Innocuous Familiars

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

You said you were going away, so I wasn't expecting an instant reply - don't worry...

 

There are a lot of Animal characters in my Modules who are just as eloquent (more so in some cases) than many of the allegedly civilized NPCs. All the "higher" Animals in Demoness Tales can express themselves, at least to a empathic Demoness, perfectly well, so I've got nothing lying around in terms of icons for feats, spells, etc, though they should be easy enough to create...

 

I DO have some (reasonably small) Lizards in a dusty old file somewhere, various different species... And I have a PHoD type Hellhound - I mean, a Demoness HAS to have a Big Dog... I don't know whether it might be of use for a Hellhound familiar - though it's twice the size or more of BioWare's and A LOT more menacing... I'll see what else I can turn up in musty old corners when I've got these darned Spleens sorted out...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

Henesua, Any progress? You had mentioned releasing a version with your later Lyra additions before you got to far along. Anyway, I'm about to merge in the first part of this. I like the small mouse, I may use that for normal size rats in places, too. Not all of them need to be ROUSes...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I'll shift over to this. I've been a bit encumbered by real life lately but with the boys back in school next week I should have some time.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

Hey, thanks. Not trying to direct your time '> 

 

NWNX version sounds good. I may reverse hack it to have one template or something just to work in non-nwnx testing, but removing all the extra templates and having the ability to grab any suitable creature would be cool.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Started making progress on creating the blueprints for an update this morning. I am creating 11 base familiars so that this system can more cleanly replace the default situation. This however required custom content for the animals. I will be sharing other people's animal models, and rolo's mounted VFX this time around. Once I get the blueprints done I should be able to post the update. This means that my work now involves balancing the abilities of each familiar. I probably won't get it right. I'll do my best. It is much easier to do this with a move skill system and custom skills, but that is beyond the scope of this project I think. I'll leave it up to you to tweak the ifamiliar.2da and the script which levels up skills to add additional skills if you want.

 

Here's the list of starting familiars:

0  Bat

1  Cat   _{(new models)}

2  Dog

3  Snake   _{(new models)}

4  Rabbit _{(new models)}

5  Frog _{(new models)}

6  Weasel _{(new model)}

7  Crow _{(new model)}

8  Seagull

9  Lizard _{(new models)}

10 Mouse _{(new model)}

 

_{--edit-- added some of hydromancers vipers for additional snake models.}

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

Looking forward to it! I may add back as extras some of the others. Always had a soft spot for a pseudo-dragon familiar. Probably make a wizard go on a quest to get something like that though...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

yeah, and i was thinking of adding it too. pseudo-dragon and pixie seem like natural add ons for the special familiars.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

As hinted at above, I'm also working on additional special familiars. These are familiars that you are unable to choose on levelup, but can target with the Bind Familiar spell. When these familiars die they get used up, and you need to bind a new one. This enables a DM to hide special familiars like a resource for wizards to hunt for which was the whole point for me to create this system in the first place.

 

Special Familiars so far:

• Dire Rat


• Parrot


• Viper


• Falcon


• Imp


• Pseudodragon


• Pixie

I'm considering a bunch more too.

 

--EDIT--

While all that might sound great, there is one complication to this. Special familiars require special abilities, and for that I need to add new entries to a number of 2das and the TLK to get all the spells, item properties, and feats that they will use. I'll simply charge ahead, and once i get to the end consider how I release this. I may release a stripped down package with no specials so that the 2DA impact is minimal. This will be the final iteration of version 1.

 

After this I'll be moving on to creating an NWNX solution for myself which goes off in a a totally different direction - "version 2" - but not likely something I will release. I have already created a halfway NWNX solution which operates in a similar fashion as version 1 but relies much less on creature properties to customize them. NWNX_FUNCS enables you to adjust hitpoints, skills, and abilities directly which makes the whole thing work quite seamlessly and is superior to the hacks i pulled off with this. In anycase, if this halfway solution is interesting to someone, I'd be happy to hand over the code and let you run with it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

i wasted time making a pixie bow with unlimited sleep arrow ammo, and then trying to get a pixie familiar to equip it. i was able to get them to equip it if i changed the shortbow base item to equippable as a creature weapon, but the pixie would still not actually use the bow.

 

So after all that, i'm dropping that and just going with new spells for pixies instead of sleep arrows.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

what about sling or darts? that might be possible to equip

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

As long as the weapon is equipable in a creature item slot, the familiar will equip it. But I was unable to get the familiar to use it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Hmm there might be in effect default AI and ranged setting, but if you put this item into familiar hand in blueprint and you won't give him other weapon it should work, at least with sling. Default AI is not able to use throwing weapons at all due to the bug in code so even if you put them darts into right hand he will unequip it anyway thinking "i don't have ammo for this ranged weapon"

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_meaglyn]

               

I'd be interested in the nwnx version. I'd probably be interested in the version 2 you are not releasing too. But I can run with the other part. Does that version have the new familiars you've listed?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

The Version 2 is just vaporware at this point, i've screwed around with the idea of it but not progressed. The goal would be to eliminate all the 2das and blueprints if possible. The plan is to stick a bound creature in the DB, spawning it when the familiar is "summoned". This would result in a very simplified advancement for familiars, but make familiar creation very easy since any creature on the palette could potentially be flagged as a potential familiar. But as I said this is vaporware.

 

As to the NWNXified alternate to what I am working on now, it does have changes to 2das and blueprints so it is not really comptible, but I will share it with you. Since NWNX_FUNCS allows you to adjust feats, skills, stats and hitpoints by script it really changed what I was doing with blueprints. In fact I think it is much superior for that reason. You don't need to load up a million bonuses to stats and skills on the familiar. You just adjust the character's stats directly.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

This has taken longer than it should because I've been doing other things. But I've worked these out and done some testing. Any comments on the abilities and benefits? Note that special familiars are not balanced because it is up to the builder to make them available. The player can not select these at level up. Instead they must find them in play.

 

Special Familiar List:

• Creature Master's Benefit   [Special Abilities]


• Dire Rat  +2 move, and hide   [Disease causing bite]


• Parrot +2 bluff, persuade   [Flies, Bite]


• Viper +2 bluff, persuade   [Pass Door, Poison Bite]


• Falcon +2 spot, intimidate  [Flies, Claws, Bite]


• Imp +2 Intelligence  [Flies, Magic Missile*, Invisibility*, Poison Sting]


• Pseudodragon 18 SR   [Flies, Poison Sting, Hide In Plain Sight, True Sight]


• Pixie  See Invisibility   [Flies, Sleep Dagger, Hide In Plain Sight, Confusion*, Dispel Magic*, Knock*]


• Hell Hound   8 DR Fire  [Fire Breath*]


• Panther   +2 move, and hide  [Sneak Attack, Claw, Bite]


• Raven   +2 lore, spellcraft  [Flies, Bite]


• Quasit +2 Charisma  [Flies, Fear Gaze*, Invisibility*, Poison Claw, Bite]

* - Spell like ability which draws on creature's spell pool. Size of spell pool varies per familiar. Pixie and Imp use spellcraft ranks or charisma bonus, Hell hound uses discipline ranks or constitution bonus.

 

I am still thinking about making some more such as a panther (stealth and sneak attacks), a quasit (causes alignment shift like the Imp but is CE), faerie dragon (confusion breath),