Do you cheat?

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Ability scores have an 8 bit looping range (from 0 to 255)

 

Total damage has a 14 bit looping range (from 0 to 16383)

 

I can give more numbers, but basically if the number for any stacking quantity gets too high, the game will cause it to loop.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Saving throws on the other hand don't. Some quirky stuff with the upper boundaries of this game.

 

Saving throws do support higher numbers, however the display will give incorrect feedback (including success and failure messages), and MySavingThrow() will cap the number if used.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

Total damage has a 14 bit looping range (from 0 to 16383)

 

I can give more numbers, but basically if the number for any stacking quantity gets too high, the game will cause it to loop.

 {y}

 

I need a good utility to read this game's files '> I always looked in leto at what the data types are stored as, but it doesnt have everything. Thanks! Gosh .... 16383 is small. Is this total allowed damage in a single application of a melee hit? Including crit multiplier.

 

Are onhitcastuniquepower or other similar onhit spell effects the only way to circumvent this limitation?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

 {y}

 

I need a good utility to read this game's files '> I always looked in leto at what the data types are stored as, but it doesnt have everything. Thanks! Gosh .... 16383 is small. Is this total allowed damage in a single application of a melee hit? Including crit multiplier.

 

Are onhitcastuniquepower or other similar onhit spell effects the only way to circumvent this limitation?

 

Yeah 16383 is the highest single application of damage allowed, so critical hits will loop (typically causing less damage) if you are already doing close to this amount.  On-hits can of course cause a number of separate applications of damage.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

For instance, in the notes for Sands of Fate, the author mentions that he has written the secret door checks to give a bonus to PCs who have true sight

 

Which is the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a patch/update for the module, so that's a bug fix if anything, certainly not cheating.  You weren't deliberately changing the game to give yourself an unfair advantage.

 

Sure I could just keep hitting the quick save key, but yeah there goes that precious immersion right out the window, when I keep having to worry about losing my progress.

 

I suppose I question whether magically having the ability to always respawn and continuously wear down an enemy in that manner is less immersion breaking.  To me it would be more immersion breaking.

 

Authors can also make specific challenges that are meant to be beaten in one go and not just respawned through to eliminate any sense of challenge -- and that's certainly not limited to NWN, you see it all the times in other RPGs (including Bioware games like the ME and DA series) along with things like MMO and some FPSes.

 

In one of my modules, for example, you need to beat a series of scripted bosses.  If you die on the boss fight, you can respawn and try again...but the boss also resets and heals to full HP and regains their abilities (because you died and they took the opportunity to rest/rejuvenate while you made your way back to them).


I take it that would severely frustrate/bother you?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

For instance, in the notes for Sands of Fate, the author mentions that he has written the secret door checks to give a bonus to PCs who have true sight

Which is the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a patch/update for the module, so that's a bug fix if anything, certainly not cheating. You weren't deliberately changing the game to give yourself an unfair advantage.

And that's certainly the way that I think about it; it's just an improvement or refinement that the author would have made himself if he had the time. (Even though it does give the PC an advantage, albeit a minor one.) However, you can see that that sort of thinking can get slippery. Who's to say that what other things that I might conveniently think of as improvements that the author would have obviously included if he had the time? ;-)
 

[...] Sure I could just keep hitting the quick save key, but yeah there goes that precious immersion right out the window, when I keep having to worry about losing my progress.

I suppose I question whether magically having the ability to always respawn and continuously wear down an enemy in that manner is less immersion breaking. To me it would be more immersion breaking.

I think that icywind1980 was implying that playing while having to keep in mind to hit the save key every few minutes or whatever is what was immersion-breaking. That is, the real player has to remain sufficiently conscious of the real world to keep briefly interrupting his play to do something specific to running a program on his computer. And, it's something that the toon knows nothing about and that isn't part of the story.

Whether or not the respawn is more or less immersion breaking than a reload depends a bit on the story, but I would generally think that the respawn is less immersion breaking. And, modules with well-integrated respawns (like early in Aielund where the respawning toon meets Salinder) would likely increase immersion. And, even a standard temple respawn can fit in well with most magical worlds, at least the toon would know that he died and was brought back. There really isn't much of an in-story rationale for reloading a saved game, unless there is some sort of time-travel theme in the module.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               

 {y}

 

I need a good utility to read this game's files '> I always looked in leto at what the data types are stored as, but it doesnt have everything. Thanks! Gosh .... 16383 is small. Is this total allowed damage in a single application of a melee hit? Including crit multiplier.

 

 

 

This is not hard to mitigate. If someone ever does exceed this threshold, the game world developer can easily break down the dmg into multiple types which will never hit this cap if scaled appropiately for the world...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               

P.S. "Gosh".... that's funny.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               

P.P.S. For example in our world. We modified dev crit, to instead of being instant death, do dmg based off their str modifier and weapon crit multiplier. We have folks over lvl 1000 (granted no dev critters that high) and haven't experienced this yet. But if we ever did (dev critter or otherwise) whichever ability was causing this rollover, could be easily broken down into multiple dmg types that would never individually break that threshold.

 

E.G. Greater ruin does more than 16k? Simply change the scrip to do 8k+ Pos dmg, and 8k+ (any other dmg type) at that level, and problem solved.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               

I don't personally see this as an issue for high lvl/dmg modules., given the above.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

Well its very simple to fix Greater Ruin and Dev Crit in your examples, of course. They are spell scripts applied onhit that take seconds to type.  It becomes more difficult when one wants to breakdown all the damage potential within an actual melee swing. Im still not even exactly sure about all of the variables. Sneak attacks, massive criticals, str modifier, improved power attack, divine might, etc. These forms of damage all get added to the melee hit, but some aren't effected by critical multiplier. One should probably do ALL the math for potential/hypothetical dps. I've heard rumor of physical dmg caps via magical sources at ~100, another facet I really don't know enough about to accurately complete these equations.

 

We reached this same singularity in the diablo2 engine in Median XL, my mage in that game was doing literally like 0 dmg. Almost all damage increasing modifiers across the entire game had to be reduced to prevent overflowing damage per frame. Luckily aurora is a little more forgiving. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

I've heard rumor of physical dmg caps via magical sources at ~100, another facet I really don't know enough about to accurately complete these equations.

 

The 100 cap is for the sum of all physical damage increases plus the damage bonuses on the item.  It does not include power attack, sneak attack, etc.

The 16383 looping is done after all the damages are added together, so it applies to everything.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

Yah that is what I gathered. Thanks for the clarification Whizard. So 40d20 bludg/40d20pierce/40d20slash weapon can only reach 100 physical dmg. An interesting limitation considering all energy constants don't have this.