Permanent Essence Lost when Ignorantly Applied to a Bow

[Nidea Lynn]

Hey everyone,

I main a Ranger on Skal. While I have extensive MMO experience, I'm still learning the nuances of NWN1 and the customizations of Arelith. I love the server and hope that this post is useful either to the development team or me if I simply misunderstood a feature.

Description
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I tried to apply at +2 permanent damage essence on a powerful bow. While I do not remember specifics, I recall the console generating a message that the item couldn't be applied yet I lost the essence.

Steps to reproduce
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I couldn't reproduce the presumed bug because I only had one essence although I imagine you could sift through the logs and generate the items. However, I simply used a +2 damage essence on my powerful bow. I sadly do not remember which damage type it was.

Expected result
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That my bow would deal more damage per successful hit. Someone on Discord informed me of the proper way to achieve this goal (via Assemblies).

Actual result
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I lost my essence and my bow wasn't any better.

Screenshot(s)
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Sorry, none were taken (I should have! I'm sorry.)

Notes
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I'm not asking for my essence back. This is simply to put my perceived problem to the lovely development team!

[Kenji]

Arelith now utilizes Assembly Templates to "customize" ranged experience in a sense, so you no longer have to carry tons of different launchers with different essences applied onto them, but rather just 1 launcher with a variety of ammo created from assembly templates.

Again, please refer to the link provided for more information regarding ranged: http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Assembly_Template

[preggy]

This feels like erroneously putting it on a bow should not consume the essence however.

[Nidea Lynn]

Preggy is correct and is the essence (pun intended..) of the bug report.

[Kenji]

Technically when you apply the permanent essence to any slots other than gauntlets, melee weapons, or assembly templates, they will disappear without the target gaining any effects. Hard to say whether or not this is an actual bug when the behavior is expected, just not on ranged launchers anymore.

But for matters such as this, you're always welcome to make a suggestion at the now opened Suggestion Box about returning a permanent essence if it is not applicable to an item.

It's probably a good idea, too, seeing that accidents do happen and sometimes folks could lose their permanent essence by accidentally clicking on something else other than the intended target.

[Nidea Lynn]

<3

[Skibbles]

Look very closely at your inventory. Usually what the game does is take the item away and then give it back unidentified. I've thought I lost them in the past as well, but there they were.

[Nidea Lynn]

Thank you for the suggestion. I looked today and didn't seem to see one (although it's possible I missed it). I'd love for the game to tell me that, however.

[Skibbles]

It's very sneaky and it doesn't put it back where you used it from either (it treats it as something you just looted so it puts it nearest the top it can) though that's usually something that happens if you try to use it on a weapon that already has an essence or some other object.

I've never tried it in a bow before so it could very well be a bug that it's being permanently removed.

[Kenji]

There are two scenarios where it would return the permanent essence as an unidentified essence bottle:
1. It is used on an assembly template with all of its Stable Slots filled.
2. It is applied onto a melee weapon or a gauntlet with existing permanent elemental/energy damage types (non-dweomer)
And the reason for them to return said permanent essence is to allow the players to confirm that that is what they want: to overwrite the previous permanent elemental/energy damage and apply a new one.

Otherwise, it disappears when you apply it to any misc items, armor, helmet, boots, ranged launchers, thrown weapons, rings, and etc.

Not to sound callous, but the behavior is expected and therefore the interaction shouldn't be misconstrued as a bug.

[Nidea Lynn]

May I suggest that the behavior wasn't expected to someone only loosely familiar with NWN1 and still a newbie in terms of Arelith? I was expecting the essence to function equivalently to a melee weapon. Nonetheless, I moved the topic to the suggestion board for consideration.

[mjones3]

To be fair the description of the item is "The bottle contains a sticky substance that can be applied to weapons in order to make them permanently cause additional damage."

A simple addition of melee infront of weapons can clear any confusion.

[Nidea Lynn]

Yes, as a bow is a weapon although the essence doesn't apply to it.