Magic Vestments on shield not stacking with Parry's AC + Improved Unarmed Strike

[GoldenEars]

Name:
Magic Vestments not stacking with Parry's AC with Improved Unarmed Strike feat.


Where:
In one of the rooms of an Inn on the Test Server.


When:
The times I witnessed this bug were today, Sunday April 19th, 2024, during my testing, approximately between 15:00 and 16:00 UTC.


What:
This may be related to a previous Bug report made last year regarding Magic Vestment:
https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=68213.msg

Or maybe this is unrelated, but there seems to be a bug involving the Parry skill's bonus AC behavior when combined with the "Improved Unarmed Strike" feat and Magic Vestment spell.
After a character takes the "Improved Unarmed Strike" feat, everything initially behaves normally. You can apply the "Magic Vestment" spell on a shield item, equip said shield item, and gain the benefits of both Parry's "DODGE AC" and Magic Vestment's "SHIELD AC."
However, after logging out for some time, and coming back to the game, when the previous steps were repeated, applying Magic Vestment on my character's equipped shield, my character was no longer benefiting from both types of AC. They were not stacking and I was given the following message: "You have multiple items equipped or spell effects active that give a Shield AC bonus and the effects will not stack," as if the existence of the "Improved Unarmed Strike" feat was now forcing Parry's AC to become locked as "SHIELD AC" instead of re-calculate it to "DODGE AC."

My character (who has Improved Unarmed Strike) already receiving +2 bonus AC from Parry while unarmed +2 Dex modifier AC for 14 total AC:
https://i.imgur.com/HW5STjT.jpeg

and should gain an additional +2 bonus SHIELD AC from Magic Vestment and +1 base armor from the shield after this shield item is equipped:
https://i.imgur.com/bZbY0KQ.jpeg

Only received the the +1 base armor from the shield and received the SHIELD AC not stacking message after equipping:
https://i.imgur.com/ZaKdCli.jpeg


Recreate:
Make a Cleric on the test server with 15 dexterity and enough wisdom for casting Magic Vestment.
Level up enough to get Improved Unarmed Strike, and Parry skill ranks.
Cast Magic Vestment on your shield item, then equip said shield item.
Log out and wait a while, try repeating to confirm if Parry's AC bonus stacks with Magic Vestment's AC bonus.
In further testing, Parry's AC type change has more to do with your main hand or off hand being equipped before the other. See my more recent post below:
https://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=71664.msg823269#msg823269


Ideas:
In my testing BEFORE taking the "Improved Unarmed Strike" feat(unarmed fist not considered a melee weapon?), when a shield item is equipped without already having a melee weapon equipped, the Parry skill's AC bonus seems to become locked in the form of "DODGE BONUS AC", allowing any additional "SHIELD AC BONUS" applied to a character to be stacked with the Parry skill's DODGE AC. This seems like intended behavior based on what developer EO mentioned on Dec 21, 2017 regarding Parry:

I changed it so Parry gives Shield AC unless using a shield then it’s Dodge AC.

However, conversely, when a melee weapon is equipped without already having a shield item equipped, the Parry skill's AC bonus seems to become locked in the form of "SHIELD BONUS AC."
Even if equipping a shield item afterwards, the Parry AC bonus is locked as SHIELD AC until both the shield item and melee weapon are unequipped.
Maybe this has something to do with it. Maybe the Improved Unarmed Strike feat changes the game code to believe one melee weapon is permanently equipped and locking Parry's AC bonus as SHIELD AC.

Update:
After placing a Sling weapon(ranged weapon) in my character's main hand, then proceeding to equip the shield item with Magic Vestment buff on it, the Parry and Vestment AC bonuses stacked again.
But the code is behaving very oddly. If I continuously alternate between removing the shield item, then the sling, then placing the shield back on, then the re-equipping the sling, or vice versa, the AC bonus' from Parry and Vestment spell continuously stack again, then stop stacking, then stacking again, etc.

[myrddraal]

I’m fairly certain what you need is shield parry not improved unarmed strike.  If you’re wearing full plate and a tower shield you will have like -21 to parry which means even capping you can only get 1 parry ac because it’s every 5, to a cap of 30 for +6.  With shield parry it halves(?) the shield skill negative from 13 to 6 or 7.  Idk if it rounds up or down.

[remnar]

i believe the way parry AC works is
without a shield, it gives Shield Mod AC (since typically the only way to get shield mod AC is with a shield)
and with a shield it gives dodge AC since that stacks with the likely other AC types a player would have

[MJ_Johansson]

https://nwnravenloft.fandom.com/wiki/Shield_Parry

If you do not have shield parry, you only get half the parry bonus (as I understand it, thusly you gain 1 AC for every 10 ranks of effective parry, instead of 5). So if you character has 14 base 2 of which is from parry, meaning you'd have 10 effective parry, and you equip a shield, that shield gives you an armor check penalty of 3, so unless you have 13+ Parry, you'd actually get 0 AC from parry if you go beneath 10. Which would account for 14 AC (2 from parry) without shield, and 15 ac with shield and vestment on. (3 from shield, 0 from parry.)

[GoldenEars]

I’m fairly certain what you need is shield parry not improved unarmed strike.  If you’re wearing full plate and a tower shield you will have like -21 to parry which means even capping you can only get 1 parry ac because it’s every 5, to a cap of 30 for +6.  With shield parry it halves(?) the shield skill negative from 13 to 6 or 7.  Idk if it rounds up or down.

Yeah in my example I forgot to mention that I did take the Shield Parry feat, so it's not being halved, and I was testing it without anything equipped which incur armor check penalties.

i believe the way parry AC works is
without a shield, it gives Shield Mod AC (since typically the only way to get shield mod AC is with a shield)
and with a shield it gives dodge AC since that stacks with the likely other AC types a player would have

That's indeed how it's supposed to work, but as mentioned in my first post, there are times when the the code seemingly gets bugged and Parry's AC gets locked as "Shield AC" when it's supposed to be "Dodge AC" even when the shield is equipped.
You can test it yourself by:

• Creating a Cleric with at least 15 Dex for taking the "Shield Parry" feat and at least 13 Wisdom for the Magic Vestment spell
• Buying a small shield and a sling
• Getting 8 or more total Parry ranks so wearing a small shield still leaves you with at least 5 total Parry ranks to test Parry's AC type
• Taking improved unarmed strike feat
• Gaining enough levels to cast "Magic Vestment" spell
• Keep your character unarmed and cast "Magic Vestment" spell on your small shield
• Equip your small shield with the spell applied
• Look at your character's AC
• Equip your sling
• Unequip your shield
• Unequip your sling
• Equip your sling
• Equip your small shield
• Unequip your sling
• Look at your character's AC

Notice when you play around with which item is equipped before the other (sling or shield), the total AC you receive changes and some of the time you receive the "SHIELD AC doesn't stack" message while other times you don't receive that message.

https://nwnravenloft.fandom.com/wiki/Shield_Parry
If you do not have shield parry, you only get half the parry bonus (as I understand it, thusly you gain 1 AC for every 10 ranks of effective parry, instead of 5). So if you character has 14 base 2 of which is from parry, meaning you'd have 10 effective parry, and you equip a shield, that shield gives you an armor check penalty of 3, so unless you have 13+ Parry, you'd actually get 0 AC from parry if you go beneath 10. Which would account for 14 AC (2 from parry) without shield, and 15 ac with shield and vestment on. (3 from shield, 0 from parry.)

Again, sorry I forgot to mention that I did indeed have the Shield Parry feat in my initial testing.

[EO]

This should now be fixed.

[GoldenEars]

This should now be fixed.

Thanks EO, although it was still happening on my test Cleric character just a moment ago.
Not sure if it's just that one character's issue, or because I'm on the test server, but I've recorded what I'm talking about and uploaded it to google drive if anyone cares to download and look at this particular bug.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1agJFmMN0WMvg7LT2BrFfC-CuGhXj0DmE/
I recommend downloading the video from google drive instead of watching it streamed because it will only stream at 360p for whatever reason, and you can't even see any details that way.

I also uploaded this video to youtube in hopes for higher quality, but youtube uploaded it at only 480p.
https://youtu.be/u5TVnJjRXfY

So I pretty much despise google now lol

[EO]

I think I've tracked down the cause and will really fix it next update.

[EO]

This should now be fixed.

[GoldenEars]

I did just test it by repeating the same steps I took in the video, on that same test character, on the test server, and the Parry AC was still not stacking with the Magic Vestment shield AC when the ranged weapon was equipped first or last or whatever, but I didn't test it on a new character.
Maybe it's just that one character glitching out or something.

Regardless, I appreciate the efforts made, and even if this issue affects other characters, at least players do have a known method to choose whether Parry AC is applied as "DODGE AC" or "SHIELD AC" by switching up/fiddling with their main and off-hand equip order until they get the desired result.