Stop Octavia casting acid splash and use bow instead?

[Flip]

For some reason Octavia REFUSES to use her bow, she will just spam 1d3 acid splash over and over. I cannot figure out how to stop this, even right clicking to activate and de-activate the spell doesn't work.

Any ideas?

[Gravedancer]

Ruinous님이 먼저 게시:

One other quirk of her is that she doesn't seem to fire a 2nd arrow attack with rapid fire running :(

Crossbows need to be reloaded. You might not be able to take advantage of rapid shot with a crossbow unless you also have rapid reload.

[Ruinous]

This was with the savage bow equipped, but I'll bear that in mind about crossbows as well :)

[Col. Closeup]

That just requires you to painfully micromanage, because she will just sometimes stop doing anything because her target died, for example. It's even worse when you deviate from the "Wizard" type character and want her to be a Rogue. She will try casting Acid Splash in Melee now.

A better option would be to just give the player the possibility to change the AI behaviour. Make it archetypes if deeper customisation is too complicated to implement now. Anything helps.

[CaoLex]

She nether trying to cast something without order for me

[Tomice]

I'll post this here since several people posted while I was editing ;-)

Flip님이 먼저 게시:

Also I was unaware spells could get sneak attack without lvl 10 Arcane Trickster. She is 1 Rogue / 5 wizard atm

All spells involving an attack roll can trigger a sneak attack as long as your character has the sneak attack feature from somewhere (even before putting any levels in arcane trickster, multiclass wizard1/rogue1 would be enough. Or just wizard1 with the accomplished sneak attacker feat).

Explanation:
Some spells are used like weapons (e.g. shocking grasp, snowball), meaning that you roll a strength (melee) or dexterity (ranged) check while adding your base attack bonus (very similar to using a bow or sword). Those spells qualify for a sneak attack.

The difference between sword and shocking grasp: the weapon roll is checked against the normal armor class (including armor, shield, dexterity bonus and several effects from magic), while the spell is checked against the "touch" armor class (ignoring armor and shield). Both armor classes are visible in the character sheet.

If touch spells wouldn't work this way, a wizard would never hit with them (his base attack bonus is bad compared to a fighter, plus he often has bad STR and DEX). It's also somewhat realistic that a lightning bolt isn't stopped by metal armor.

The lvl 10 arcane trickster feature influences something very different: It allows you to sneak attack with other spells that don't involve an attack roll.
Example:
A fireball is an area-of-effect spell and therefore needs no attack roll to hit. To reduce the damage from this spell, your enemy would have to succeed with a reflex saving throw, which is based on DEX and your class. If the attacker has a high spellcaster level, it makes the saving throw more difficult.
This means that pure casters are rather good at spells that check against saving throws, while hybrids are often better at "touch" spells.
In practical numbers, a fireball from a lvl 10 arcane trickster would do 10d6 (average 35) damage in an area normally, plus 7d6 (average 24.5) sneak attack damage if he managed to hit "flat footed" enemies (those that haven't acted yet in the current combat). A successful save would halve both numbers

[Flip]

Tomice님이 먼저 게시:

I'll post this here since several people posted while I was editing ;-)

Flip님이 먼저 게시:

Also I was unaware spells could get sneak attack without lvl 10 Arcane Trickster. She is 1 Rogue / 5 wizard atm

All spells involving an attack roll can trigger a sneak attack as long as your character has the sneak attack feature from somewhere (even before putting any levels in arcane trickster, multiclass wizard1/rogue1 would be enough. Or just wizard1 with the accomplished sneak attacker feat).

Explanation:
Some spells are used like weapons (e.g. shocking grasp, snowball), meaning that you roll a strength (melee) or dexterity (ranged) check while adding your base attack bonus (very similar to using a bow or sword). Those spells qualify for a sneak attack.

The difference between sword and shocking grasp: the weapon roll is checked against the normal armor class (including armor, shield, dexterity bonus and several effects from magic), while the spell is checked against the "touch" armor class (ignoring armor and shield). Both armor classes are visible in the character sheet.

If touch spells wouldn't work this way, a wizard would never hit with them (his base attack bonus is bad compared to a fighter, plus he often has bad STR and DEX). It's also somewhat realistic that a lightning bolt isn't stopped by metal armor.

The lvl 10 arcane trickster feature influences something very different: It allows you to sneak attack with other spells that don't involve an attack roll.
Example:
A fireball is an area-of-effect spell and therefore needs no attack roll to hit. To reduce the damage from this spell, your enemy would have to succeed with a reflex saving throw, which is based on DEX and your class. If the attacker has a high spellcaster level, it makes the saving throw more difficult.
This means that pure casters are rather good at spells that check against saving throws, while hybrids are often better at "touch" spells.
In practical numbers, a fireball from a lvl 10 arcane trickster would do 10d6 (average 35) damage in an area normally, plus 7d6 (average 24.5) sneak attack damage if he managed to hit "flat footed" enemies (those that haven't acted yet in the current combat).

Ah thanks for the explanation, appreciate it! Makes sense!

[Tomice]

Regarding Octavia:
The "ideal" build I found for arcane tricksters involves taking 1 lvl rogue, 3 levels wizard and the accomplished sneak attacker feat. And choosing mobility, trickery and knowledge arcana on each skill increase (so you end up with 4 ranks within 4 levels).

Other useful feats include toughness, arcane armor training, point blank shot and precise shot (so you hit flanked enemies within 30 feet better, which happens to be the prerequisite for sneak attack after the first round). Improved initiative feat plus a hare familiar might help as well (so you may cast twice before the enemies start acting and are no longer flat-footed).

[CaoLex]

You are pro, bro!

[Gogopher]

im guessing there is a reason she returns to acid splash...im not saying its a good one but here goes...

it appears that she goes to acid splash for 2 reasons...

1) its a ranged touch attack vs a ranged attack...meaning if she cant hit her target with here bow she will drop to acid splash since with a RTA u ignore all armor bonuses...now this reason im fine with makes sense and the only issue is i dont think the ai is taking flanking into consideration when it does this

2) damage reduction...i think she drops to acid splash also due to opponents damage reduction...since with acid splash a 10/silver wont stop it and she still does sneak attack with it so all she is losing is a d6+str vs a d3

now i could be wrong in what im saying but i notice that if left in ai hands she will indeed use her bow against some targets and spam acid splash vs others...and if i manually control her she seems to miss a bunch which led me to point #1....point #2 i infered from watching her behavior against trolls

[Tomice]

Yan Zhaoge님이 먼저 게시:

You are pro, bro!

Thanks. I know this because I run an arcane trickster main (conjuration specialist gives you extra spell slots, longer summon duration and an improved sneak-capable acid attack several times per day). Paired with Octavia I sneak slightly ahead, open with snowballs, then let the melee party members and summons charge in. This leads to 1-2 sneak attacks due to flat-footed enemies, soon followed by more sneak attacks due to flanked enemies.

Being an elf helps because of the almost ideal attributes, longbow proficiency, and the feature that increases your spell level by 2 when checking against saving throws (which compensates for the 1 level of rogue that doesn't count).

It's also worth noting that this build is quite the "skill monkey" out of combat (ALL skills are class skills for free +3, plus rogue elves have extra free points in perception and trickery. You might also sacrifice the initiative from the hare for a viper familiar - extra perception and persuasion. Just beware that familiars and pets with the same bonus might not stack, so take the one that boosts saving throws instead).

[Darkfireslide]

Just turn off her AI and manually select targets until we get more companion AI functionality.

[fieminamor]

St0nemender님이 먼저 게시:

Flip님이 먼저 게시:

Yup so the only way to stop her is to turn off AI.

That being said, she just critted for like 23 DMG on acid splash so maybe not all bad, it seems to benefit from her sneak attack bonus. Maybe AI is using most dmging ability she has by default and Acid Splash has no charges ?

Lets put it that way:

My octavia has Rapid shot/Precise Shot/Point Blank Shot, Bracers of Archery and a composite Longbow with 2D6+1 +2D6 acid dmg, along with 2D6 sneak attack dmg. Which means a nice 6D6 + 2 dmg with every shot at lvl6.

And still she prefers acid splash.

^Right, this setup is what drove me to finally break down and google "pathfinder kingmaker stop using acid splash!"

[bluewolf644]

Flip님이 먼저 게시:

So I noticed that her Acid Splash does x2 dmg. Looking at the log it will say for example
1d3+1 (x2) = 6 Acid
366 = 7 Acid (Sneak)

Now when my sorc uses that spell he doesn't get the x2 nor the +1 so it seems her version is more powerful but I see nothing in her class description to account for this.

Also I was unaware spells could get sneak attack without lvl 10 Arcane Trickster. She is 1 Rogue / 5 wizard atm

In pathfinder, any spell that deals damage and relies on an attack roll can crit on a nat 20. As for the +1, no clue.

[Darknoble]

I complained about this on release..Aracane archers Are truly buggy until the Devs put in a feature that Locks are archery default in..next time I play I will not make my bard a spellcaster for that reason because micro managing auto Ai off and on is too much,,, atm

[nepsa87]

If you equip her with a wand or scroll, right-click it to make her auto-attack with it, and then unequip it - she will auto-attack with her equipped weapon instead.