2 Random Questions

[Oyipggy]

My first question is about the skill Looting. The description says it increases the amount you get, and I know this is true. I put a few points into it with one of my companions. But does it increase the quality of the stuff? Most of what I get now is bent or cracked, or plain. If I put more points in, will stuff be better? Will I start to get powerful weapons and armor? Or will I simply get tons and tons of crap. (Which is what I'm starting to think). I searched but couldnt find anything, maybe I just didn't look hard enough. Sorry if this has already been answered.

Second, what sort of mastery would be required for the Masterwork war bow to work perfectly? Maybe not perfectly, but well enough to hit things at decent range. For example if you take a hunting bow or something crappy, the crosshairs will become a really tight circle, even when zoomed in. I'm one of 3 archers in my party, and I loved being able to pick off 1/3rd of the approaching army by myself. So it's fairly important. The masterwork war bow requires 8 power draw and has 30c attack, iirc. I have well over 300 in archery, and I miss a lot more than with the strong war bow I used to use. It sortof offsets itself I guess, as I kill things in one hit almost without exception. Then again I spent 6 extra levels putting points into str just to be able to use it...

 

[Amagic]

I don't think looting improves quality. I once soloed a 11 man sea rider party and my loot included one lordly nordic helmet and a bunch of bent and cracked stuff

 

[DrZaius]

From the wiki- "Looting Skill- Increases the amount of loot obtained by 10% per skill level. "

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Mount%26Blade/Skills#Looting

As for the war bow- from the same wiki, you need 8 powerdraw just to use the thing, so I imagine more powerdraw helps? Reading the wiki again, it says you can put up to 4 more points above the powerdraw requirement of the bow- so I think the best you could do would be 10 powerdraw, with maxed skilled, and it still wouldn't work perfectly.

-DrZaius

 

[Kyandid]

Looting increases how much loot you get. Invariably, it will eventually wind up getting you better stuff, since there's always a -chance- some trash bandits'll drop some epic loot.

 

[Deathlordjaffar]

I have a question about the masterwork warbow. Isn't it weaker than the strong warbow? Based on my interpretation of the description of powerdraw, it made it seem like if you have a strong warbow with 10 powerdraw, you'd get 28+4*(.14*2= 43.68 power, whereas a 10 PD char with the masterwork warbow would get 30 + 2*(.14*30)= 38.4 power. Now I do realize that the masterwork warbow is 3 points faster, but if I'm not making a mistake in my calculations, I'd way rather have 5 power than 3 speed, especially with a bow.
EDIT: Oh, does anyone know if Looting increases the amount of money you get from after a battle? I'm fairly certain, but I've never tested it so I can't know for sure.

 

[ajaxfetish]

I have a question about the masterwork warbow. Isn't it weaker than the strong warbow? Based on my interpretation of the description of powerdraw, it made it seem like if you have a strong warbow with 10 powerdraw, you'd get 28+4*(.14*2= 43.68 power, whereas a 10 PD char with the masterwork warbow would get 30 + 2*(.14*30)= 38.4 power. Now I do realize that the masterwork warbow is 3 points faster, but if I'm not making a mistake in my calculations, I'd way rather have 5 power than 3 speed, especially with a bow.
EDIT: Oh, does anyone know if Looting increases the amount of money you get from after a battle? I'm fairly certain, but I've never tested it so I can't know for sure.

You're misunderstanding powerdraw.  It gives you the bonus up to 4 beyond the bow's powerdraw requirement.  The strong warbow has a requirement of 6, so it gives you up to 10 (6+4), or 28+10*(.14*2=67.2; the masterwork warbow, with a requirement of 8, also allows you up to 10 (8+4, but capped at 10 anyway), or 30+10*(.14*30)=72; the limits only kick in on low-requirement bows.  With a longbow, requirement 3, even if you have 10 powerdraw you can only take advantage of up to 4 past the requirement (3+4=7), so you'd get 22+7*(.14*22)=43.56; that's 43.56 at powerdraw 7, 8, 9, or 10.  The only real disadvantage to using a bow with a higher requirement is the potential penalty to your accuracy; you won't take a penalty to damage. 

As for using a masterwork warbow, you should definitely have a full 10 powerdraw, and you should have at least 300 archery proficiency, preferably 400 (put some points into weapon mastery if it's not going up fast enough). 

As for looting, I believe it improves your chances of getting quality items as well as quantity, and I believe it increases the amount of cash you get after a battle, but I'm not 100% certain on either. 

Ajax

 

[Deathlordjaffar]

I'm a very experienced archer (500-something right now, level 41), but I'm fairly new to 1.0 so I hadn't had an experience with a bow over 4 PD.

 

[Oyipggy]

Just to follow this up: Once I got 10 Power Draw and 450-500 Proficiency, accuracy was just about perfect. Hitting 12.0 is no problem. Even without 10 Power Draw, with only the minimum 8, once proficiency got above 400, it was pretty accurate. And just about everything dies in one hit, so even ignoring all that math above, the Masterwork is better than the Strong War Bow for damage.