Aielund Saga Improvements (Need Input/Feedback)

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Correct, it doesn't show it for other characters (PCs or NPCs).

 

Also, Robert Black probably has like 30 strength or something at that point -- so he's doing 1d6 + 10 (strength) + 7 (mace) plus possibly using power attack.  Means he'll punch through the resistance and still do considerable damage despite it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

Correct, it doesn't show it for other characters (PCs or NPCs).

 

Well, that's good to know. That's what was messing me up, I was like "Robert you have a +7 mace and I have +10 gloves, what makes you so special?!?"

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Just a quick IMO regarding EMS: I hope that the solution that Savant et alii settled on remains viable. That is, provide a blank EMS hak file so those who prefer the imperfect-but-fairly-well-documented NWN magic system still have that option over the poorly-documented EMS system of magic.

 

Yes, that will remain viable, for good or for ill.

 

EMS suffers from the bane of many alternate magic systems in that it goes well beyond fixing widely agreed-upon bugs and implements someone's personal vision about how magic ought to work in the game. The default NWN magic system has many issues, but I know what they are and I don't have to relearn the game to avoid having unexpected things happen when I cast a spell. A system that fixes inarguable bugs (e.g. the Evaard's size bug or the Terrifying Rage fear-immunity bug) would be welcome. I would hope that Aielund keeps changes beyond that scope as optional.

 

Why do you think it's a bane?  I mean, I don't agree with a chunk of EMS but the whole point WAS to alter how spells worked.  And get rid of some of the stuff like IGMS spamming.

 

Anyway, not a major change or anything, but a nice one, IMO. When I ran across this again the other day, I thought it might be of interest here. I have added a few comments to the include file and I think I have successfully exported the needed resources into this ERF file. There is a replacement dialog for Auberon in the ERF which (at least to my testing) works. There is also a ChargeMerch.dlg which is pruned down to just the recharging branch for easy testing and for pasting into the dialogs of other NPCs who offer the service.

 

I'll take a look at it, no objections to the idea.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

 On the main subject, if I could change or alter something in Aielund (and I can't because I have a Mac and thus don't have the toolset) it would be this:

1. More henchmen! The game really doesn't give you enough henchmen to choose from, in the end it's basically down to just Robert Black and the cleric, Nellise. The little halfling druid is lame, the dragon Spartan is lame, basically there's just not enough choices in any of Aielund's acts. There really should be at least twice as many henchmen (or more) to choose from. A wide variety of henchmen with options for Good, Neutral, and Evil PC's. Basically, you just have the choice of a couple of good characters, and a couple of neutral characters. 

 

2. It would be nice if the last Act was a little longer. It always bummed me out that some of those doors in the Hall were closed off or didn't go anywhere. It would be nice if we could go into the door for the Abyss and have a whole sequence there. It would just be cool if there were more dimensional doors that you could go through. I always end up at level 36 or 37 in Aielund. It would be nice if there were a bit more in that last Act so you could easily max out at the 40th level.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

[Will EMS remain essentially optional via a blank EMS hak?]

Yes, that will remain viable, for good or for ill.

 

Awesome! I am glad to hear that. '>

 

 

EMS suffers from the bane of many alternate magic systems in that it goes well beyond fixing widely agreed-upon bugs and implements someone's personal vision about how magic ought to work in the game.

Why do you think it's a bane?  I mean, I don't agree with a chunk of EMS but the whole point WAS to alter how spells worked.  And get rid of some of the stuff like IGMS spamming.

 

By "bane", I didn't mean "flaw". I wasn't implying that EMS was necessarily a bad system based on its technical features. By "bane", I meant "undoing" in terms of gaining wider acceptance. I don't think EMS was intended solely as a system for Aielund, but it suffered because it changed things that many didn't think needed to be changed. And that's why I mentioned that as a bane of many alternate magic schemes: Many don't accept them because they change a system that, while imperfect, is familiar, documented, and (somewhat) well understood. They don't really want someone's idea of a better system; they want the system that NWN intended. (And I admit that what that intent would be is an open question in some areas.)


For example, if I were to write an "NWN Magic & Spell Bug Fixes" HAK/override that stuck to fixing things that were widely agreed upon as bugs, then I think very few would have any objection to using it. E.g.:

• Evard's should not treat medium-sized creatures as huge.


• Terrifying Rage shouldn't cause those with fear immunity to auto-fail their saves.


• Shadow Evade should follow the described DR progression and should not be dispellable.


• Etc.

There are dozens of similar bugs that could be fixed and I suspect that if people knew such a system was out there, it would pretty quickly become part of many new modules and/or players' overrides.

 

But, what if I were to start adding in my favorite not-strictly-bug-fix features? E.g.:

• I prefer Moskwa's PnP Tenser's Transformation to Bioware's version, the latter being very marginal for arcane casters.


• I think that the Blinding Speed feat is nearly worthless outside of very-low-magic single-player environments and should last character level rounds and/or be usable more than once per day. (And it should probably not be dispellable, though one might argue that change would be a bug fix.)


• Etc.

But, even though I could argue that each of those non-bug-fix changes results in a better spell or feat than Bioware's, the more of them I would make, the fewer people would agree that they are the way NWN magic ought to work and only people willing to learn to play what is essentially a different magic system would be likely to try it.

 

[More inclusive recharging dialog]

I'll take a look at it, no objections to the idea.

Excellent!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

[Will EMS remain essentially optional via a blank EMS hak?]

 

 

 

Speaking of which, does anyone know or can point to the blank EMS hak? The Aielund downloads on the new Neverwinter Vault don't appear to have it. I really want it and I have a Mac so I can't alter the EMS hak to disengage it. Anyone help me out?

 

Thanks

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

LOL. The fake HAK is like 300 bytes. I hate to go all old-school, but here it is uuencoded

begin 644 EMS_FAKE.hak
M2$%+(%8Q+C`!``````````$```"@````"0$``"$!``!F`````````/____\`
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M``````````````````````````````````````!A````1F%K92!%35,@2$%+
M"FAT='`Z+R\*5&AI<R!I<R!A;B!E87-Y('=A>2!T;R!D:7-A8FQE($5-4R!F
M;W(@4U`@<&QA>3H@:G5S="!R96YA;64@=&AI<R!T;R!%35,N2$%+`&MH8E]S
M,%]N=6QL````````````V@<``"D!```7````3D-3(%8Q+C!"````%QX`````
%""``(```
`
end

If you aren't sure how to decode that, Google will provide easy answers. The first one I saw seemed more than adequate. Just paste the above text, click the green "Decode!" button, then click the "download as binary file" link below the output. :-)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

LOL. The fake HAK is like 300 bytes. I hate to go all old-school, but here it is uuencoded

begin 644 EMS_FAKE.hak
M2$%+(%8Q+C`!``````````$```"@````"0$``"$!``!F`````````/____\`
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
M``````````````````````````````````````!A````1F%K92!%35,@2$%+
M"FAT='`Z+R\*5&AI<R!I<R!A;B!E87-Y('=A>2!T;R!D:7-A8FQE($5-4R!F
M;W(@4U`@<&QA>3H@:G5S="!R96YA;64@=&AI<R!T;R!%35,N2$%+`&MH8E]S
M,%]N=6QL````````````V@<``"D!```7````3D-3(%8Q+C!"````%QX`````
%""``(```
`
end

If you aren't sure how to decode that, Google will provide easy answers. The first one I saw seemed more than adequate. Just paste the above text, click the green "Decode!" button, then click the "download as binary file" link below the output. :-)

 

 Thanks for that, Mr. Zork. Somebody already sent it to me. 

 

 I put it in and was playing it a bit, I noticed that the Cleric spell "Harm" is nerfed, and I thought that was the result of the EMS. I guess that's one of those things that's just part of the Aielund mod, like taking out Devastating Critical? Pity.

 

 What are strong cleric spells for Aielund? 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Hmm. I thought that Harm worked pretty much as usual in Aielund. What nerfing did you observe?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

Hmm. I thought that Harm worked pretty much as usual in Aielund. What nerfing did you observe?

 

 It just does like 50 hp worth of Negative Damage, it doesn't reduce an enemy's hp's to 1d4. 

 

 I saw this on the nwnwiki: 

• Module creators often revise this spell to do an amount of damage dependent on caster level, making harm's effectiveness dependent on the target's health.

So, that must be what's going on in Aielund.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jugonshi]

               

EMS itself is using 3.5e harm/heal  (10 hp/level, up to 150 hp). But it is possible that Savant added some additional changes.

 

AFAIK, Savant used numbers of his original scripts to bug-fix and re-balance EMS. IIRC, if you just add EMS.hak into some other module, ability enhancement spells such as Bull's Strength or Endurance don't work at all. But they do work in Aielund Saga. Some other spells are more or less different from their pure-EMS versions.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bawookles]

               

EMS itself is using 3.5e harm/heal  (10 hp/level, up to 150 hp). But it is possible that Savant added some additional changes.

 

 

 A cleric's life is hard, I'm tellin' ya.  '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

If you aren't using EMS (I thought you were saying you were playing with the EMS_FAKE.hak renamed to EMS.hak), Harm should do the same damage it normally does. I checked the Act IV Part 3 Harm script (NW_S0_Harm) and it is changed very slightly, I assume to accommodate the subrace system (Shayan's Subrace Engine allows undead subraces).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

EMS itself is using 3.5e harm/heal  (10 hp/level, up to 150 hp). But it is possible that Savant added some additional changes.

 

AFAIK, Savant used numbers of his original scripts to bug-fix and re-balance EMS. IIRC, if you just add EMS.hak into some other module, ability enhancement spells such as Bull's Strength or Endurance don't work at all. But they do work in Aielund Saga. Some other spells are more or less different from their pure-EMS versions.

thats odd, you cant override script from hak in module, so either Aeilund has modified EMS without these spells or the specific Aeilund changes doesnt work at all.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_alordofchaos]

               

Hi everyone! On the old vault, there was a really awesome player made walk through for The Aielund Saga. Does anyone still have that they could send to me, or post to the new vault?

That would help me as well. Just started replaying this, I'm at the ending Act 2, I can't find the painting in the house to the NW in the Senate District. There was a painting in the Augusus Johnson mansion to the NW, but it did not trigger a convo with Sparky about the painting, didn't  think that was it. I went through every house in the Senate District with an opening door (accidentally found teh flawless diamond before triggering the quest, and sold it through the convo).

 

I spoke with Desmond a the University and had him open the portal. Followed him through to the Ethereal Plane, but there was no gold dragon there... just Desmond, and his only convo is, "we're here, go ahead and speak with him" - and there's no way to return.  Have tried several times but the gold dragon is never there.

 

Finally, at the end in the castle... from the conversations after rescuing the Princess, I decided to take back all the gear from teh NPCs when it was clear they were leaving. Even after filling all the bags of holding I had, inventory was full. Wouldn't be a problem, except after I told the Princess I was ready, there was a script to unequip my items before going to the cutscene of the ceremony. Since inventory was full, my best upgraded weapon and shield got dropped, with no opportunity to pick them up before module 3 loaded. Need an opportunity to sell items or buy one more bag of holding (or even a plain backpack/box).  Since the only way to get into the castle is through the sewer after a convo with Sparky (who vanishes, IIRC), I suspect if I leave to sell, I won't be allowed back in.

 

BTW - thank you for continuing to work on this module!  When I decided to get back into this, I was devastated to see the old Vault gone, thrilled to find the new vault, and even happier to find people are still actively working on things.