Comparing the three best slings (WRT Strength)

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I was trying to decide which slings to give to Aerie and Jaheira, between the Sling of Seeking +2, Sling of Arvoreen +4, and the Sling of Everard +5. Here are the stats for each:

Sling of Seeking +2 (THACO +2, Damage +2, plus Stength bonus)
Sling of Arvoreen +4 (THACO +4, Damage +4)
Sling of Everard +5 (THACO +5, Damage +2, does not require bullets)

Right away I thought that if I gave Jaheira the Sling of Seeking and some strength increasing item she would rock. HOWEVER, what I found was that ALL THREE slings benefit about the SAME from the strength increase. i.e., the Sling of Seeking seems to get no extra benefit with high strength.

I'm a stat freak, so I did a little test with Aerie (Lv 14/14) using all three slings. I first stripped her of all equipment, then used each sling with +2 Bullets (and no bullets for the Everard) and with and without the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength which increases her Str to 21. I had her target my Swashbuckler PC (Lv23) who also was stripped of all his equipment. After many bullets, here are the damage results:

(numbers in parenthesis are without the girdle, those in the brackets are WITH the girdle)

Seeking (5-7) [12-14]
Arvoreen (6-9) [13-15]
Everard (6-11) [13-18]
Everard (w/ no bullets) (3-6) [3-6] (!)

So looking at the results I have two questions:
1) Why doesn't the Sling of Seeking get any extra Strength bonus over the other two slings (OR why do the other two slings get a strength bonus at all?)?
2) If all three benefit from higher strength, why doesn't the Sling of Everard get the same bonus when using its own magical bullets?

 

I usually use the Everard sling with bullets anyway.

 

Looks like you've confirmed something I've suspected for a while. Even though I'm not a stat freak, I noticed that Jaheira, whom I usually equip with the Sling of Seeking and the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, didn't tend to do any more damage with her sling than the other sling users in my party. It also looks as if the bug is in the bullets, rather than in the slings.

 

I've found this.

 

Ooh, bullets are a bug to be fixed. Thanks.

 

Cool. Mind if I ask _where_ you found this?

 

Heh I always found myself using everard with bullets over the other slings because, after much playing, it just felt like it did more damage more consistently plus it has better thac0. Glad to see my hunch was correct for a change

 

The above wouldn't surprise me. I've always felt that the damage was always the same.

 

@alterEgo: Do you have Baldurdash fixpack?

 

Yes. I've SoA and ToB installed with the latest patch, the Baldurdash fixpack, and a few select mods (mostly just ease-of-use stuff).

 

@alterEgo:
Baldurdash fixpack is the reason why you don't get strength bonus when you use Sling of Everard without bullets.

 

Interesting. So they fixed the bug with the sling's native bullets, but it seems the bug still exists with Bullets +2.

Edit:

For those who may still be interested, I did a little more testing, this time with regular Bullets and Bullets+1. Here's what I found:

1) With regular Bullets, only the Sling of Seeking gets the strength bonus.
2) With Bullets+1, all three slings get the strength bonus, just as with Bullets+2 (and I assume with +3 and +4 versions as well, as I believe they exist somewhere in the ToB areas).

Therefore, it appears that unless you are using regular bullets (and I assume not many will be), the Sling of Seeking is the worst of the three slings (which is unfortunate, since there is an Equipment Guide out there saying it is the best) as it has lower THAC0 and lower damage.

At any rate, I'm guessing that not too many players have characters who solely rely on Slings, but I hope this was at least informative in some way.

[ April 11, 2005, 06:21: Message edited by: alterEgo ]

 

What is clear to me is that it becomes cheesy to use magical bullets with other slings IF you have STR damage bonus...