[Released, work in progress] NWN2 Mod - Ruins of the Sun God

[Freelance Henchman]

Yes, flat checks do seem like the better choice in retrospect. I suppose simply not having enough of a skill bonus to get some optional loot etc. is less irritating than doing a reloading orgy or having to wait out a timer. Wil use the old implementation then.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I'm currently working on but haven't finished:

- better encounters
There is now a "boss encounter" in the upper level with custom scripted (but fairly simplistic) AI. I'm completely new to this, so it may take a moment to get this working right. The creatures are appropriately stupid beetles and their queen, who they will not abandon for long when PCs turn up.

- companions
This wasn't too hard, but it might be best to simply use the SOZ system and let players create the whole party. The module should also be playable in multiplayer mode without trouble.

- a puzzle
I'd like to put a puzzle or conversation based encounter on the lower level (maybe a vengeful ghost). Just brainstorming that now.

- randomized loot
I have working code for randomly generated items lying around, might as well use it really.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Nw ... ail&id=103

Current revision: 0.82

Lots of changes this time, that's why it took a while to complete.

-v0.82:
* tutorial room demonstrates more features
* hub area now working
* 3 companions to recruit provided
* a boss encounter with custom scripted AI for the creatures
* reworked the areas
* randomized loot items

Some screenies:

This is the "tutorial room" where you start the module. Various features of the module are demonstrated here, plus there's infinitely replenishing item boxes for outfitting your new character.

Rosestone Keep is the hub area of the module where you get the main quest. I'd like to make a overview map at some point that shows graphically where all the reachable points of interest are, but since I only have one quest area now that's not important yet. Visible here are the 3 premade companions you can recruit (which are personality-free at the moment). Alternatively I'd like to use the SOZ system later so you can make the entire party but this is annoying to make at the moment for technical reasons, so not in yet.

This is the entryway to the first ruined temple (and the only mission at the moment).

Inside that place there are 2 areas with separate "objectives" which can be done in arbitrary order. The upper level contains the more dangerous combat encounter. All enemies for this encounter, including the "boss", use non-standard AI which is still pretty buggy but works more or less. I can't tell how much that is due to my lack of programming ability and how much due to the general bugginess of this game. I didn't have time to play this "seriously" yet but I think it's pretty damn challenging due to environmental hazards and 2 types of "guard" enemies that are individually not that strong, but have to be fought cleverly (this may also have failed completely, really not sure).

The lower level is somewhat more simple and "standard" and has a little secret. Should be fairly simple and fair. From what I saw, finishing the lower level brings you to level 2 so that should make the upper level a bit more survivable.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

How's the Hivemind Consensus on resting systems? The basic implementation in NWN2 just heals everyone to full, removes nearly any negative effects and can be activated whenever you like. This is obviously just the bare bones implementation which was used though throughout the OC.

A usual restriction implementation used on online workds for example is some sort of timer that makes you wait 5 minutes, but I never liked those, and I think it makes even less sense in a single player game. I'd like to put some sensible restriction on this that makes the rest button something more interesting than a "free heal everyone with no drawbacks" button.

My idea was instead requiring some food items to be in inventory, and an appropriate number depending on party size being removed on rest. Once you run out of food, you can't activate rest any more. This is extremely easy to implement on the plus side. I was also planning to make characters require less food the higher their Survival skill is (standard is 3 food items used up per rest, if you have >10 survival skill you use only 2 and with >20 only 1).

Your thoughts on this?

 

[Lord Rocket]

Simple, sane. I like it. Will the food loss be per party member or in total? I suppose the former, but if the latter, you may want to total the party's survival skill (if possible) and calculate the food used that way instead.
More importantly, how rare are food items? Can they be replenished in dungeons, RL style? For resource management these are the most important questions to ask, really.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Simple, sane. I like it. Will the food loss be per party member or in total? I suppose the former, but if the latter, you may want to total the party's survival skill (if possible) and calculate the food used that way instead.

It's calculated per party member, taking into account that guy's surival skill, so adding +3 food if he has less than 10 survival bonus, or only +1 needed food if he has 20 or more survival etc. Then the script removes that total of the food needed from the party (doesn't matter who happens to be actually holding the stuff in his inventory).

More importantly, how rare are food items? Can they be replenished in dungeons, RL style? For resource management these are the most important questions to ask, really.

I'm still in alpha basically, so at the moment an infinite amount is sold at low prices at the quest hub. I've considered marking some monsters for having food or being possible to be made into food (just a simple check on their death for the highest survival skill in the party, then rolling against some DC to determine if Mr. Ranger Dude can make something edible out of that dire rat, if yes generate a food item to drop as loot).

One way to make the food stores at the shops not be too abundant might be to have a fixed number at the start and only replenish their stores by 1d6 rations every time rest is activated or such. Then you will have to be a bit careful with food and can't just rely on buying tons of rations every time you're back in town.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I've weakened the resting system just a little bit in the sense that you can still rest even without food (or not enough to fully satisfy everyone) to get your abilities back, but it will not heal you to full. If you rest without any food, you halve your current HP, plus a few percent depending on your Survival skill (so repeatedly resting without food will halve your HP every time until you only have 1 HP left, at which level it stays). Having partial amounts of food means you partially heal depending on how much was left.

I think this is a relatively fair and not too complex system that rewards having high Survival skills and finding food items, and makes resting something you don't just do thoughtlessly because resting at the wrong time or too often will deplete your food stores which may not be filled up for a while.

So, with this in place I guess I could build other parts of the game around it:

- Traveling "overland": depending on the distance, it will cost some fixed/random amount of food simply to get there, and then of course to return or travel onwards. The player will have to take that into account.

- Random events: for example the party's food may have rotted (could maybe happen randomly after traveling). Or as a positive event, the party comes across some deer and manages to shoot some down.

- A mission/quest that mostly deals with securing an additional steady supply of food. The quest hub does not have an infinite amount and replenishes only a certain amount per rest period.

- Enemies that can be converted into food: no particular act necessary on part of the player, they simply drop food rations, possibly again involving a skill check.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Moar food-related shenanigans: some enemies (animals) are now marked as edible and will drop food rations provided the character in the party with the highest Survival skill exceeds the DC (weirder creatures may be harder to prepare so they're not poisonous, is the idea).

Some thoughts on multiple resolution paths for quests: I'd like to give some "short term reward vs. long term reward" choices (possibly in addition/combination with the usual "good/evil" choice). As an example, you have found a valuable artifact. You can either...
- LONG TERM REWARD: ...give this to the priest, who wants it for study and can only reward you by having a word with the quartermaster to provide additional food supplies regularly (+1d6 food rations per day replenished at the store)
- SHORT TERM REWARD: ...give this to the shady merchant who will sell it off to some collector or worse, and will reward you immediately with some powerful items, one each for the whole party.

I think a working "economy" with vitally necessary consumables makes it easier to make "believable" quests, or at least I hope that's how it will work out.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Having a good/evil axis determining your reward type makes things feel very Bioware-y, which you may find desireable (you don't have to admit it if you do).

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Haha I don't have anything against the good-evil axis, it's even part of D&D long before Bioware anyway. Just for some quests the timed reward thing may be more interesting/appropriate.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Thanks man, I would appreciate that, for the moment I'm just fucking around myself though and trying things out. Once the basics are laid down maybe you could help flesh them out and such though?

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Next on the list are some more interesting effects for elemental damage. One reason I want this is that casters (as in "blaster", not "self-buffer" types) are pretty boring (and ineffective) in low levels. These would be "on top" of whatever caused the damage in the first place, so a spell, an enchanted weapon, a grenade or even some environmental hazard all cause this stuff.

- fire: chance for burning + fear combination
- acid: short fear
- cold: chance for freeze/stun + slow
- electricity: always stuns + chance of death if not undead
- sound: deafness chance
- force spells (magic missile etc.): knockdown chance

I'm thinking of increasing the duration/DC depending on how high the damage inflicted was. This may go the way of being too dangerous I guess, so another thing to balance.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

This seems to work quite well. Kinda fun to throw a fire bomb at a group of goblins and seem them scattering while in flames. The effects are detected based on damage received from any source, so fireballs etc. also work nicely for that. Pity there's no obvious way to do creatures being thrown by explosive force or I'd add it to the fireball spell, but I guess a "knockdown" instead should work well enough visually.

With the extra effects I was thinking maybe some special weapons would be interesting, like a "shock rod" item that acts like a mace mechanically but does not do physical damage (that's a property in the toolset) which would instead do like 2d6 electrical damage instead. If you roll high enough damage with that, the "shock kill" effect and/or stun effects kick in, making up for the loss of physical damage. Might be an interesting quest reward or just a random find.

The "fire panic" and other elemental status effects might be fun in conjunction with fire arrows and other ranged weapons with elemental damage, since it can take far away enemies out of the fight for a bit. I will scatter some of that ammo around and I already have it craftable using "alchemical ingredients" items that require some fairly hefty Craft Alchemy scores to use.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Ah, damn. I guess a light or tiny weapon of some sort should still be OK then though, let's see.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Lookin' good...


If you can delivar.




Seriously though, sounds good so far to me. While I'm not sure the campaign will even go to the high levels where casters have Heal and Greater Restoration available, it's always possible to have the scroll or potions lying around, so good to plan for that.

As for "injury sources" I had a thought that critical hits may cause injuries too (or high damage of any sort).

 

[Freelance Henchman]

New version is up. http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Nw ... ail&id=103

v0.86:
- resting system with food items implemented
- special effects for fire attacks implemented

Here's a demo video of the flame effects scaring away goblins that got splashed with alchemist's fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FNUP4EQJ0

 

[aweigh]

all this good nwn2 and module building talk made me want to reinstall teh gaem. SoZ was awesome! i'll give you some feedbackc later

 

[Lord Rocket]

OK, purely theoretical now, but I've always wondered about the ability to mess with the ruleset in NWN and NWN2. Would it be possible to change the level-up system to something like Epic 6? How easy would it be? And more to the point, would it be possible in NWN1?

Video looks good - would it be possible to make the goblins flee in a more 'random' fashion though? I've never been on fire in any serious way, but if I ever was, I don't think I'd turn a full 180 like that before I ran for it.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Anything that isn't very similar to D&D rules would be hard to implement, basically a total conversion.

As for the roasted goblins, I didn't put in a will save against the fear effect yet, so not every single one of those likely would have run at once. The 180 turn is an engine problem though, all creatures can do that.

 

[Jaesun]

Here's a demo video of the flame effects scaring away goblins that got splashed with alchemist's fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FNUP4EQJ0

That was awesome! :D

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Couple more videos (sorry for the darkness, not sure how to fix that) here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UA93K3xgw
The party fights some wolves... WITH FIRE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBHJdi9YtOw
Resting without food means you recover spells and abilities, but you actually lose HP (down to 1 HP, but won't die).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNMn05o0gaI
The beetle boss battle, part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvVLHkeJqCA
The beetle boss battle, part 2: rocks fall everyone dies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rm3crA-9DI
A demonstration of a debris field: the entering character promptly stumbles, then slowly walks through it. Fighting in this sort of field means you need to pass a Reflex save every round or you fall again. Same goes for enemies though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWF5qOPl9A4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FNUP4EQJ0
Fire effects on goblins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jRgNvqUxNY
Rosestone Keep, the quest hub area.

EDIT: WeGame.com has a free unlimited game recorder application that seems to work well. I'll stay with that I guess.

 

[Krash]

This looks interesting. I'll take it for a spin as soon as my exams are done.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP6hxTy8c_M
Managed to take a longer video. This is 5 minutes of the temple entry area and cellars. Annotated with some speech bubbles pointing out details.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

2 more videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRenPVqsN00
Here's the character talking to a food merchant. Food is necessary for resting, but the shop at the quest hub has only a finite amount and it regenerates only a small amount per day. Food isn't weightless either, so carrying a huge amount would be impractical anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQKm5eQli-k
Added saves to the special effects caused by elemental attacks to avoid the status effects, so they don't happen every time without fail. At this time only fire and acid damage are implemented. Fire burns over time and can cause a Fear effect, Acid fumes can daze an enemy. The source of the damage isn't relevant, only the amount of damage caused. In the video the test character is throwing acid flasks and alchemist's fire at "debug goblins" with 1000 HP each.


The player journal will automatically receive an entry containing a list of changes to the basic game systems. See below for the current one.

------------------------------
TIME SCALE

One game hour lasts 5 real-time minutes.

------------------------------
RESTING SYSTEM

Adventurers normally need 3 food rations per day. Those with a higher Survival skill are hardened and need less to function: 2 per day with at least 10 Survival, only 1 per day with at least 20 Survival.

In Ruins of the Sun God the needed food rations are automatically deducted from the party's inventory at every rest. Without food rations, some or all characters may not heal hit points (characters with high Survival heal more even without food).

Some creatures can be turned into food after slaying them, if any character in the party knows enough on how to prepare them correctly (Survival skill ranks required, and the food item will drop automatically on the dead creature without further action required).

------------------------------
ALCHEMICAL ITEMS

The power of all grenade-like alchemical items has been improved in Ruins of the Sun God:

Acid Flask damage:
Normal - 2d6 single, 1d6 splash
Improved - 4d6 single, 2d6 splash
Greater - 6d6 single, 3d6 splash
Perfected - 10d6 single, 5d6 splash

Alchemist's Fire damage:
Normal - 2d6 single, 1d6 splash
Improved - 4d6 single, 2d6 splash
Greater - 6d6 single, 3d6 splash
Perfected - 10d6 single, 5d6 splash

Choking Powder DC:
Normal - 15
Improved - 20
Greater - 25
Perfected - 30

Holy Water damage:
Normal - 2d10 single, 1d10 splash
Improved - 4d10 single, 2d10 splash
Greater - 6d10 single, 3d10 splash
Perfected - 10d10 single, 5d10 splash

Tanglefoot Bag DC/Dur.:
Normal - 15/5
Improved - 20/8
Greater - 25/12
Perfected - 30/20

Thunderstone DC:
Normal - 15
Improved - 20
Greater - 25
Perfected - 30

------------------------------
CRAFTING PRICES

Prices for crafting have been modified. Scolls, potions and wands all now cost SPELLLEVEL x MODIFIER gold to craft, where MODIFIER is:

Scroll: 25
Potion: 50
Wand: 500

 

[Freelance Henchman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CQFHtYhopk
Cold and Electricity elemental bonus effects are implemented. I went with a chance to slow for the former, and a chance to stun and (lower chance to) outright kill from electric shock for the latter.