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

[Volourn]

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I'm not sure what determines the facing after using the scripting function that jumps a character to a certain position, but I guess I can try and pretty that up later once the basics are correct.

also, sup volly

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Is there anything one could help you? Your mod looks good, I'd want to "waste" my ressources on it.

If anyone feels like they want to help but don't know/like the NWN2 toolset (or you don't even own the game ), stuff like custom loading screens or new music would be lovely to have.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

 

[Surf Solar]

Is there anything one could help you? Your mod looks good, I'd want to "waste" my ressources on it.

If anyone feels like they want to help but don't know/like the NWN2 toolset (or you don't even own the game ), stuff like custom loading screens or new music would be lovely to have.

I don't have much fantasy-suited music, but if you could upload some template for the loadingscreens I'd like to lay my hands on.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I don't have much fantasy-suited music, but if you could upload some template for the loadingscreens I'd like to lay my hands on.

The only important thing is apparently that the pics are exactly 1600 x 800 in size. Here's one of the default screens for example: http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr28 ... 9b3244.jpg

I'm not sure what I would want exactly, but some sort of generic "dungeon", "forest", "temple" etc. themed pictures would be cool. If you don't feel like making a ton of these I'd be grateful just for a pretty, empty "frame" where I could insert softened and processed screenshots in the middle later.

 

[Surf Solar]

I have to say this looks really pretty, heh. I completely forgot that I have the NWN2 dics here aswell so I could've just ripped them, oh well now it's too late.

This looks really good as said, so I'll play around with it, thanks!

 

[Freelance Henchman]

fukin imgur keeps crapping out

But , guess I will put in some random ore to mine and dwarven medals to pick up.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I have to say this looks really pretty, heh. I completely forgot that I have the NWN2 dics here aswell so I could've just ripped them, oh well now it's too late.

This looks really good as said, so I'll play around with it, thanks!

Alright, would be cool to have that. Makes it look more professional right away if you have new loading screens.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Had an idea for another type of environmental hazard: a "narrow ledge":

You can't make the ledges narrower than that in the engine because that's the landscape grid granularity, so I'm indicating the danger of falling here by the sideways incline of the ground. This would be in reality a very narrow walkway or rock ridge where you would have to inch across slowly, because there's only maybe 20 cm of flat ground to stand on.

In this small area you have to walk slowly (can only really check that if the character is forced to use Stealth mode in there) or (on failing a Tumble check) you slide off and fall down to some point below, and possibly take damage as well.

The problem I see with a lot of this stuff where small regions have some special condition that forces checks or hurts/hinders characters is that it may not be very obvious where they start and end (although I do put down debris and such in such places, or its obviously inclined narrow ground like in the pic).

To indicate these places, I could for example:

- put some message popup right before and after them that activates on walking on them, which isn't very obvious unless you walk right into it

- put "mouse-over" objects near them that can be highlighted by the global point-of-interest highlight key

- mark them with glowy stuff which might look odd

- let the player find out only when they run into them

Any suggestions which of these are best? What would you do?

 

[sgc_meltdown]

similar trigger message at whichever starting paths you have for the mountain

"Bro as you look up towards the summit of Mt. Codexia, the elf-thin narrowly hewn walkways echo a premonition of some probably villanous stat and hp loss for ye party via gravity, especially yon fatties. Even as you halt and contemplate your choice of profession, a section of the mountain crumbles and sends a small shower of rocks onto the paladin, who screams."

 

[Pony King]

The most important part of doing special events is to have some sort of consistency. Players will only take notice of the terrain if they consistently have a reason to do so.

How about making it skill reliant? You could even emphasize that in a failure message: "Your character fails to notice how narrow the ledge is and herp derps all the way to the ground." and on successful tumble: "Your character fails to notice how narrow the ledge is but through superior agility manages to not fall like a clown".

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Further environmental c&c can perhaps be added by checking if the fellow with good dex, spot, tumble or survival goes first and has the sufficient wisdom to warn the other members about the terrain, lowering difficulty of the checks

otherwise I think the checks should be lowered anyway after the first fellow goes off the edge anyway because that is kind of a good warning

if you do this the base dc for that shit should be high enough to rock anyone without the abovementioned skills

pls damage variance based on armor type worn because bro this popamole d&d module has a fucking food provisioning system ffs

 

[Freelance Henchman]

How about making it skill reliant? You could even emphasize that in a failure message: "Your character fails to notice how narrow the ledge is and herp derps all the way to the ground." and on successful tumble: "Your character fails to notice how narrow the ledge is but through superior agility manages to not fall like a clown".

Including the Spot skill seems like an interesting idea, that gives it an extra use.

Further environmental c&c can perhaps be added by checking if the fellow with good dex, spot, tumble or survival goes first and has the sufficient wisdom to warn the other members about the terrain, lowering difficulty of the checks

Interesting idea, but I frankly phear implementing all of that. Balancing the DCs is a problem though, that will take a lot of testing I think.

pls damage variance based on armor type worn because bro this popamole d&d module has a fucking food provisioning system ffs

You mean like this? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adven ... uction.htm

I was considering modding the various armor stats a bit anyway, might just add damage reduction as well. At the very low levels combat tends to be pretty dangerous anyway and with armor damage reduction the "tanks" might actually work like tanks rather than dying just a tiny bit less quickly than unarmored mages.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

The heavier armors now give damage reduction (Medium gives 2 points, Heavy gives 4 points) which hopefully should make the tanks a bit more resilient. This is a "ignore the first 2 or 4 points of physical damage" (unless from an adamantine weapon, for technical reasons) effect, so no taking into account if it's slashing or bludgeoning or such. The latter could be implemented, but I don't feel like doing it and I don't think it's worth the effort really. I actually tried 3 and 6 reduction as well, but the 6 for Heavy seem too much.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

bro I meant as regards to fall damage but that kind of incline is welcoming as well

you do realise you now need to sort out that for the naturally armored critters as well right bro

 

[Pony King]

Interesting idea, but I frankly phear implementing all of that.

Isn't this where we call the developer lazy and pirate the game?

You should be careful with adding DR to armors as tanks were already pretty strong in DnD 3.5

 

[Freelance Henchman]

sgc_meltdown, I know, I will need to adjust the monsters to also have some amount of DR depending on their natural armor I guess.

Pony King, yeah they are already pretty resilient comparatively but I think those small amounts won't hurt the game at the low levels I'm aiming for.

The way I made this is a script that checks equipped armors and applies a DR effect, and takes it away again when the armor is removed. Technically you could use these scripts as an override for the original campaign or any other module, since it doesn't require touching any armor blueprints.

In the worst case I can disable that script or set the DR values to tiny values like 1 and 2 or such, which is quickly done. One reason I wanted to try a way to implement this that doesn't involve changing every armor in the game is that it's easier to test if the used values are overpowered or not, and it's easy to get rid of as well.

EDIT: Also, I'm considering renaming this to "Ruins of the Silent Gods" or something because that one god isn't really that likely to have a ton of temples in a small region. Maybe the main plot could be to seek out a bunch of temples of gods that died with Netheril's fall (and fuck if I know who those could be, all my knowledge comes from BG2 ).

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Ruins of the Dark Gods

4 different warring factions of Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Khorne so lots of complexity there

plus in the final cutscene can reveal that the world was actually part of the Imperium's domain and your party were agents of the emperor and have a thunderhawk carry the heroes away to victory

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Except I despise the Warhammer universe.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfR1F_WL6lg

I thought I'd add a small tutorial for the climbing and other environmental hazards to the starting area. Demo'd are debris fields, climbing, and 2 "kinds" of jumping (one "harmless" one to pass over a rock and one dangerous one where you jump a chasm and fall into it if you fail). There's also a "narrow ledge" hazard but that's not implemented yet.

The in-character reason to climb around this dangerous rock side is to get a ring that the NPC lost at some point (while trying to get an overview of the area, and she really doesn't want to go up again). Also implemented is the "lose 50 XP for getting knocked out" system which should encourage players to be a bit more careful to keep companions upright in battles etc.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

So after some major upheavals in real life I am finally settling down a little again and have some time to finish this module. I couldn't remember what I had put in already so I thought I could make an assessment of the current state first before I go on. Here's a list of the currently implemented features and/or notable gameplay changes:

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

Adventurers need 1 food ration per day. There are 4 grades of food ration: Poor, Average, Good and Superb. These restore respectively up to 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of the character's total hit points on resting. This is added after the character loses 5% of current hit points from activating rest (so resting without food leads to a loss of 5% of total hit points). The food rations are automatically deducted from the party's inventory at every rest. Characters with high Survival skill heal more even without food.

Some creatures can be turned into food after slaying them. The resulting food depends on the character's Survival skill bonus:

Less than +10: Poor
over +10: Average
over +15: Good
over +20: Superb

------------------------------
DEATH

When a character goes below 0 hit points and is knocked out, the party receives a penalty of 50 XP per character level (all companions and the PC share the same number of XP). If all party members are knocked out, the game is over and you must reload from a previous save.

------------------------------
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS

The environment contains various hazards like rubble-strewn floors, handholds for climbing up and down or obstacles that can be jumped. If the character is successful in these challenges depends on a number of factors.

Climbing: Strength check modified by carried weight and armor penalty, can cause falling damage if the roll was too low

Jumping: Strength check modified by carried weight and armor penalty, additionally Tumble checks to not fall over; may cause falling damage when jumping over a drop

Balancing on uneven and slippery ground: moving inside is slow (Slow effect) and Reflex saves are needed to stay upright (for every round while in combat)

------------------------------
LOOT

All loot in chests is random but static, meaning that the actual contents are chosen randomly when starting a new game and remain the same even if you reload.

------------------------------
ELEMENTAL DAMAGE

Depending on the amount of damage received, some types of elemental damage will cause extra effects on enemies (if they are not immune to that kind of effect).

Acid: Daze effect
Cold: Slow effect
Electricity: Stun effect and small chance of death from shock
Fire: Fear effect and a few rounds of burning damage

------------------------------
ARMOR

Armors give some amount of Damage Reduction (DR):

Light: none
Medium: 2/Adamantine
Heavy: 4/Adamantine

The effect is working if a small green icon shows up next to the character portrait. If it is not there, try taking off and re-equipping the armor.

------------------------------
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

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

One game hour lasts 5 real-time minutes. This affects for example spell durations, among other things.

------------------------------
SPELL RESISTANCE ON ITEMS

Spell resistance (SR) on items does not work in standard NWN2. This module includes a fix for this problem.

------------------------------
SPELL CHANGES

- Cure Minor Wounds cures only 1 HP.

Below is an overview of the areas in the module, their connections and what they roughly contain. Long "overland" routes that will use up food rations to reach the target (and same on the way back) are marked as well. This isn't a large module but I already find it hard to remember where what is, so I will make sure I update and expand this map whenever I make some changes.

What I'd like to do next is give the adventure a real starting point. Currently it starts very strangely right in the middle of the wilderness, with the NPCs spewing far too much exposition at once. I think a tavern where the PC can get hired would work best.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

will there be tutorials in the tavern

 

[Freelance Henchman]

There aren't really any new mechanics I could give tutorials for in a tavern, but if there are any after all I will avoid making them unskippable. At the moment I'm expecting none though.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I'm thinking you do a nice cosy tavern with perhaps rumors and hearsay and some nuggets of good advice in all that with the innkeeper as a multi purpose store

then you click on the door and bam to the wilderness nothing in between

"Oh, I do have a rat problem in the basement but some kids are taking care of that now. Promised them ten gold and off they went. Now that I think about it, I could have hired five good ratcatchers for that kind of coin."