I don't remember where or what, so you'll have to sift through with the search function on your own.

Now, I know I'm talking about BG1 here, but it's highly likely that would carry through those same rules into BG2, since doing otherwise would require...*gasp* effort to change it.

 

IIRC, STR bonus to damage is not multiplied, which was clearly stated in a backstab guide.

In P&P, you do muliply the weapon's base damage (5d6 for a shortsword) and then add STR and enchantment damage, or am I wrong? You seem to have your 2E hand-books nearby always, Fel, would you mind to check it for a sec?

 

Okay, it's called a multiplier for a reason. You roll the damage (1d6), and then multiply that roll by the multiplier. You see what I'm getting at here? And yes, STR and weapon bonuses come in after. I'm not sure about specialization bonuses, though, since it doesn't go into that (assuming a single-classed thief, I imagine).

 

Are you sure strength isn't factored in? I erased my game so I can't test it but I think I remember having significantly higher damage when I used a girdle of strength.

 

Both specialization, and enchantment level are factored into the backstab multiplier. Strength is the only bonus I can think of off hand that is not. I believe even the level based Kensai bonus gets multiplied.

 

im pretty sure every bonus except str is multiplied by the backstab.