Entropic Blade... bugged? Changed?

[BlackDragon]

So, I'm in the endgame, and have just collected the Entropic Blade (while managing to technically stay Good-alligned, somehow... just goes to show that if you help enough old ladies cross the road, you can get away with unleashing a force of absolute, unreasoning destruction on the multiverse, and still remain a saint. :P)

Problem is, while every source I've seen claim that it should have a Speed and Weight of 1... it has a Speed and Weight of 7! Making it rather sluggish, for a knife. It could be because I haven't transformed it, but... I'm a Mage! Knives are basically all I CAN use... >_>

Did it get changed in the EE, or have I misunderstood something?

[figmentPez]

According to this list[shrines.rpgclassics.com] it's speed and weight vary depending on which type of weapon it's changed into. Since a Hammer gets 1 and 1, I'm guessing it's a bug that the knife got sevens.

[BlackDragon]

An old error, never fixed even in the EE, huh? Well, if that list is accurate, the Hammer-version of the Entropic Blade would be downright overpowered... maybe a reason, there, to go for Hammers over Axes on a non-LG Warrior-run?

[figmentPez]

I loaded a save from my thief run, which luckily had a proficiency point I could spend on hammers (you can only shift the weapon into a type you have proficiency in, but unlike Celestial Fire you can change weapon type multiple times). I can confirm that my link above is accurate for knives, punch daggers, and hammers. That really does seem to be a bug. I wonder if there's a way to tell if the item description is wrong, or if the actual stats are bugged, because I can't imagine it's intended for the hammer to be so light and fast compared to the dagger.

[BlackDragon]

I wonder about that too... especially since several other places, including the Wiki, claims that ALL permutations of the Entropic Blade has 1/1 Weight/speed stats. Unless they just pulled those figures out of thin air, that would suggest that it's the displays that are bugged...

Or maybe not. I dunno. >_> The 'Knife'-version Entropic Blade certainly seemed a bit slower than some of the knives I'd used before, but it's hard to really tell.

[Moff]

Weapon speed only determines who hits first during a round, and not how many attacks you can throw in a round. If you had two people fighting each other, one armed with a hammer, and another with a dagger, and both of them can make 1 attack per round, the one with a dagger will hit first each round, but in 10 rounds they both would've made 10 attacks.

[BlackDragon]

...ah. That doesn't make much sense, but hey, this game runs on, what, 2nd Ed. rules? >_> I seem to recall those being kind of weird. Very enlightening, anyway! Well, while you're at it, can you tell me what WEIGHT does? I've always wondered, the game doesn't say a word about it, and it COULD conceiveably be a good OR a bad thing... >_> Actually, does it have any effect at all other than how much it affects your carry-limit?

[Moff]

Well, it makes more sence if you think of it as a turn based system, which it is at it's core. The person with a faster weapon gets to throw a die first.
And weight doesn't affect anything other than how much you can carry.

[BlackDragon]

Huh. So a super-heavy weapon hits exactly as hard and exactly as fast as a much-lighter one? >_> Seems a waste of a stat...
Guess it DOES make sense, thinking of it as turn-based, but the Infinity Engine runs it like 'real-time with pause', and it doesn't actually FEEL much like playing D&D on the tabletop...

Either way, I guess the conclusion is that the Entropic Blade almost certainly IS bugged, whether in its actual stats or just its description, but it doesn't actually matter much at all, so whatevs. :P

[Julius Borisov]

Can I ask to report the issue on support.baldursgate.com ? The team will look and decide if it's a bug or a feature.

[BlackDragon]

Originally posted by Julius Borisov:

Can I ask to report the issue on support.baldursgate.com ? The team will look and decide if it's a bug or a feature.

You can ask, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline. As previously concluded, the issue is cosmetic at best and makes no practical difference at worst, so I'm not sufficiently bothered about it to faff about with reporting it.

Also, I'm a professional software-consultant. I spend my workday finding and reporting bugs. I'll be damned if I'm gonna do it in my free time too.