Would making bow proficiency universal be too unbalancing?

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Bows, especially the composite long bows are more powerful than the other types of missiles weapons in this game.
You also get far more arrows in the game as loot than the other types of missiles, particularly normal arrows.

Yet often due to the way I tend to pack more spellcasters than fighters, I wind up with 4 sling users in the party. I've never run out of normal arrows.

As an experiment, I'd like to try moding the game to make it so that every class can take pips in bows, short or long and see how well a party of six bow wielders handles the arrow supply. Just for fun.

However, since it is fun, does anyone here think making it so that everyone can use a bow might be too unbalancing for the game? Based on my experience with Nalia the short-bow wielding mage I don't think it is THAT significant, but does anybody else see something subtle that I'm missing?

I'm just going to modify WEAPROF.2DA so that everyone can put an appropriate number of pips into short and long bows.

 

Weapon proficiencies don't imbalance anything. Which is why every edition after 2nd allows characters to wield whatever weapons they want.

The difference between slings and composite longbows is a few measly points of damage. That might make a difference at the start of BG1, but in BG2, casters should have better things to do besides shooting mobs with ranged weapons for minimal damage (unless the fight is trivial).

 

Can you really make bows available to all classes with just modifying the weaprof.2da? Being able to put pips in a weapon type is useless if you can't also equip that weapon (i.e. does editing weaprof.2da also change class limitations on weapons?).

Anyway, it might give you an edge in BG1, but in BG2 it really doesn't matter much.

 

As for weaprof.2da, it will only work for classes that can equip the weapon when dualed to fighter. I don't think it will work for clerics, and I don't intend to even try for a Kensai or Cavalier for obvious reasons. Everything else should work.
There are two places where the prohibition comes into play. The lack of the ability to take that proficiency, and in the item file itself, which is why a Thief cannot equip the Staff of the Magi, and also partially why a mage/thief cannot backstab with the Staff of the Magi. I don't intend to modify the item files, so it won't work for Clerics, and possibly not for a Kensai or Cavalier, but I'm not positive on the latter two.

Kensais and Cavaliers will stick to throwing knives and throwing axes.

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I could swear that the normal composite longbows you pick up in Irenicus' Dungeon give a strength bonus, and I am absolutely positive that they do significantly more damage in Minsc's hands than the shortbows wielded by Imoen and Yoshimo.
I've consistently had Minsc alone kill those four things that spawn the menphits (can't recall the name off-hand, the room just past the portal) with the composite longbow in less time than it takes a combined Imoen and Yoshimo using their shortbows.

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As to weapon proficiencies, I didn't have any noticeable issues giving mages the ability to wield longswords so I could play a Lord of the Rings party. Although I could have just gone fighter(2)->mage (though fighter(3) would be better for the extra prof point).
A lot of what I compare to is dual-classing fighter(2)->Class and see how it affects things, and even in BG1, it doesn't seem to make much difference. A SLIGHT advantage, but not much. Really not much more than a permanent aid spell at best.

 

Composite longbows definitely do a lot more damage than shortbows and shoot just as fast as shortbows. However, especially some of the unique composite longbows require quite high strength. And there are no infinite arrow longbows as there are two shortbows. Well, there's one in ToB, but that is pretty much at the end of the game. Not that the infinite arrow part is interesting, but it's one of the few ranged weapons that can hurt for instance Adamantine Golems.

And there are no longbows that add elemental damage (though only Gesen's bow does that for shortbows).

 

Henkie, you were right, I apparently also need to modify all the .itm files as well to permit single-classed mages or druids to wield bows. I thought I'd modded the game when I did the LOTR party so long ago, but I found that what I did was create a fighter in BG1, dual him at level 2 to mage, and then imported into SoA. Cue a mage that for minimal XP cost by ToB could use longswords.
Too much work for too little reward.
I haven't tested multiclassed fighters/druids or fighter/clerics yet.
I thought for sure that all I needed for mages and thieves was to mod the weapprof.2da since multiclassed fighters/mages and fighters/thieves can use longbows and other fighter weapons.

 

Too much work to edit the .itm files, or too much work to create a fighter/mage?

For fighter/druids and fighter/clerics multi-classes, I'm guessing that you'd definitely would need to edit the .itm files, unless there's one overall file somewhere that says which class can use what type of weapons. For fighter/mages the fighter weapons are available because mages don't have any specific beliefs about not using pointy weapons (but clerics and druids do in 2e, apparently). I don't know the specific rules, but I suppose that it's analogous to the 3e system in that a level of a fighter class unlocks the other weapon types that a mage or thief doesn't normally have access to.

 

Modifying all ITM files takes virtually no work at all with a WeiDU script.

 

Henkie, too much work to modify all the .itm files using IEEP or DLTCEP.
It doesn't take too long to get through Candlekeep and get to level 2 if I want to make a fighter(2)->Mage(x) just for longswords, and even less if I just use the console to gain a level, or I can just start as a fighter and dual in Irenicus' Dungeon. I should get the fighter levels back by the time I get out, and I can use Shadowkeeper to give whatever specialist mage kit I wish. I've had Imoen tackle the dungeon on her own while the PC just waited in his cell, so I know the rest of the party can carry me through until I can get some spells in the spellbook.

Keneth, that sounds like a good excuse to finally learn to use WeiDU, which I've been putting off for the last ten years.

 

I'd say it's about time then. Refer to this section for a quick tutorial.

 

Thanks for the link, I'll see about doing so as soon as I pass my latest certification exam. I consider studying for that in the hopes I can finally get a so-called permanent job if I add a Windows 8 or server 2012 certification to my resume to take precedence.
I'm kinda upset with Microsoft pumping out Servers every other year, at $300-$600 + the cost of books to certify on them when I haven't had anything but short-term temp jobs since April of 2013, and before that just a low-paying crappy 1-year temp job that was barely paying the bills.