ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

would anyone think that a revival of the crossbows mod: http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/crossbows would be a good idea? i mean, i dont have the skills to do it, but... maybe someone with some free time on their hands can do it, maybe?

Ask and ye shall receive!
(...honestly, I was a little surprised I managed to do it )

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/crossbowsfork

Thought I would take a look into it. Turned out to be easier than I expected. Longest part was getting the crossbows and bolts to drop so I could test them

This is a fork of the original by Sebsebeleb. Much of the code is his, so credit goes where it is due.

I took out the parts that were conflicting with the new version of ToME.
Crossbows and Bolts will drop in game and appear in shops. They will pick up egos from Bows and Ammo.
Crossbows and Bolts require strength.
I made some adjustments.
The old version, at least as far as I could tell, limited the ammo on all Bolt quivers to 1 shot. I upped that considerably and made it a random range, but it is still lower than arrows.
Bolts do less damage than arrows, but have a slightly higher crit rate and much higher APR.
Crossbows still fire slower than Longbows.
Crossbows will now gain Mastery from Bow Mastery, have an accuracy bonus (APR, same as knives), and should work with all bow skills.
Though, I think they are more designed for melee Strength characters to have in the second equip set in case they get pinned or can't close distance.
Archers and TWs are probably still better off with bows, but honestly I have no idea how they stack up late game.
If anyone is interested in them and notices they are way off balance, let me know and I'll try to tweak things. The APR seemed really high, but again I'm not sure how that stacks up late game.
There are no artifact crossbows or bolts, but if there is more interest in this I could probably look into whipping a few up. Also they still use the same graphics as Longbows and Arrows because I have zero (point zero zero) artistic skill.

str mod on a cross bow... can't say it makes much sense.
str could work to reduce the reload time, but once that is don it shouldn't contribute any more.
APR bonus, hmm i would have imagined some crit damage bonus but sure...

"The old version, at least as far as I could tell, limited the ammo on all Bolt quivers to 1 shot."
and i agree with that choice, why change? ITS A CROSSBOW!

Star because that what they require to equip. Also it takes a lot of Strength to work the crank or spring mechanism, I assume. These are the modifiers they had from the old version, but I didn't increase the % on Star.

As far as quiver size, I honestly wasn't sure if maybe the way capacity worked had changed since the add on was last updated.
You're right though, a crossbow should have a lot of down time and limiting the quiver is the easiest way to do that. I can change it back to one easily. If anyone esle has strong opinions let me know. Like I said, I did this because it was requested, so any changes or issues anyone has, please let me know, I am glad to accommodate.

i can understand the streangth requirement, however, the draw doesn't go "as far as your streangth allow to".
it goes up to a certain distance, and past that your streangth doesn't give any extra power.

streangth can help you reload faster, but it will never have benefits past that point, and do nothing at all, if you don't reach it.
cross bow is heavy, so you may have trouble keeping it stead. so additional streangth can contribute towards accuracy.

so the only way you can do MORE damage with a crossbow, is A get a better one, or B, pick your target CAREFULLY.
so cun. i believe cun should be a major dam mod.

Well, then why isn't cun a part of the damage on a bow? The same principles would apply, picking your target carefully would allow you to deal more damage. And that's why cunning gives critical strike.

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A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

then they should have no dam mod at all?

No. Strength is fine. It gives it a niche by giving a ranged option to primarily melee(strength) users.

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A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

game logic.

me:but it doesn't make sense!
you: shut up, its balanced!

is "accuracy scale with str" not good enough? and reload time scaling with str?
do you really need the damage mod?

If this game made sense, we wouldn't have magic.

Never told you to shut up either, just raised a counter point. And IIRC, damage mod makes up a majority of the damage a weapon does.

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A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

Yes a damage mod is required to make the weapon deal sensible damage that is on par with everything else.

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My feedback meter decays into coding. Give me feedback and I make mods.

sure, but why str?
why does the dam mod has to be str?

sure, the "shut up" in my last post was inappropriate...
however, so is your comment about magic.
just because "magic" doesn't exist, or is known of, in our world, doesn't mean it cannot make sense.

if there is a mechanism that makes it work, then that's god enough.
if its supernatural, then its supernatural, we just say we dont know everything about it.
crossbow however, is a plain item, with no supernatural properties by default.
these 2, are NOT comparable.

If you don't understand something, it doesn't make sense, correct? You say some words (presumably), throw some magical energy and bam! Magic! Anyways, strength doesn't make the most sense but it does fill the niche described: giving strength users a way to deal damage from a range.

_________________
A little bit of a starters guide written by yours truly here.

just because YOU don't see it, doesn't mean there isn't.
magic is a force beyond the comprehension of an ordinary man, but some did manage to make something out of it.

as for items, if its name is white, it has no enchantments or any other ego.
you cannot justify "because magic", no matter how you go about it.

it JUST doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it.

melee characters, are melee characters, because they are not supposed to fight at range.
they can have tools, but i don't think it should be allowed to overtake completely.
it having high base damage and APR should allow you to still do decent damage to highly armoured enemies.
Str can be used in other ways.

for example, acc scaling and reload time reduction.

I'm not interested in getting into any kind of big argument over the logistics of crossbows and magic.
In reality Strength may improve the accuracy and reload time of crossbows, but I'm no Medieval weapons expert.

That said, as I had mentioned, I feel this was intended to give characters that primarily use Strength and are able to buy the Shoot skill a ranged option besides bows. The very fact that they are allowed to gain the Shoot talent means that they are expected to have a ranged option of some sort, if the player is so inclined.

If the crossbow ammo did not have Strength mods it would be of no value to such characters.

It is in no way meant to over take their primary means of offense, merely provide a supplement in the rare circumstances where you are trapped outside of melee range and would otherwise have to burn a turn waiting for the debuff to go away. Considering it would take a turn to swap sets, another full turn to fire with the reduced attack speed, and yet another turn to swap back to your melee weapon, this is obviously not an ideal way to spend turns and as such would likely only be used in the most dire of occasions. With its usefulness so limited already, why gimp it with off-stat damage modifiers?

If there is a modder out there interested in making crossbows that have Cunning damage modifiers and let accuracy and reload time scale with Strength, then I am sure they will. They can fork this again, even. Changing the modifiers will only take about a minute. Good luck with the rest.