Planning to modify RDD a bit

[Legacy_Grani]

               

Its pretty hard to deal with even if you have NWNX, I always used fix NPC not automatic correction.

 

I see. Well, as I said, I'm not planning on enforcing this with any scripts.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Another possibility is to remove "dragon abilities" completely and give the class 8 great strength feats, 2 great constitution feats, 2 great intelligence feats, and 2 great charisma feats spread out as you would.  This would mean that the character would not benefit from investing in any of these great ability feats until the progression has finished awarding the last one (as any later ones would coincide with the one you were taking). It also means that the max strength increase from feats would be 10 instead of 15.  But if you are rewarding for going higher levels, you could conceivably have the class go all the way up to great strength X in its epic levels.  (e.g. giving one great strength for every 2 RDD achieves great strength X at level 20).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

Another possibility is to remove "dragon abilities" completely and give the class 8 great strength feats, 2 great constitution feats, 2 great intelligence feats, and 2 great charisma feats spread out as you would.  This would mean that the character would not benefit from investing in any of these great ability feats until the progression has finished awarding the last one (as any later ones would coincide with the one you were taking). It also means that the max strength increase from feats would be 10 instead of 15.  But if you are rewarding for going higher levels, you could conceivably have the class go all the way up to great strength X in its epic levels.  (e.g. giving one great strength for every 2 RDD achieves great strength X at level 20).

 

That's another good strategy, though I'd prefer to mess with feat progression as little as possible, so I think I'd rather do it the way Shadooow suggested, utilizing PC skins.

MM's way of doing it with extraordinary penalties seems to require more effort to implement (spell modifications, "temple heal" script modification, etc) while using an item property seems to achieve what I need the easy way.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy__Guile]

               I'm afraid without nwnx_funcs.dll & nwnx2  you are going to run into a lot of issues, because you will need to actually remove the Abilities/Feats/etc. & Apply the Abilities/Feats/etc. at level up & if you have a relevel script, then you will need to remove those things as well (if they are allowed to relevel at all)....

Just trust me on this one Grani, you are in for a MOTHER LOAD of work here...


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

I'm afraid without nwnx_funcs.dll & nwnx2 you are going to run into a lot of issues, because you will need to actually remove the Abilities/Feats/etc. & Apply the Abilities/Feats/etc. at level up & if you have a relevel script, then you will need to remove those things as well (if they are allowed to relevel at all).... Just trust me on this one Grani, you are in for a MOTHER LOAD of work here...

 

I'm not planning on allowing releveling of any kind in my module. I'll just add ability penalties via PC skin on some of RDD level-ups and then lift them gradually after more levels.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

MM's way of doing it with extraordinary penalties seems to require more effort to implement (spell modifications, "temple heal" script modification, etc) while using an item property seems to achieve what I need the easy way.

 

The item property method has several issues (at least by default).

 

1, you need to be careful with the creature skin, which includes everything from new skins to polymorphing to subraces.

 

2, if the skin has more properties beyond these penalties, it's more work to make sure you're only removing the correct item properties on the skin.  With effects you can just remove based on something like tag.

 

3, you cannot give an AC penalty of anything besides deflection AC (or bonus, of course).  *** Ignore the first half -- can give penalty to any AC you want apparently though bonus is still limited to deflection.***

 

4, you cannot give an AB or damage penalty (or bonus).

 

Perhaps in your case if all you want to do is add a strength penalty to RDDs then the skin may be easier, but as part of a broader system it's far more problematic.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

The item property method has several issues (at least by default).

 

1, you need to be careful with the creature skin, which includes everything from new skins to polymorphing to subraces.

 

2, if the skin has more properties beyond these penalties, it's more work to make sure you're only removing the correct item properties on the skin.  With effects you can just remove based on something like tag.

 

3, you cannot give an AC penalty of anything besides deflection AC (or bonus, of course).

 

4, you cannot give an AB or damage penalty (or bonus).

 

Perhaps in your case if all you want to do is add a strength penalty to RDDs then the skin may be easier, but as part of a broader system it's far more problematic.

 

I see your point, but as you said, the only thing I need to adjust is RDD's ability scores.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

The item property method has several issues (at least by default).

 

1, you need to be careful with the creature skin, which includes everything from new skins to polymorphing to subraces.

 

2, if the skin has more properties beyond these penalties, it's more work to make sure you're only removing the correct item properties on the skin.  With effects you can just remove based on something like tag.

 

3, you cannot give an AC penalty of anything besides deflection AC (or bonus, of course).

 

4, you cannot give an AB or damage penalty (or bonus).

 

Perhaps in your case if all you want to do is add a strength penalty to RDDs then the skin may be easier, but as part of a broader system it's far more problematic.

clarify:

1 - sort of true, but polymorph replace PC skin with new skin so its not a problem, the PC skin from 1.69 will be stored in a local variable on player so you can always access it and modify it with easy even if player is polymorphed

2 - indeed, you need to track variables on PC/skin itself if you have multiple sources for these bonuses/penalties, actually with CPP 1.71 it sort of safe to use skin as a "persistent local variable storage item". Though there is one issue that needs 1.72beta to fix (full inventory+polymorph+relog+ILR or ELC on).

3 - not true, or maybe its available only in CPP? not sure but there is Decreased AC penatly which offers all types of AC.

4 - in vanilla you cant, but this property can be added (and is added in CPP (1.72beta i think) on skin) and works (though I recall some issue with stacking but that was probably enhancement penalty, while there is damage and attack penalty standalone)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

1 - sort of true, but polymorph replace PC skin with new skin so its not a problem, the PC skin from 1.69 will be stored in a local variable on player so you can always access it and modify it with easy even if player is polymorphed

 

Having to access it and modify it while polymorphed is like the definition of "needing to be careful," so it's completely true.  I didn't say it became impossible, merely that it was more involved than effects on that front.

 

3 - not true, or maybe its available only in CPP? not sure but there is Decreased AC penatly which offers all types of AC.

 

Oh, huh.  My bad, apparently you can apply AC penalties of multiple types.  I figured it was the reverse of Increased AC where it is only allowed to be of the type appropriate to the item.

 

4 - in vanilla you cant, but this property can be added (and is added in CPP (1.72beta i think) on skin) and works (though I recall some issue with stacking but that was probably enhancement penalty, while there is damage and attack penalty standalone)

 

Unless it works differently than the attack (not even enhancement, just attack) on weapons, it won't stack.  If you give a short sword +7 AB and +4 AB, you only get +7 AB total.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Stacking across items and stacking on the same item usually follow the same model as the spell ID restriction.  Multiple strength increases of the same spell ID will not stack, but they will stack if coming from different spell IDs.  With items multiple strength increase properties will not stack on the same item, but will across multiple items.  The dodge AC stacks, even with the same spell ID, and multiple dodge bonuses on boots stack with each other, even though it is the same item.  I think Shadooow means that the skin would stack with the item, which should be true if the game knows to look at the skin for the attack (for example the game will not look at the properties on an off-hand weapon for a main-hand weapon attack and vice versa).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Found the post explaining the issue. So attack/damage/enhancement penalties on skin works but removing the property by scripting will not remove the penalty (at least until relog) which for any kind of dynamic system (penalty on attack while mounted with ranged weapon) isnt really acceptable. But it might be usefull for monster skins etc. Or anytime you know you wont need to remove it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Shouldn't you also be able to fix this by unequipping (not destroying) the skin.  This issue also creeps up when trying to adjust polymorph weapons, and unpolymorphing has always seem to solve it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Would be useful to know.  The system I set up is definitely very dynamic.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

I think that removing the Dragon Abilities feat altogether (to remove hardcoded bonuses) and replacing it with "fake" Dragon Abilities that will grant such bonuses as permanent buffs (in a more customizable way than the original) would be quite practical.

First of all, I could spread these bonuses gain however I wish and it'd look better to players (it's always more motivating to see bonuses rather than penalties, isn't it?).

Second of all, they wouldn't count as base ability scores, so they wouldn't provide an easy way to Devastating Critical.

 

Still, there are several potential issues.

First one I've noted is that dragon wings seem to be associated with Dragon Abilities feat. When I tried to use a "fake" one, no wings appeared during level-ups. Now, this by itself is of little concern, since one can add wings easily via some OnLevelUp script, but is it possible that this feat is associated also with some other stuff? Well, I have no idea what it could be, but it doesn't hurt to ask. If by removing this feat altogether I'm also removing something else from RDD, then this idea is very bad.

 

Another question: since these bonuses won't count as actual scores when determining feat availability, do you think there are any feats that could RDD should (and by should I don't mean they do in unmodified NWN) be able to get but won't be able to?


Finally, if that's the case I think I could simply, at a given RDD level, when I want ability scores to reach maximum anyway, remove bonuses from "fake" Dragon Abilities and give RDD a real one, which would then allow PCs to take any strength-based feat they previously couldn't.

 

Thoughts?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

Oh, but I'd rather get rid of the original Dragon Abilities completely, since this grants additionally another very nice thing - no more bugged delevelling for RDDs.

 

Edit: Right, sorry for double-posting, but I was on my phone and couldn't find "Edit" option in this mobile version at all.