Bosses With Placeable Appearances?

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

I have a multi phased boss encounter that I am designing. In which I need to spawn in four pillars which need to be destroyed before the boss spawns.

 

From what I remember, placeables in NWN cannot achieve any defense or HP. So I thought I would just make an invisible creature and change it's appearance to that of a cool placeable pillar or statue. SetCreatureAppearance seems to only accomodate original creature appearances.

 

How can I achieve this? The pillars need to be pushing the limits of  the game engine for effective hit points. They will be getting pounded with thousands of damage per second.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Thayan]

               

There are no pillar creature appearances unless you make them via custom content (hak).

 

However, you can make pillar placeables useable and attack-able and give them hardness (DR) and saving throws up to 250, and hit points up to 10000. Even though the Lexicon says otherwise, you can use the EffectHeal() function in the placeable's OnDamaged event as well. That allows you to do something like: every time it sustains damage, you can store that amount as a variable, and then heal that amount of damage on the placeable. So long as nothing does more than 10000 hit points of damage to it in one shot, you can keep a placeable around indefinitely this way - or at least as long as you need until it has sustained the total amount of damage you want it to take before being destroyed.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

Yep I considered testing a placeable that has pseudo healing like this. But it's a last resort. Hoping to find a NWNX workaround or something.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

What about just spawning in a creature, then applying permanent stoneskin VFX and Cutscene Immobilze to emulate a statue? lol

 

Also ISO a code block to spawn 12 plot monsters in a circle around this pillar, all using the same blueprint.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Have you considered maybe something like a static/unusable placeable and then an invisible creature right next to to it?  Might not line up perfectly but might be sufficient for you.

 

The stoneskin thing is another option.

If you want a way to allow massive amounts of damage to be taken, might I suggest this system?  Allows for up to a little over two billion HP total if needed and as long as no more than about 2500 damage per second is done the player will never notice a difference.  Can help you configure it if you want.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

I think my monk wm deals around 2500-3000 dps. I considered this option too. Ill chk that link out, Aventia 3 has been running into bad HP overflow problems with monsters and players alike. Thanks.

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Sadira of Tyr]

               

We have destroyable dragon statues on our server, and they can take a long time to destroy. What you can do is draw a trigger around your pillers. Once a player enters this trigger, a script applies various supernatural effects to the pillers. Use effects like damage resistance, damage immunity, damage reduction, or other effects like that. These effects will work on placeables, and make them much harder to destroy. I can post one of our scripts if you want, which works just fine. The script fires at the end of a conversation, but that is easy to change. What the script does is remove the plot flag from the statues, then it applies the effects. It works quite well, and should be suitable for what you are doing. With the pillers at 10000 hp, and 90% or 100 % damage immunities, you should achieve what you are wanting. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

if u can assure me effects will apply to placeables, then it would be worth the time trying it. i havent  had the time to test it out yet. Definitely wouldnt mind seeing your code.  

 

Combining effects and that cool HP system u can make some godly monsters now '> 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               If you want to make a creature with a placeable appearance, put the placeable model on a new line in appearance.2da.

The other parameters aren't too hard to figure out, but you can take a shortcut by copying from examples, such as the CEP armour stand "creature". Instead of walkmesh, you use perspace & creperspace to make it unwalkable. The default speed will be "immobile".

In the toolset, you can delete most of the scripts, to nerf the AI.

I've no experience of massive damage capabilities, so I can't say whether this is better or worse than a placeable solution.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Sadira of Tyr]

               

if u can assure me effects will apply to placeables, then it would be worth the time trying it. i havent  had the time to test it out yet. Definitely wouldnt mind seeing your code.  
 
Combining effects and that cool HP system u can make some godly monsters now '>

I would post it, but this silly forum will not let me copy paste from the toolset or from notepad.

Here are a few lines:

oTarget = GetObjectByTag("your_placeable");
SetPlotFlag(oTarget, FALSE);
eEffect = SupernaturalEffect(EffectDamageResistance(DAMAGE_TYPE_SLASHING, 15));
ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT, effect, oTarget);

This will work on placeables, for all damage types. EffectDamageImmunity will work as well.

Not all effects will work on placeables, but damage resistances and damage immunities do work.

Immunity to death does not work however, so the following spells would have to be modified to not work on placeables: wail of the banshee, destruction, and harm. Those are the only spells which will destroy a placeable.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

If you want to make a creature with a placeable appearance, put the placeable model on a new line in appearance.2da.


The other parameters aren't too hard to figure out, but you can take a shortcut by copying from examples, such as the CEP armour stand "creature". Instead of walkmesh, you use perspace & creperspace to make it unwalkable. The default speed will be "immobile".


In the toolset, you can delete most of the scripts, to nerf the AI.


I've no experience of massive damage capabilities, so I can't say whether this is better or worse than a placeable solution.

 

Using a creature will always be better than a placeable. A placeable object isn't subject to quite a few combat mechanics, such as whirlwind, curse song, taunt, etc. 

 

Thanks a lot for mentioning this 2da edit!!! I just saw that armor stand creature in the toolset last night and got to thinking about this. That would be a server side edit only right?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

I would post it, but this silly forum will not let me copy paste from the toolset or from notepad.

 

oTarget = GetObjectByTag("your_placeable");

SetPlotFlag(oTarget, FALSE);

eEffect = SupernaturalEffect(EffectDamageResistance(DAMAGE_TYPE_SLASHING, 15));

ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT, effect, oTarget);

 

 normal bbcode tags work? [.code][./code]  w/o periods obv.

 

Anyways, I cannot use placeables, they do not represent a creature well enough to use them as a boss. Yah I didnt think all effects worked. I used to try casting regenerate on these hanging bag placeables we used to exploit for xp. They would spawn like 6 snakes every time it was dmged  '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SKIPPNUTTZ]

               

Thanks for input guys. I ended up using this Jubilex appearance or w/e with immobility, running a routine on each combat round.... Combined with MagicalMaster's HP system.