Aielund Saga Improvements (Need Input/Feedback)

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Savant has given me permission/access to fix some things in his Aielund Saga as he's busy being a full-time author at the moment.  The main goal is to fix some bugs or weird issues but I have leeway to make other changes if I think they're warranted.  This is mainly just a touch-up, though, as it's the main module series we tend to recommend to people.

 

But I could definitely use some input/feedback on what stuff to change.  My current list is...

 

General

- Remove horses as they cause tons of issues.  Will leave mounted NPCs alone or random horses that the PC can't mount, but the others will be gone

- Fix an apparent issue with the placeholder modules

- Fix Potions of Epic Healing (consumes entire stack instead of just 1)

- If you tell either companion to used ranged weapons, they say "alright I'll use my magic & then rush in with melee"

They do in fact use their bows & crossbows but their reply makes it sound like you clicked on the wrong option.

- Add in ability to recharge more items potentially, see post here

 

Act I

- Fix Dockmaster quest (one of the ending options is bugged)

- The Squad Leader asks if you've seen the princess, & even though she is standing right beside you, the only answer is "Not yet I think there are more places to search in the base."

 

Act I Typos

-

 

Act II General

1. When I spoke to the captain of the guard, he had no dialogue. This break immersion.

   
2. When I went to speak to the drawven king, neither of the guards outside his door had anything more to say than: "Morning." And so, I spent a while on a wild goose chase trying to figure out what to do next. When I did return, one of them asked me what my business was... but I accidently escaped the dialogue. When I tried to speak to him again, he said "Mornining." Luckily, even though the one next to him was saying morning 3 seconds prior, he gave me the option to see the king.
   
      That was... weird at best. Were their dialogue set to be random? xD

   
3. The Drawven king asked me to kill Frost Giants... I got no journal entry for this

   
4. Speaking of the Drawven King, I discovered an exploit where I can grind alignment/exp by talking to him again and again repeatedly choosing the chaotic option. This is a minor issue, I don't see why anyone would actually want to exploit this. That being said, the Drawven King should not be speaking as though he just met me, when we had spoken moments prior.

- Improve small crack in Dwarf mines (anything small or tiny)

- When you tell guard captain Deckhard  about Ronald Bartlett being involved in the plot to kidnap the princess, he says "Bloody Hell, do you have any evidence to support that" In spite of having the note found on Bartletts body (The one that say's "hold on to this it is evidence") My only option is to say "No I didn't bring any evidence with me unfortunately"

- Before I killed Holister Wilson, he told me how Peridoc  from the thieves guild had set me up.

But when I go back to the thieves guild to have a word to him about it, there is no dialogue option at all.

He just says "good luck with the assassins guild, you'll need it."

- If you take an object from a sarcophagus and a mummy appears, after you kill the mummy, try putting that object back into the sarcophagus, and maybe the mummy will appear again. If this works, just keep taking and replacing that object until you have had your fill of XP.

 

Act II Typos

- When talking to the Devil in the library , I say " not so fast I want the hostages relased "

- "Duke Montague, when talking about kipper Bob says " I see. Sound like a colourful chap.""

 

Act III General

- Fix Scar's Flame Strike bug (MP only?) in desert during Act 3

- Improve the battle at Fort Highmarch (can currently kill all golems in previous area and then just sit around for 10 minutes tanking the Ironlord)

- "I bought an Amulet of Power from Harold Webber (intending to give it to the princess) but I can't give it away. Is this a bug, or is it a plot item?"

 

Act III Typos

- When you first speak to Nawen E'linfalen in the castle she says " Why it's cantered on Bracksworth and not the temple itself is quite puzzling to me however."  (must be the bloody horse scripts again)

- And you first reply option says "I'm eager to know whether or not this creature is going to pose a problem for us or not." (Too many or nots)

- When talking to the princess about getting out amongst her people you reply " That merely reveals your lack of understand about your own people."

- After saving Mona & she's talking to Dante, she says "What exactly are you tring to say here?"

- When talking to Saffron, about the cleric, she says "I could not seem much of his face"

- When talking to Sahir, you say "I'll se you when I return with the final piece"

 

Act IV Part 1 General

-

 

Act IV Part 1 Typos

- Nellise  at the Tusone military camp, to the Aielund knight commander " That was NOT they were told! They're making it up."

 

Act IV Part 2 General

-

 

Act IV Part 2 Typos

- Talking to the princess at General Duquesne's camp she says "No less than the future of two countries. And we're only going to get once chance at this too. "

- And at the same place you say to Nellise " But I'm eager to meet with this General we've come so far to see. You want to come with? "

- Samantha Holland in the crypt. " I shoud probably look around for a bit of armour though."

 

Act IV Part 3 General

- Look into an issue with GetIsHenchmen or something in Act 4 Part 3 (http://nwvault.ign.c....Detail&id=5598)

- Make sure Nellise equips her special skin in Act 4 Part 3

- Probably figure out something to make the Saqarin less devastating to people surprised by the loads of mind spells -- maybe have Terinus give the PC a wand of Mind Blank or something

- Ensure Drunk Nobleman can't be killed

- Removed Vorpoal from Felreiver battleaxe (DONE)

 

Act IV Part 3 Typos

- Fix "might" to "mighty" in Xyrna's speech (DONE)

- the master weapon smith in Twilight in Ch 4 part 3 says that the katana will be the best weapon he even made, which obviously should be ever.

 

I'll expand that list as I think of more or as people mention other stuff.

 

So if you can think of other bugs or problematic issues then please post them here so I know what to fix.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_simuseb]

               

I would not play a version of Aielund Saga without mounts. I understand that they cause issues, and they can be frustrating at times, but I enjoy them nevertheless. For me, their removal would be a step backwards. Anyway, I'm currently playing Act 2, and I am finding the module to be of very high quality, but I've noticed this has seemed to decline a bit once I went to the Drawven City/Stoneguard Mountains. 

 

(Spoilers) 

1. When I spoke to the captain of the guard, he had no dialogue. This break immersion.

   
2. When I went to speak to the drawven king, neither of the guards outside his door had anything more to say than: "Morning." And so, I spent a while on a wild goose chase trying to figure out what to do next. When I did return, one of them asked me what my business was... but I accidently escaped the dialogue. When I tried to speak to him again, he said "Mornining." Luckily, even though the one next to him was saying morning 3 seconds prior, he gave me the option to see the king.
   
   
      That was... weird at best. Were their dialogue set to be random? xD

   
3. . The Drawven king asked me to kill Frost Giants... I got no journal entry for this

   
4. Speaking of the Drawven King, I discovered an exploit where I can grind alignment/exp by talking to him again and again repeatedly choosing the chaotic option. This is a minor issue, I don't see why anyone would actually want to exploit this. That being said, the Drawven King should not be speaking as though he just met me, when we had spoken moments prior. 

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On the topic of horses, might I suggest this instead (of course, if you have the time and are willing): Why don't you attempt to make horses work better in that module. Some things come to mind

 

• Offer more restrictions as to where they can and can't go. For instance, I suggest disallowing them into cities. 


• Speaking of restriction, I think it would best to just not let them into Stone Guard Mountains at all. The path is too narrow for a party of three- all mounted!


• Have the mountains removed *before* area transitions. At the moment, if you try to enter an interior, it will remove your mounts. This causes a lot of clutter in front of the building and can be quite awkward. If possible, couldn't you have triggers or something in which it says that you "must leave your mounts behind". Like, maybe before entering the city, the stable master says this, and then you automatically dismount then the mounts automatically walk into the stable. Just a suggestion, I know it would probably take a lot of work. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rogueknight333]

               

As I understand it, the chief problem with horses was that having them in the party could mess up the triggers that started some of the dialogue with henchmen, in particular those related to the romances? That was a particularly problematic issue in that a player might not even realize anything had gone wrong until it was too late to just reload or seek an easy workaround. I think it would be more reasonable, not to mention a lot simpler, just to fix the script errors causing that rather than remove all the horses completely.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

I would not play a version of Aielund Saga without mounts. I understand that they cause issues, and they can be frustrating at times, but I enjoy them nevertheless.

 

To clarify something -- the removal of the mounts is something *Savant* himself wants (and I happen to agree).  He's mentioned to me multiple times that he wishes he had never tried to put them in and would prefer they be gone completely.  They mess up ground triggers, can distort hit box size even while not mounted, and can cause pathing issues.  To quote Savant when I was confirming his opinion in a recent email...

 

"Yes, remove the horses! Seeing the result, I should have tested them before putting them in. The mounted knights and other characters are fine, it's just the PC"s that they screw with. Do it "

 

Just a suggestion, I know it would probably take a lot of work.

 

Even if I were to do all of that, it still wouldn't fix some of the other issues.  It also raises new problems, such as the fact that you enter Culdeny from the east but leave to the south -- so leaving the mounts behind to the east wouldn't work.  Ditto for Amalis (north/south).  Ditto for Fort Highmarch.  Etc.

 

Added the other stuff to the list to look into.

 

As I understand it, the chief problem with horses was that having them in the party could mess up the triggers that started some of the dialogue with henchmen, in particular those related to the romances?

 

That was one of the big problems, yes.  The main module specific one instead of the various problems with horses in general.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

It might be worth checking the dragonfire issue that some people have had in the Hocarum Desert areas, where the dragon fire damage persists even after leaving the area and possibly after the dragon is dead.

 

This may have only been an issue for MP games, potentially making it tougher to track down and test. I never bothered, because it was easy enough to fix in the console. But, I suspect that it may be tied to the re-assignment of oPC in trigger_red.nss. Though this is an area trigger, there is a script line "object oPC = GetFirstPC();" which is potentially causing issues, and which is likely unneeded as oPC is already set in the "object oPC = GetEnteringObject();" line earlier in the script.

 

Another approach might be to add a check or two to the heartbeat script that triggers the damage, dragon_ht.nss. It looks like at least an area check was intended, but never added to the script. E.g.:

void main()
    {
    object oPC=GetFirstPC();
    object oPCArea;
    object oMe=OBJECT_SELF;
    effect eFlame = EffectVisualEffect(VFX_IMP_DIVINE_STRIKE_FIRE);
    effect eSandstormDamage;
    while (GetIsObjectValid(oPC))
        {
        if ( (GetLocalInt(oPC, "STRIKE") == 1) && (GetTag(GetArea(oPC))=="HocarumDesertEastofTrinity") )
            {
            eSandstormDamage=EffectDamage(d6(12), DAMAGE_TYPE_FIRE);
            ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, eFlame, oPC);
            ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, eSandstormDamage, oPC);
            oPC=GetNextPC();
            }
        }
    }

That at least would handle cases where the PCs have left the area. Another check would have Scar's OnDeath handler (scardeath.nss) set a variable on the module that the above script checks, exiting if Scar has been killed.

 

(Personally, I would make it so the effect hit one random party member each time, instead of the all of them. But, that's more a design decision than a bug fix.)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Good point, MrZork, and yeah I think that's mainly a MP issue that I actually had to fix via console like a month ago.   Also, technically Scar doesn't die but yeah, that's another possibility in addition to the area check.  Will look into it, thanks.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

NP. I am glad you are doing this.

 

I actually had a few minor tweaks I added when playing the module, but it's been a few years and I don't recall all of them. I know there was a point (dwarven mines somewhere?) where a PC was supposed to be able to fit through a crack if he was small enough, but the script didn't account for toons who could (via spells, feats, etc.) polymorph into a small shape. Anyway, most of them were trivially easy scripting changes, like the one above. I kinda wish a had kept a list of those changes, now. But, at the time, I figured Savant was done with the module, so there was no need.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

LOL. Okay, at least that one change was easy to find. In Chapter 2, area Stoneguard Mines - Level 1, the conditional check for the first conversation branch of the Small Crack objects (which I called speakersmall.nss, but might have had a different name originally) can easily be changed to simply check the PC's size instead of race. The version below does that

// speakersmall.nss
// We often want to check if the PC speaker is small (or tiny),
// not just if he's a halfling or gnome.
int StartingConditional()
    {
    object oPC = GetPCSpeaker();
    int iSize = GetCreatureSize(oPC);
    if ( (iSize == CREATURE_SIZE_SMALL) || (iSize == CREATURE_SIZE_TINY) )
        {
        return TRUE;
        }
    return FALSE;
    }

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Got it, Zork, adding it to list.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Empyre65]

               

When you get it all debugged, it may finally be time for me to upgrade my copy. I am still playing an old version from before horses were added and before Dev Crit was removed. Speaking of which, in chapter 4 you get monk gloves that give Dev Crit in the old version I am playing. What do they give instead now?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               

I agree with the removal of Mounts; very few mods (or stories) I have played work well with them.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rogueknight333]

               

The horse system is definitely somewhat kludgy and not without issues, so it may well have been a bad idea to include them in the first place. Given that it is now there and some players will be expecting it, my own advice would be to fix what issues one can (for example, I briefly looked at the trigger scripts starting romance conversations in Aielund Part III and it seems they would be easy to fix so horses are not an issue), while perhaps including documentation warning that there are a few issues with horses and thus players might not want to bother with them, while still leaving them the choice to do so. Just my two cents, ultimately it is Savant's call.

 

Remember that if you do want to get rid of horses completely you will need to disable the Paladin's Summon Mount ability as well as removing the existing horses in the modules.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

When you get it all debugged, it may finally be time for me to upgrade my copy. I am still playing an old version from before horses were added and before Dev Crit was removed. Speaking of which, in chapter 4 you get monk gloves that give Dev Crit in the old version I am playing. What do they give instead now?

 

+10 AB and 2d12 magic damage.

 

I agree with the removal of Mounts; very few mods (or stories) I have played work well with them.

 

Indeed.

 

Given that it is now there and some players will be expecting it...Just my two cents, ultimately it is Savant's call.

 

Remember that if you do want to get rid of horses completely you will need to disable the Paladin's Summon Mount ability as well as removing the existing horses in the modules.

 

One of the reasons I'm undertaking this in the first place is that Aielund is an amazing series for new players stepping into custom content.  One of the shining examples of how a user made campaign can be better than professionally produced ones.  So to that degree I'm largely trying to think of how a person relatively new to NWN might approach things -- and I don't think those people will have any expectations about horses and won't miss them at all.

 

I mean, they're not even used in 80-90% of the module anyway -- and I've never used them in Aielund, even when available.  Just too many issues, not enough benefit.

 

And yes, noted on the Summon Mount, which is easy enough to fix.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olnorton]

               

I shall play it again now & see if I find anything I don't like.

I never used horses anyway.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Awesome.  Noting typos would also be good if you spot them (and I know some still exist).