Trickery with a Long Bow

An arrow fired from a bow has a decent chance of accidentally hitting any target in the arrow's path, either before reaching the target the archer is aiming at, or after missing that target. The chance of such accidental hits seems unrelated to anything that normally affects the chance to hit. So even when the archer has a guaranteed 0% chance to hit the target, there's still a good chance of hitting anyone else in the arrow's direct path. Just not the supposed target, even if it's by definition also in the arrow's path. (Note: This did not work at all when I tried to shoot the door behind the Clan Maug Orc Berserker. In that case every arrow missed the orc and hit the door. Presumably the target being aimed at has to require a hit roll, which would allow the arrow to miss and end up in someone else along its path. Shooting at an object seems to be a guaranteed hit, even with 0% chance.)

By placing an NPC follower in between the PC archer and the intended target, the PC can alt-click on the follower and try to hit the follower with a 0% chance to hit, and never hit the follower, while hitting the intended target often enough to be worth it. With the Long Bow's range of 25 (equal to the Looking-Glass Rifle) this can be done at such a distance that the target won't move to the archer's position, even though they become fully aware of the archer's identity.

Quite an interesting method for a character without any combat skill whatsoever to get XP for damaging and killing monsters. Although it sure helps to have gotten Expert training in Bow, due to the double chance to inflict damage. And Expert training does require some skill at some point, even if Brain Builders have since rendered the character a feeble wreck, too clumsy and weak to hit even a fish in a barrel. (At least before buffing up with the usual cocktail of therapeutics.)

This probably works with any weapon that fires missiles, as opposed to regular firearms that just seem to teleport the bullets to the targets. Though one interesting thing with bows is that I never seem to critically fail with them. Sometimes an arrow is spent with no arrow flying away, but that's the worst that happens. So maybe critical failures for bows have been disabled by a bug? Otherwise I imagine that a 0% chance to hit would've quickly broken the bow in half. Assuming that critical failures are still in effect for other missile weapons, I wouldn't recommend this trick with a Blade Launcher. (Though I now plan to try that out when I get hold of an Elephant Gun.)

This trick can also be used in regular combat, though the slow pace of this 'accidental' damage might not make it worth the trouble if enemies are beating up members of the party. But it's certainly something to do, if that's all that can be done. With a large group of followers the PC could surround themselves completely, and order the group to not attack. (And certainly relieve them of any potions they might feel tempted to use, particularly poisons and venoms, since those attract the ire of the enemies when used on them.) The enemies will then probably just stand outside of the wall of followers, unable to reach the archer who's hurting them, while the archer stands safely in the middle, aiming at a friend, and occasionally hitting the enemies outside.

In order to get the enemies to only want to attack the archer, the archer would have to be the one who alerts the enemies to the presence of the group, most likely by hitting one of them with an 'errant' arrow. One might also want more than eight followers for this, since otherwise an enemy could end up in a bad position for this trick: Two steps away and a step to the side. And followers can only be micromanaged to new positions in real time combat, at which time the enemy would seize upon any opportunity to relocate to a position adjacent to the offending archer.

Another way of taking advantage of accidental damage is to simply move to a position where the enemies end up in a line along the arrow's path. But that's less of a trick and more of a sensible tactic for regular archery.

 

When I do distance abuse I just attack the target directly from a range they won't respond to. Is the advantage to the bow method the fact that chance to hit is relatively good regardless of circumstances? So vs. magical creatures for example, gun would suffer and this bow method would likely be an improvement? That's what I'm thinking.

There might be something similar available with purposefully missing grenade throws, especially if the real target is against a wall.

 

Yes, the advantage is mainly the ability to hit anything at all with 0% chance to hit. The range is more to help with not having to worry about the low hit rate (~30%?) making it take a long time to kill the target. I guess that with a good enough bow and enough action points, the archer could still kill someone quickly enough that range wouldn't matter much. And in that case this method could be used up close.

Didn't think to check for using a compound bow against someone magical, or a magic bow against someone technological. That could actually work, I think.

I haven't played around enough with grenades to know how they really work, but one day I'll get there with my current character.