So in Worlds of Rhun (my PW)
I created something called the God/Deity System - which allows players to ascend to actual god status.
I scripted the system to change the entire gameplay experience for players.
They no longer become stronger with the accumulation of XP, infact- they can never acquire XP through traditional means.
God players acquire strength through faith.
Faith is an energy of sorts that is transmitted from followers (human players, or NPC (NPC's unique by tag)) to the God every in-game minute.
In Worlds of Rhun I had this figure at 5 faith per follower.
If you have 20 characters who are worshiping you, that's 100 faith + a base of 5 faith for yourself accumulated per minute.
What does Faith do?
Faith is used in two ways.
1. Sustain physical form
As a God, you can use the Faith of your followers to modify your physical form. You can give yourself NWN levels, ability score increases, skill increases.
Each NWN level costs 5 faith per minute (upkeep)
Each Ability Score increase, skill increase costs 1 faith per minute (upkeep)
So to maintain a level 20 God
You need 19 x 5 faith.
If you have 25 followers, that means you will have 26 (count yourself as the base +5 faith) x 5 faith coming in every 1 minute.
26 x 5 = 130 faith income
minus 19 x 5 = 95 faith
So 130 - 95 = a positive income of 35 faith per minute.
If however you try to level up too much, your income will turn negative and you will not be able to sustain your physical form.
This will cause your physical form to start breaking down in order of cost.
Starting with things like Invulnerability, Levels, to cheap things such as ability score increases and skills.
These things will start turning off until the Faith income returns to a positive level.
(Basically - it teaches the Deity to not over extend his power)
So - the other thing that faith can be used for is Divine Abilities.
2. Divine Abilities
Each God will have the ability to customize 10 Playertool feats to turn them into powers that reflect them as a God.
Eg: They can configure PlayerTool01 to be an Energy Blast that deals Medium damage of Fire Type (if they have Fire as a Portfolio)
Or they could configure PlayerTool01 to be a teleport/portal power - allowing them to teleport at will.
Each of these abilities will draw on the reserves of Divine Energy (faith) the God has accumulated.
These reserves will replenish by X per minute (where X is the income that remains after upkeep of physical form)
The balance here is that Gods will be able to be highly caster oriented, or they can be highly physical oriented.
But to have both, they need to be loved by many followers.
Anyway - I have ranted on a bit about my God System
Unfortunately my current God System is very much inbuilt into Worlds of Rhun, and relies upon some .Net libraries.
I am now trying to get motivated to create a Public Release - based on nwnx2_linux
Using jvm to handle much of the heavy lifting (benchmarking suggests that nwnx_jvm heartbeats might be better than nwscript hbs)
This public release will be basically an include file, some placeables, conversations, some nss files for spell/feat scripts etc
What I would like anyone who is interested to do:
Feel free to add more suggestions to the list of features I am planning.
(Many of these features area already done in my private version - so it is a case of porting them to Linux and decoupling them from Worlds of Rhun)
God System:
As a Deity
I should be able to acquire followers (Priest NPC's and Missionaries)
So I can become powerful
As a Deity
I should derive energy per followers (Heartbeat script to calculate income/outcome faith per min)
So I can be the most powerful
As a Deity
I should have control over my Powers (Complete configuration control over playertools01-10)
So I am unique amongst the gods
As a Deity
I should have my own Planar Home (Ability to spawn a Divine Realm area via nwnx_areas)
So I can be alone with my thoughts
As a Deity
I should have the ability to manipulate the dreams of players (Conversation that the player can write, which is played back to
so I can shape their destiny target players when they rest - eg: Speaking into their dreams)
As a Deity
I should have the ability to curse players with elemental powers (Select player via conversation, curse with elemental power)
So they may struggle to control the power within (for my amusement)
As a Deity
I should be able to go invisible (nwnx_visibility - go invisible to all but other gods?)
So no mortals can see or sense my presence
As a Deity
I should be able to change my shape (Control over portrait and possible shape change ability)
To walk amongst the mortals unnoticed
As a Deity
I can choose 3 portfolio's that represent my godly position (Choose 3 portfolio's from a selection of X options)
As these will define my role as a God (God of Death, Fire, Wind etc)
As a Deity
I will only have access to powers associated with my portfolio (Summoning powers can only call creatures related to your portfolio etc)
As this will shape my persona
As a Deity (Set a VFX persistent effect on your body to shine like a god)
I should exude a vfx aura (optional)
To show my divine status
Some elaboration on the Curse, and Dream system
I was inspired by Disney's Frozen.
When Elsa goes to the Rock trolls as a kid and Grand Papi asks - 'Born with the power, or cursed'
Gave me the idea - if I was a God, I could curse people with powers they could not completely control.
So the curse system in Worlds of Rhun does this - Gods can force Electrical, Ice or Fire powers on players.
It lets them use the power when they want, but while they are inexperienced with the power - it more often backfires.
Or when they are low on health, sometimes the power reacts on its own to protect them.
It is also a learn by do system too. Like Elder Scrolls games - the more you use it, the more accurate / control you get over it.
The Dream System was a way for Gods to write roleplay scenarios into the World in the form of Conversations.
They open a Conversation with themselves, they get to write a single page describing the dream.
When the target of that dream sequence rests next - they fade to black and then receive the dream in the form of a conversation when the fade returns to normal.
It gives a cinematic dream experience similar to the ones you would get in Baldurs Gate 2 when awaking from nightmares.
Gods are able to do roleplays with the players in a way that simulates DM interaction.
In any case- these features are more a less done - I just need to package them up and make generic for a public release.
