Something just a little different

The giant boulder toss Hak and override have been released on the vault http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id=359

Now I should of returned to Risen Hero like a good designer but something happened.

Somewhere between searching the vault and reading the bioware forums an idea struck me. I had discovered what the game was missing . . .

It was time for a goblin module.

No more elves, dwarves or those silly half-breeds. It was time for the underdogs to have their day. No longer would they be experience providers just to get your character through those first few levels. No more will the goblins give out 7 experience points instead they will be collecting the experience points.

At character creation there is only one choice for race. Goblin.



Custom color 2da allows for a varied color scheme that matches the above description.
Unfortunately only the skin is tintable and there is only one head and one hair style.

But to make up for the lack of physical alterations there are six goblin gods to choose from. They may not all be from the Forgotten Realms but these are what my internet searches found.

The last bit of changes made gave the goblins more appropriate sound sets, they now grunt, groan and hiss. I was hoping to get into the random name generator so you could be offered a name like "Foul Toe the Rank".

Now I am not really sure what I am going to do with this since I already have little time to work on my main project, Risen Hero.

But the idea that I have floating around is a small noncombat module that is made up of various puzzles. The goblin PC will have to interact with other humoniod and giant races either helping them or getting around them; what chances will a goblin have against a troll? This would be the type of module where you wander around collecting all those bizarre items because you may need them all for different quest and puzzles. Something that is fun with a different challenge (opposed to the usual kill your enemies) and has a bunch of humor thrown in.

But there is the time issues, and this may never come to be.

There be boulders in the air!

Duck and cover!


A whole new element has been added when battling giants. Sure you have a helmet but don't expect it to help too much. Just ignore the ringing in your ears and get ready for the next volley. What is a good adventure without a few concussions and some traumatic brain injuries.

This is also the introduction for the ever popular hill giant. He has returned to the game after being left out from the NWN2 release. He's big and ugly with s huge club and yes he does look vaguely like a half-orc.




Now onto the boulders. . .

First is the hill giant

He lifts

He throws

You find your yourself standing in a pile of rubble

The fire giants animation sucks so he does't have a lot of screen shots. For whatever reason he was never given a casting animation, but 2 out of three giants works for me.

The frost giant doesn't even need to do the overhead hurl, he just holds the boulder at his chest then sends it flying at you.

I sure hope the this guy has a good reflex save . . .

So there it is the Risen Hero boulder throw.

Thanks to:

Tony K for pointing me in the right direction at the start

Dirywick and his post on user defined events on the BouncyRock forum

Little Baron and his Cowtapult! LB's Ballista projectile demonstration

I have a little more testing to do but right now everything seems up to par. Once it is complete I plan on releasing a erf for other builders. It will contain the three scripts: Boulder throw, the giant on spawn and giant user defined events. Three blueprints of the giants with their scripts and variables assigned (yes you get a copy of my outstanding Hill Giant). And spells.2da. It is used for the animation of the projectile. I was unable to find a way to have the boulder fly through the air without referencing a custom boulder spell. The script does work without the 2da, it is used only for the animation CastFakeSpellatLocation.

Lost in the Mountains

Well summer is here, and I have been trying to take advantage of the weather to get stuff done outside and enjoy myself. I continue to work on the toolset but not nearly as often.

I have been moving my campaign into a more mountainous region. This is proving to be quite a project working with the camera controls. With the large incline of the terrain at the bottom of the screen will be clipping to blue as I am trying to place objects and such. A little bit of rotation and I find myself inside the mountain side looking through the ground at tree bases. But the over areas are shipping up.

The main idea to this mountain area is the PC and their party are lost trying to find their way I kind of stole the idea from that swamp in IWD II. I have one large main area that makes up the bulk of the mountains. I have taken it and divided it into 9 separate sub areas. Each of the sub areas has two area transitions, one is right and will move the party to the next subarea and the other one is wrong leading to badness. If the player goes the wrong way they have a chance of a random encounter and then will be placed randomly in one the subareas that they have already visited.

To help the player and not make this a total act of frustration trying to navigate the mountain side each sub area will have a conversation. Companions will give hints and PC skills will be used to find the right way. But just to make things fun some of these hints will conflict, this will be the exception though. I have no intention of have the player have to guess which way to go at every turn, that would be tedious and just generally obnoxious.

A river fortress that the player will need to find a way through. Still working on the conversations but I hope to have numerous ways of getting through for multiple skills, classes and alignments. Fighting your way through will hopefully be a last resort.
The banners were made using Cloaks of Faerun (pk2) by Wild Bill

The subareas in the mountain are defined but a slightly different texture on the walkable path. Then boulders, trees and dense grass set up the boarders. The subareas are placed so that they don't line up; so there isn't a linear progression through the area and the area map will not be the cheat sheet to navigate through the mountain.

Beware which path you choose certain death could be waiting for you and your party, or maybe just a bunch of filthy goblins and such.

I couldn't help myself with this one. One wrong turn in the mountains will lead to a wandering monster screen. 6 deactivated encounters are here and one will randomly be activated each time a player finds themselves very lost.

One of the encounters will be hill giants, but don't get your hopes up too much though. I don't have the same talent as other community members and my custom monsters are just tinting and scale jobs. I don't currently have a screen shot but I have used a half-orc made them really tall and gave then very broad shoulders (for throwing boulders).

Giants will be throwing boulders in Risen Hero. Each giant should have three boulders to toss at adventurers. I found the script used in NWN1 and tweaked it quiet a bit. The giants will use a range touch attack and the PC will be given a reflex save to dodge and reduce damage should the giant hit them. The main script is working but I am still working on the User Defined script which will fire the main script.

Bioware forum post

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/myviewtopic.html?topic=638602&forum=114

Bouncy Rock Forum Post

http://forum.bouncyrock.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=127&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10

I did try to create a custom ranged weapon for giants but due to hard coding you are unable to link new ranged weapons to ammunition and the throwing boulders will show out of ammunition when they were used in battle.

So that is where Risen Hero is at now.