Game Mechanics: Give a charmed pet a torch = Quad?

[Vanifac]

While not direct evidence of the torch doing what it does on p99, I'd bet it is related and sheds some insight into the attack logic of NPCs. The gist is that ALL NPCs (incl. pets) should not roll Dual Wield unless they had equipped 2 different weapon types (ex. slashing+crushing). Verant did not realize this until the end of January 2000, at which point they had done a ton of balancing on mob damage with this bug in place and could not fix it without screwing everything up.

Their 'fix' was to basically leave it as is, remove the requirement of 2 different weapon types, and let mage pets use weapons.

Due to the apparent severity of allowing NPCs to dual wield, I imagine it would have been noticed very quickly if NPC who wielded shields/books/non-weapons in their offhands were doing that much more damage via 'unlocking' their duel wield skill. And I can not imagine that the Torch item is seen any differently to a book or shield in the attack code.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010715...g_30th_Jan.htm

I think you may be onto something. It appears now that necromancer pets aren't dual wielding unless they are equipped with two weapons. It's easy to test this with a piercing and a slashing weapon. This could also be affecting mage pets, and could explain also why some necromancers felt their pets got weaker after the last patch.

GZ and I are going to chat with the programmer when he gets back from lunch. Has anyone noticed that NPC's no longer hit as much as they should? I'm wondering if whatever problem this is may have affected NPCs across the board or just pets.

- Gordon

Magicians and Necromancers
We discovered a bug whereby all NPCs will not utilize their "Dual Wield" skill unless they have a weapon equipped in their off-hand. This bug would not allow magician and necromancer pets to use their "Dual Wield" skill unless handed two weapons by their masters. Since magician pets could not wield weapons at all, they never used their "dual wield" skill.

Correcting this bug would cause all NPCs above the mid-20s to suddenly begin using their "dual wield" skill to attack players with their off-hand. This would cause a drastic shift to game balance, as most non-pet NPCs are generally considered balanced.

Magicians may now equip their pets with weapons. This will allow their pets to utilize their "dual wield" skill, thus increasing the number of attacks that the pet can make per round.

Since magician pets can now wield weapons, an ability previously reserved for necromancers, high level necromancer summons (44 or above) will now randomly cast spell effects upon the creatures they fight.

An additional change has been made to make it easier for necromancers and magicians to equip their pets. Previously, necromancers had to equip their pets with two *different* weapons in order enable them to "dual wield". This change allows magicians and necromancers alike to hand their pet two *identical* weapons, thus making it easier for them to get their pet to "dual wield".

These changes drew our attention to the disparity that exists between melee characters and caster pets. Both of these pets, after the initial round of changes, could wield certain weapons that would significantly increase their attack speed. We acknowledge that necromancers always had this ability, and apologize for our delay in addressing it, but weapons will no longer increase the attack speed (lower the attack delay) of a pet.