Hi,
I have my NPC with ‘use only silent weapon’, and in his inventory he has a rifle and a wood axe.
Guess what? He keeps using the rifle as a melee weapon when fighting! The common sense would be to switch to axe until I tell him he can now use his rifle…
Axes have a NPC value of 20-24, and I don’t think an unloaded rifle should have better value than that but it’s hard for me to check. His little pea-brain may have gotten confused and not cleared the weapon cache - try either waiting for an hour for him to re-evaluate his weapons, or take the rifle from him and give it back to him.
If he prefers the rifle over the axe when you give it back to him, then it’s because he honestly thinks the rifle is better weapon - an NPC value of 24 is pretty low. Decent melee weapons are 30+ on the generic evalution - and the NPC is evaluating the weapon with his skills and abilities, so if he’s already weak or encumbered, a slow axe that he’s not skilled with may not be as good as a moderately fast rifle that he’s good at bashing people with.
That is pretty interesting information. Thanks. It makes me ponder a few “if’s”. What if the guy is carrying too much gear and you add a shoulder strap to the rifle and give it to him. Will he be smart enough to wear the rifle if it is assumed he likes an axe better?
Following that question; If he has bullets and you allow him to use loud weapons again. Would he shoot with the firearm(or, ya know, likely to do so and wield the rifle)?
If you give him the rifle, he values it at 160. The axe as you say is worth 24. I’m ok with that, if both weapons are allowed.
Except I told him to not use a ranged weapon. By definition a ranged weapon should be worth 0 until I tell him he can use them.
The rifle has a value as a melee weapon, and it’s generally decent: moderate damage, low moves per attack, and decent accuracy. An encumbered fighter with low ST and high bashing skill might prefer the rifle over the axe.
However, valuing at 160 makes me think he’s still thinking he can use it and is valuing it as a gun. That’s not right. What version are you playing on?
NPCs don’t know how to use shoulder straps. They can use holsters (finally) and that was a fair bit of effort; teaching them to use wearable weapons and quivers was more than I could figure out.
Situation seems to be less worse than I thought. If you switch their rule to ‘don’t use ranged weapons’ and then after give them a melee and ranged weapon, they stick to the former.