Community Patch discussion and development thread

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

your wrong, there is also Heal Me command and "Stand your ground" command which is what im talking about

 

Normally associate is doing nothing if you order this, but under certain circumnstances this doesnt work - I am using familiar as a meat shield for a creature currently held in bigby, to gain extra few seconds to recast if the creature releases. However unless i spam this command, my familiar once in a while tries to attack the creature which results in instant death and me losing the meat shield '> .

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               

your wrong, there is also Heal Me command and "Stand your ground" command which is what im talking about

 

Normally associate is doing nothing if you order this, but under certain circumnstances this doesnt work - I am using familiar as a meat shield for a creature currently held in bigby, to gain extra few seconds to recast if the creature releases. However unless i spam this command, my familiar once in a while tries to attack the creature which results in instant death and me losing the meat shield '> .

 

I know about heal, but i really don't remember that "stand your ground" command '>

 

Well, in that case within NWN, "stand your ground" could be made so that the AI is prevented from moving at all - but that it will try and attack targets within it's range of spells/attacks (depending on melee or ranged weapons).

 

Seems to me that, if your comp/hench is just standing still without trying to attack enemies (without moving), he is just loosing out on various defensive stuff (like dodge, flat footed and other things) plus he is not doing any damage.

 

So the Stand Your Ground could be: AI can not move BUT can try and attack enemies within it's melee/ranged capability.

 

Or, if you think such a command would be really useful, the Stand Your Ground could make the AI stand completely still without doing anything - seems like a very situational (limited use) mode though :/

 

Sometimes i would love to put my pet/hench in the doorway (door) that leads into a room, so that it does not move from the door (thus blocking the door) while attacking any enemy that approaches the doorway (while my wizard is casting spells behind the companion/hench.

 

Edit: i have only 2 luskan save games '>

 

http://wikisend.com/...d/412716/Luskan Troubles.rar

 

3 files in there:

Save named 20 is somewhere in chapter 2 BEFORE luskan, if you want to see the entire Luskan from my wizard's point of view.

Save named 21 is somewhere within luskan.

Save named 22 is somewhere a bit later in luskan.

 

There should be plenty of "rat form" bandits still alive in save 21 and 22 - but if there are none, try reaching Luskan from the save game 20, it should be easy and fast.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               I always thought that 'stand your ground' is a defensive command, where henchmen would stay where they are nut move and attack (defend) should an enemy come too close
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

I always thought that 'stand your ground' is a defensive command, where henchmen would stay where they are nut move and attack (defend) should an enemy come too close

Yes thats definitely how its intented. However, it doesn't work very well. Maybe I'll find a better way how to make it, but at this moment I haven't, so thats why Im asking whether not attacking in this mode at all is viable or not.

 

It gets messed up in a situation where the henchman was attacked by a spell or ranged attack and the creature that performed this attack is still alive, but no matter that this happened 5 round ago.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               

I honestly never used the current "Stand your Ground" command.

 

What i can imagine the "new" Stand your Ground being often useful for is the "block the door" tactic where your hench/companion blocks the door (by standing in/on it) and defends himself while you safely cast spells from behind your hench/companion.

 

If it is too hard/difficult to make it properly work, then i guess you can make the companion just stand there and not defend himself.

 

However, aside from looking really silly, it seems like a big waste for the henchmen/companion to be NOT attacking...

 

A lot of companions/henchmen do quite a good amount of melee damage (especially the barbarian and monk henchmen), and it would be a shame if their damage is not used in the Stand your Ground command (without moving).

 

I don't know much about programming, but would it be a simple solution for the companion/hench to enter a "Stand Ground" mode when you order it to "Stand Your Ground" - which would afflict it with a buff that reduces it's movement speed by a 100% (which would prevent it's movement)?

Either that or perhaps it would apply a "root/ensnare" effect that prevents movement, but does not apply penalties like flat footed and the loss of AC/dodge/mobility (or whatever)?

 

Either way the stand your ground command could be useful, especially if the hench/companion can attack (without moving) - but i honestly do not see it being used all that often.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

However, aside from looking really silly, it seems like a big waste for the henchmen/companion to be NOT attacking...

 

A lot of companions/henchmen do quite a good amount of melee damage (especially the barbarian and monk henchmen), and it would be a shame if their damage is not used in the Stand your Ground command (without moving).

Thats because you play only single player modules which are almost always made for new characters at lvl 1 and ends before you reach lvl 20.

 

Because in more epic adventures (and persistant worlds which almost always offer 20+lvl areas), animals and familiars are almost useless, their ab is low, their damage sucks and their ac is next to zero, not to mention they lacks tumble so they always provoke attack of opportunity when getting close to enemies and this almost always also switch the enemy focus from you to animal which results in instant death of animal and waste of his damage (in a situation where you can buff your animal (druid) and you are fighting an enemy with very low ab). Personally I use this command very very often usually to keep my familiar/animal alive. Or to disallow my familiar (I use the butterfly) to waste his confusion bolt special ability - he doesn't know the enemy I am fighting is immune so if I don't stop him, he will use it and waste it.

 

Btw, good idea with immobility. This solution would work if wouldnt be another bug in engine - immobile creatures are acting as if they didnt possess any talent at all, allowing them only normal attack but not cast spells.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

also, when really immobile, henchmen couldn't defend against a ranged attacker or mage.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

also, when really immobile, henchmen couldn't defend against a ranged attacker or mage.

Which is a question whether is this preferred or not. You order him to stay and he moves off the second he is target of a (relatively) harmless spell.

 

Imagine a situation that there are multiple stacked epic traps in a corridor and you must disarm them while you are attacked by ranged creatures on the opposite side. In such situation, you must spam "stay" command like hell otherwise your associate will run into traps and gets you both killed.

 

I know how to make hench switch to ranged in this situation, but its quite problematic with spellcasters as various spells has different ranges and if he picked something with short range he could move towards his target. I really think the immobility is a best way to enforce this, regardless of the talent issue.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               

Since the Stand Your Ground seems to be used exclusively in the high difficulty custom made worlds (and pretty much never in the original campaigns), it is probably logical to make the companion/henchmen be completely passive (no spells, no attacks, no movement) when the Stand Your Ground command is triggered.

 

I just hope that the new Stand Your Ground you are going to make (passive companion/henchmen) will not have issues working with the recent fixes you implemented to the AI (passive AI bug fix and healing improvement).

 

Small off-topic question:

 

In the latest 1.71 CPP when making a Melee-combat "paladin+champTorm" or "cleric+champTorm", is it better to max on strength and take a bit of charisma (for example without buffs/gear, 14 charisma and max level-up strength) - or is it better to take a bit of strength and max charisma (14-16 strength and max lvl-up charisma)?

 

I know paladin/champTorm has a lot of damage boosting stuff that relies on charisma (especially epic great smiting?), but i am not sure how good it is compared to just going for massive strength and all those fancy high (and epic) level strength dependent feats like overwhelming crits?

 

Also, for a melee character, should i go cleric+Torm or paladin+torm?

Cleric has cool spells/buffs but paladin has a higher BAB and paladin levels stack with torm levels for various torm feats (unlike cleric levels).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Small off-topic question:

 

In the latest 1.71 CPP when making a Melee-combat "paladin+champTorm" or "cleric+champTorm", is it better to max on strength and take a bit of charisma (for example without buffs/gear, 14 charisma and max level-up strength) - or is it better to take a bit of strength and max charisma (14-16 strength and max lvl-up charisma)?

 

I know paladin/champTorm has a lot of damage boosting stuff that relies on charisma (especially epic great smiting?), but i am not sure how good it is compared to just going for massive strength and all those fancy high (and epic) level strength dependent feats like overwhelming crits?

 

Also, for a melee character, should i go cleric+Torm or paladin+torm?

Cleric has cool spells/buffs but paladin has a higher BAB and paladin levels stack with torm levels for various torm feats (unlike cleric levels).

opinions vary, but I would take rather more strength as especially when you play OC, you dont need the divine shield/might last very long, the fights there are short usually

 

cleric/torm or paladin/torm? I guess what you like most, in a single player environment, paladin is very viable as well. (On PWs clerics are usually way better choice and the more nerfed is it, the better choice)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Checked your savegame.

 

Sap issue: thats not CPP issue, it happens in vanilla as well and it is intent - they has Sap feat and they can use it. The reason why you havent seen this before is that they will use it only under specific circumstances - specifically when your AC is very very low. Which 9 really is. As far as CPP fixes goes: I can imagine some code to prevent creatures to spam Sap so often.

 

Spells: I dont have this problem in my game when I load your save. The only their protection is evasion, I guess they just rolled high numbers. Or tell me exactly what it reports, spells has feedback.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bogdanov89]

               

Checked your savegame.

 

Sap issue: thats not CPP issue, it happens in vanilla as well and it is intent - they has Sap feat and they can use it. The reason why you havent seen this before is that they will use it only under specific circumstances - specifically when your AC is very very low. Which 9 really is. As far as CPP fixes goes: I can imagine some code to prevent creatures to spam Sap so often.

 

Spells: I dont have this problem in my game when I load your save. The only their protection is evasion, I guess they just rolled high numbers. Or tell me exactly what it reports, spells has feedback.

 

Thank you for checking out my save games.

 

When you said that the rats have really high saves, especially reflex and evasion - i thought that must be it, since most of my spells are reflex check for damage!

The other creatures (some zombies i think) also were kinda resistant, but not so much.

 

That must be it as well as far as Sap goes - last time i was in luskan i played a warrior/weapon master (and before that a paladin) in heaviest armor, so my AC was probably very high and the rats probably never tried Sap.

 

Also i have forgotten completely to mention that, near the end of luskan, i found out that the dispel magic was able to remove the Rat Form - thus eliminating a lot of their defenses...

 

Well i am relieved that there are no bugs... but that limitation on spamming Sap would be nice if possible (i am not sure is it worth the effort).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Also i have forgotten completely to mention that, near the end of luskan, i found out that the dispel magic was able to remove the Rat Form - thus eliminating a lot of their defenses...

OC bug. At this moment this is not a CPP focus...

 

 

Few new features I managed to make:

- SetItemCharges will be able to set more than 50, I managed to increase the limit to 150

- Implemented and enabled the Boomerang itemproperty. This itemproperty was defined in 2DA files but never worked. Now it will work, only with NWNX though.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_doomknight34]

               

Is it possible to get the source code of the NWNX/NWNCX patch plugins you made?

Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but it seems like I've been ignored. Is the source for the plugins never going to be disclosed? It seems you got some really nice stuff going on and such but unlike regular NWNX plugins the source does not seem to be available. There's so many more features that can be built on if this is public - such as doing the same thing with allowing items to be used while polymorphed with a 2da check. Heck, I didn't even know you can make it so that it reads an extra column in a 2da, much less fathom the method. There's so many things you can expand on now, without pretty much reinventing the wheel (or finding one, aka the pointers) - such as allowing a 2da check to see if you can cast spells while polymorphed or expand on something more elaborate like making new cursors, additional metamagic, etc...

 

And tbh, what I'm saying is it'd be nice to make it public because as far as I'm aware there's not a lot of NWNCX resources available. The only other one I know besides the original "online fix" is the Sinfar NWNCX one. I assume it's not public, but I have not yet registered on their forums to see (likely not worth it as google cache on their forums doesn't show any evidence of a source code). I'm sure I'm not the only one who's interested in the src.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but it seems like I've been ignored. Is the source for the plugins never going to be disclosed? It seems you got some really nice stuff going on and such but unlike regular NWNX plugins the source does not seem to be available. There's so many more features that can be built on if this is public - such as doing the same thing with allowing items to be used while polymorphed with a 2da check. Heck, I didn't even know you can make it so that it reads an extra column in a 2da, much less fathom the method. There's so many things you can expand on now, without pretty much reinventing the wheel (or finding one, aka the pointers) - such as allowing a 2da check to see if you can cast spells while polymorphed or expand on something more elaborate like making new cursors, additional metamagic, etc...

 

And tbh, what I'm saying is it'd be nice to make it public because as far as I'm aware there's not a lot of NWNCX resources available. The only other one I know besides the original "online fix" is the Sinfar NWNCX one. I assume it's not public, but I have not yet registered on their forums to see (likely not worth it as google cache on their forums doesn't show any evidence of a source code). I'm sure I'm not the only one who's interested in the src.

Several reasons why I didnt provided source.

1. I cant use the github, tried it but I dont know how to commit new changes, how to upload my source. Too complicated and I dont want to start a new fork elsewhere - not even know what app would I use and how to set it up. The only way I see is that you teach me how to use github by logging into my computer with TeamViewer or something.

2. I dont like my plugin being ripped, redistributed or divided into several other plugins. But okay - I used the API from NWNX community so I am willing to set my pride aside and provide my sources back to that community.

these two points applies to both NWNX and NWNCX, the below points applies only to NWNCX

3. The client version is different. I did quite a lot things the hard way because nobody wanted to help me and provide me their own resources. It is true that I based my plugin on a source of one of the NWNCX plugins that virusman released, but the adressess and API took me incredible ammount of time because nobody shared their resources with me. And think what you want but when they havent shared, why should I?

4. Safety. While working on a NWNCX I found quite a lot of potentional exploits, hell even the adding counterspell into quickslot can be seen as an exploit and I was considering whether to even add it into my plugin or not. By releasing the source, these exploits might soon pop out.

5. I dont really like the way how NWNCX is done. From the start, I wanted to provide a new nwmain.exe without requiring the C++ redistributables, I dont think that plugin architecture has a sense for a client, or at least, the current plugins that virusman did could be all merged with my nwncx_patch into one plugin. But neither was allowed to me so Im working with what I have.

 

Thus, what I see as a solution is to provide source on inquiry with a certain conditions such as no redistribution. Or become a staff and I will give it to you in a expectation you will help me with additional features.