Shattered Kingdoms

These NPCs get nerfed? Not gaining any XP from them. I remember my last lock got at least a level or two with lightning bolt.

Massively.

Most you can hope for now is a "You learn from your mistakes and improve at bow/crossbow/skirmish/rapid shot!"

Which is to say that they probably now function as Dulrik intended them to in the first place.

Blegh. Thanks evena.

I thought Dulrik implemented a change that you could no longer get XP unless you were fighting in the same room as a NPC.

I don't recall ever making such a change. You may be thinking of 'wall of fire' which was temporarily changed to not award XP, but that change was reverted. I always intended for people to be able to gain XP by tossing around fireballs, etc. However, you have never been able to gain XP if the creature in question is "helpless". I don't have the current definition of helpless in front of me.

I would suspect "anchored to a particular room regardless of ranged combat".

Wouldn't really make sense for archery butts to not be helpless. FFS they literally immobile targets, often hay bales.

They are probably separated from the room you can fire in by a flying vector, and they cannot fly. Not sure if that would make the game report them as helpless though, but it's only real purpose is to master bow/crossbow. I've never thought the xps were that great.

I agree the archery butts were probably setup to be helpless. Either by not having any arms to attack with, or because not being able to move to another room may now also be considered helpless.

The archery butts haven't given exp since helpless targets were prevented from giving exp, precisely because they cannot reach the one attacking them. No different than luring NPCs to the front gate of a cabal HQ and standing at the murder hole spamming spells or ranged attacks down at them.