For the past month I have put Risen hero on hold and it will likely be for the next moth or so. I am hoping this break will re-energize me once I get back to building, much like the break between chapters 1 and 2.
I have started work on the community campaign, which is shaping up to be one hell of a game! I will be contributing 2 quest to this game. One of the quest will involve Horgath, seen in previous community campaigns (Halloween and SOZ expansion). I am hoping to develop a bit more of his back story, the conclusion to his story will be in the Risen Hero campaign (part of chapter 2, the next release).
I don't want to give away any spoilers of the community game, but I look forward to it; there are a number of very talented community members working on it.
On a separate note.
I have broke out my old HeroQuest board game by MB, and I have been playing it with my two boys (6 & 8). It is a fun run down memory lane and a great experience with my kids. It is fun watching their reactions as I describe the room they enter or seeing the fun in their faces as they slaughter goblins and orcs.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Who are all these NPC and why do they think they get to talk?
So apparently Chapter 2 needs to have a bunch of dialog.
The swamp is mostly complete, with 75% of the sub areas completed. Still trying to decide if I want to add goodies, which will need to be completely reworked.
I have recently left the swamp and moved back into the plot areas. While making non-plot areas is fun, it does nothing to bring the story closer to it's end. They also tend to be a bit lighter in conversation and a chance to try new and different things with scripting. The main two area that are currently being put together are the Monastery and a second base of operations that will be located within the swamp.
The monastery is nice since the area is complete and polished, and most of the NPCs are created. They will be getting all new conversations that go with the second chapter, and that is where I am now. I have about three complete at this time and several others in various states. Some for the minor NPCs will have conversations rather similar to their chapter 1 conversation, with only the major conflict information changed. I have also added several more NPCs to the monastery that were met throughout the first chapter. The new area will have less NPCs and more that fall into a minor role. Currently only 2 will have more in depth conversation that tend to take forever to write.
Once I get these conversations and associated journal entries completed, I will be leaving the plot areas and will start work on the Horgath's side quest. He was originally introduced in the Halloween Community Project, then his fall was part of the SOZ holiday expansion. With the completion of that side quest, the player will be able to end his story and maybe offer him redemption.
The swamp is mostly complete, with 75% of the sub areas completed. Still trying to decide if I want to add goodies, which will need to be completely reworked.
I have recently left the swamp and moved back into the plot areas. While making non-plot areas is fun, it does nothing to bring the story closer to it's end. They also tend to be a bit lighter in conversation and a chance to try new and different things with scripting. The main two area that are currently being put together are the Monastery and a second base of operations that will be located within the swamp.
The monastery is nice since the area is complete and polished, and most of the NPCs are created. They will be getting all new conversations that go with the second chapter, and that is where I am now. I have about three complete at this time and several others in various states. Some for the minor NPCs will have conversations rather similar to their chapter 1 conversation, with only the major conflict information changed. I have also added several more NPCs to the monastery that were met throughout the first chapter. The new area will have less NPCs and more that fall into a minor role. Currently only 2 will have more in depth conversation that tend to take forever to write.
Once I get these conversations and associated journal entries completed, I will be leaving the plot areas and will start work on the Horgath's side quest. He was originally introduced in the Halloween Community Project, then his fall was part of the SOZ holiday expansion. With the completion of that side quest, the player will be able to end his story and maybe offer him redemption.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Working On Big Update
Getting ready to sit down and do a large update to chapter 1.
I decided to do a few play through of chapter 1 again for two reasons. First is I am starting to test different plot areas that are mostly complete. It is easier to use a character that has completed the game and has the items, bonuses and consumables opposed to trying to levelup and equip a new character.
The second reason for the play through is I have reached a dialog heavy part of design. I need to start working on all the dialog for the monastery as well as the second new base of operations. These will fill the player in with the plot and direction while starting to answer the questions from the conclusion of chapter 1. I found it more helpful to read the conversations of the companions and the NPCs in game opposed to opening the toolset and reading them there.
I was surprised how many little things weren't working quite right that were during playtesting. Fortunately I only found one large issue that has already been uploaded in the patch.hak. So I have a list of things to go and add or modify. While I am going through those items I have also gone and created two new scripts that need to be added throughout the campaign. The party will now receive experience for disarming traps. I have gone through all the base traps and created a CR based on damage, number of targets or radius effect, magical effects and saves. That CR is further modified by the traps DC to detect and disarm. The script will also check for a local variable so custom traps or the dart and arrow traps can be given a set CR since they do not use a trap_base_type. This is also the first scripts that I have written that pulls information out of a 2da. I am using the experience 2da, by finding the character level and the trap CR I pull out the appropriate experience to be awarded. The second script will give a single character experience for picking a lock. The experience is based on the difference of the lock DC verse the characters open lock skill rank including all bonuses. In regards to experience I have also modified the sneak script. I have discovered it is only giving the character who is player controlled the experience for sneaking past encounters. This throws off the experience levels, as the party would gain the experience for fighting the encounter so they should gain the experience for avoiding it.
With this update I am also looking at adding Lance's For of War. http://worldofalthea.blogspot.com/2011/02/area-map-fog-of-war.html
I am still deciding whether to use the original or the passive system. I like the original, but know that most of the feedback on the bioware forum and vault prefer the passive system. But for now I can set the waypoint for maps not effect by the fog. The only area that will likely take advantage of the map unavailable will be lost in the mountains, as I designed the area in a way that made the area map mostly useless.
So I am off to the toolset to find all the traps and locks.
I decided to do a few play through of chapter 1 again for two reasons. First is I am starting to test different plot areas that are mostly complete. It is easier to use a character that has completed the game and has the items, bonuses and consumables opposed to trying to levelup and equip a new character.
The second reason for the play through is I have reached a dialog heavy part of design. I need to start working on all the dialog for the monastery as well as the second new base of operations. These will fill the player in with the plot and direction while starting to answer the questions from the conclusion of chapter 1. I found it more helpful to read the conversations of the companions and the NPCs in game opposed to opening the toolset and reading them there.
I was surprised how many little things weren't working quite right that were during playtesting. Fortunately I only found one large issue that has already been uploaded in the patch.hak. So I have a list of things to go and add or modify. While I am going through those items I have also gone and created two new scripts that need to be added throughout the campaign. The party will now receive experience for disarming traps. I have gone through all the base traps and created a CR based on damage, number of targets or radius effect, magical effects and saves. That CR is further modified by the traps DC to detect and disarm. The script will also check for a local variable so custom traps or the dart and arrow traps can be given a set CR since they do not use a trap_base_type. This is also the first scripts that I have written that pulls information out of a 2da. I am using the experience 2da, by finding the character level and the trap CR I pull out the appropriate experience to be awarded. The second script will give a single character experience for picking a lock. The experience is based on the difference of the lock DC verse the characters open lock skill rank including all bonuses. In regards to experience I have also modified the sneak script. I have discovered it is only giving the character who is player controlled the experience for sneaking past encounters. This throws off the experience levels, as the party would gain the experience for fighting the encounter so they should gain the experience for avoiding it.
With this update I am also looking at adding Lance's For of War. http://worldofalthea.blogspot.com/2011/02/area-map-fog-of-war.html
I am still deciding whether to use the original or the passive system. I like the original, but know that most of the feedback on the bioware forum and vault prefer the passive system. But for now I can set the waypoint for maps not effect by the fog. The only area that will likely take advantage of the map unavailable will be lost in the mountains, as I designed the area in a way that made the area map mostly useless.
So I am off to the toolset to find all the traps and locks.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
OOZE GALORE
Oozes and slimes. I have been going back to these creatures for my swamp area. Some players may have found them during chapter 1, if they snuck through Dor'Gallon's fort, but even then they were completely avoidable. The 3 oozes that made it into chapter 1 will be in the game plus a number of other oozes, jellies, slimes and cubes.
In chapter 2 they will be 1 of the three factions that wander the swamps, the other two are undead and lizardfolks. When wandering the swamps, in the southern portion, oozes will pop up up as wandering monsters.
Oozes have acids that can destroy both armor and weapons. Whenever an ooze is attacked there is a reflex save to destroy the attacker's weapon, main hand first then off hand. When oozes attack there is a reflex save to prevent armor from being destroyed, shield first then armor. If the reflex save fails the individual item also has a save before getting destroyed. I figured magical items should be more resilient then mundane items. For the items save it rolls a d20 plus a bonus. The bonus is figured by first counting all the item properties, then using the price of an item to assign a multiplier, (<18,000 x1, 18,000 - 42,000 x2, 4,2000 - 130,000 x3, etc). The DC is taken from the ooze, the bigger and nastier the ooze the higher the DC, the DC is then increased by the number of times the weapon has been exposed to ooze acid. Roll = d20 +(# properties * cost multiplier) vs Ooze DC + times exposed. At some point I will need to set up a script for a blacksmith to restore your weapons and armors or an item to restore them. There will be an Ooze resistant ointment that can be used on armor and weapons and will provide a immunity to the ooze for 6 rounds. during that time the exposure numbers will not go up. The oozes will not dissolve plot items or other items marked immune with a local variable.
On damage the oozes will also split if attacked with a slashing weapon. This is for weapons only and will not split if slashing damage is done with a spell. The oozes will decrease in size by 50% with each split and their hitpoints will decrease by 1/2. The ooze will go no smaller than 25% it's default appearance size. When fighting oozes if the wrong weapons are used the player will quickly be surrounded by a swarm. Even low level oozes can be difficult with bad tactics.
Recently, I discovered an error in my scripting. Weapons were being destroyed when oozes where damaged by spells or eldritch blast. The Fred solved the issue and everything is working fine. I need to get that updated script into chapter 1, so far no one has reported it. So either they are close enough to the oozes that they think it is suppose to happen or their weapons are either ranged or just good at making the ooze saves.
I have also created a script system for oozes to be on the ceiling. I originally started using the acid blob traps in my swamp ooze area, but didn't like how it worked. A player shouldn't be able disarm an ooze over their head and traps are immune to damage. So I made a few blueprints and a number of scripts. In the toolset an ipoint is place where the acid blobs will hang out, they are immobile on the ceiling. At the first heartbeat they spawn in the actual ooze placeable and destroy themselves. I do this because the ooze placeable uses the citymblock appearance and it is invisible in the toolset. The ipoint makes it easy to the place the oozes but I was unable to mouse over and target it during testing. Initially the item is unusable and just hangs out hidden. There is a search radius around the ooze that the player may discover it and there is an attack radius. If the ooze is not found and the player is within the attack radius, it will "drop" down onto the character doing 2 d4 of acid damage and spawn in an acid blob. If the ooze is discovered the placeable changes to usable and has a green glowing ball floating in the area marking the ooze location. The ooze may then be safely targeted from a distance. If the ooze is killed the player gets xp on a scale based on their level, if it isn't killed the placeable item is destroyed and an acid blob is spawned. What is nice about this as well is, if the player has the feeling that some evil designer decided to pepper a corridor with ceiling oozes they can launch several aoe spells and try to wipe out a bunch. Those that are not killed outright will drop down and attack.
I am still working out a few things with this system, but I feel at this point it is nearly complete. The only thing I really need to do is modify the newly spawned acid blob to reflect any damage it received on the ceiling before dropping.
Another ooze related addition for this area is slime zombies. Base on the olive slime zombies from the Tome of Horror source book. While there are no olive slimes, I thought having the zombies would be a nice touch for this dungeon crawl area.
Here is a list of the oozes: (no screen shots, even though I've been testing like mad)
Simple oozes. Will split and destroy non magical items (item has no properties)
Acid Blob CR2
Grey Ooze CR4
Dangerous Oozes, will destroy magical items.
Black Pudding CR7
Living Muck CR9
With the oozes I have been setting up most encounters to have small number of the difficult oozes with a large number of the simple oozes. That way some items will be left after the fight. Certain points will have much more of the dangerous oozes and the party will either need to rely on spell and ranged damage or have the immunity ointment.
Jellies: Will not destroy items but will still split.
Ochre Jelly CR 5
Mustard jelly CR7 -Has a slow aura surrounding it.
Gelatinous Cubes: Do not split and do not dissolve items. Have damage resistance /magic
Normal cube CR3
Large Cube CR9
Huge Cube CR19
For the slime zombies their CR is between 1-3, depending on their source creature. Right now I have humans and lizardfolks, but some other swamp creatures may become slime zombies. I have been using Derek H's zombie skins, zombie_egg for these creatures.
For a large slime area I figured that there needed to be some kind of slime cult or worshipers. So there will be pockets of slime clerics and wizards that will attack from behind the hoards of oozes and slimes. I still need to go through and customize their spells to reflect their love of oozes and acids. I still haven't descided what the end boss will be for this area. I have the spot figured out and a little puzzle to get into that spot. I will need to come up with something that is mostly ooze like but has some form of intelligence, and be of monsterous size.
In chapter 2 they will be 1 of the three factions that wander the swamps, the other two are undead and lizardfolks. When wandering the swamps, in the southern portion, oozes will pop up up as wandering monsters.
Oozes have acids that can destroy both armor and weapons. Whenever an ooze is attacked there is a reflex save to destroy the attacker's weapon, main hand first then off hand. When oozes attack there is a reflex save to prevent armor from being destroyed, shield first then armor. If the reflex save fails the individual item also has a save before getting destroyed. I figured magical items should be more resilient then mundane items. For the items save it rolls a d20 plus a bonus. The bonus is figured by first counting all the item properties, then using the price of an item to assign a multiplier, (<18,000 x1, 18,000 - 42,000 x2, 4,2000 - 130,000 x3, etc). The DC is taken from the ooze, the bigger and nastier the ooze the higher the DC, the DC is then increased by the number of times the weapon has been exposed to ooze acid. Roll = d20 +(# properties * cost multiplier) vs Ooze DC + times exposed. At some point I will need to set up a script for a blacksmith to restore your weapons and armors or an item to restore them. There will be an Ooze resistant ointment that can be used on armor and weapons and will provide a immunity to the ooze for 6 rounds. during that time the exposure numbers will not go up. The oozes will not dissolve plot items or other items marked immune with a local variable.
On damage the oozes will also split if attacked with a slashing weapon. This is for weapons only and will not split if slashing damage is done with a spell. The oozes will decrease in size by 50% with each split and their hitpoints will decrease by 1/2. The ooze will go no smaller than 25% it's default appearance size. When fighting oozes if the wrong weapons are used the player will quickly be surrounded by a swarm. Even low level oozes can be difficult with bad tactics.
Recently, I discovered an error in my scripting. Weapons were being destroyed when oozes where damaged by spells or eldritch blast. The Fred solved the issue and everything is working fine. I need to get that updated script into chapter 1, so far no one has reported it. So either they are close enough to the oozes that they think it is suppose to happen or their weapons are either ranged or just good at making the ooze saves.
I have also created a script system for oozes to be on the ceiling. I originally started using the acid blob traps in my swamp ooze area, but didn't like how it worked. A player shouldn't be able disarm an ooze over their head and traps are immune to damage. So I made a few blueprints and a number of scripts. In the toolset an ipoint is place where the acid blobs will hang out, they are immobile on the ceiling. At the first heartbeat they spawn in the actual ooze placeable and destroy themselves. I do this because the ooze placeable uses the citymblock appearance and it is invisible in the toolset. The ipoint makes it easy to the place the oozes but I was unable to mouse over and target it during testing. Initially the item is unusable and just hangs out hidden. There is a search radius around the ooze that the player may discover it and there is an attack radius. If the ooze is not found and the player is within the attack radius, it will "drop" down onto the character doing 2 d4 of acid damage and spawn in an acid blob. If the ooze is discovered the placeable changes to usable and has a green glowing ball floating in the area marking the ooze location. The ooze may then be safely targeted from a distance. If the ooze is killed the player gets xp on a scale based on their level, if it isn't killed the placeable item is destroyed and an acid blob is spawned. What is nice about this as well is, if the player has the feeling that some evil designer decided to pepper a corridor with ceiling oozes they can launch several aoe spells and try to wipe out a bunch. Those that are not killed outright will drop down and attack.
I am still working out a few things with this system, but I feel at this point it is nearly complete. The only thing I really need to do is modify the newly spawned acid blob to reflect any damage it received on the ceiling before dropping.
Another ooze related addition for this area is slime zombies. Base on the olive slime zombies from the Tome of Horror source book. While there are no olive slimes, I thought having the zombies would be a nice touch for this dungeon crawl area.
Here is a list of the oozes: (no screen shots, even though I've been testing like mad)
Simple oozes. Will split and destroy non magical items (item has no properties)
Acid Blob CR2
Grey Ooze CR4
Dangerous Oozes, will destroy magical items.
Black Pudding CR7
Living Muck CR9
With the oozes I have been setting up most encounters to have small number of the difficult oozes with a large number of the simple oozes. That way some items will be left after the fight. Certain points will have much more of the dangerous oozes and the party will either need to rely on spell and ranged damage or have the immunity ointment.
Jellies: Will not destroy items but will still split.
Ochre Jelly CR 5
Mustard jelly CR7 -Has a slow aura surrounding it.
Gelatinous Cubes: Do not split and do not dissolve items. Have damage resistance /magic
Normal cube CR3
Large Cube CR9
Huge Cube CR19
For the slime zombies their CR is between 1-3, depending on their source creature. Right now I have humans and lizardfolks, but some other swamp creatures may become slime zombies. I have been using Derek H's zombie skins, zombie_egg for these creatures.
For a large slime area I figured that there needed to be some kind of slime cult or worshipers. So there will be pockets of slime clerics and wizards that will attack from behind the hoards of oozes and slimes. I still need to go through and customize their spells to reflect their love of oozes and acids. I still haven't descided what the end boss will be for this area. I have the spot figured out and a little puzzle to get into that spot. I will need to come up with something that is mostly ooze like but has some form of intelligence, and be of monsterous size.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Demonic Merchants and Their Wares
I have been working on a group of demon merchants that have been summoned to trade with the player. The player holds no power over them and they are only interested in gaining money and power with no real interest in the player's success or failure.
Once the merchants were fleshed out a bit and given a bit of history they needed wares worthy of demons. They will not generally sell items found at standard merchants. Instead the majority of their stock will be unique items. I have gotten a lot of suggestions and great ideas from the community.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/167/index/5499332
Below I have included a screenshot of the merchant and some of the new unique items and custom content. With these item I have started to edit some of the item property 2das. Allowing for additional feats to be added to items as well as custom spells so that not every item has a unique ability on use. The areas below are partially finished. Lighting both placed and area have not been touched as well as a few more visual effects may be added. The first three merchants all have usable and working crafting stations: smith, magical, alchemy.
Right now I have been playing with a animated suit of armor to actually sell and buy things from the player, figuring the smith is unable to leave his hammer and anvil. The suit may stay or be thrown away allowing the player to interact directly with the smith. He will carry a variety of items but nothing made from cold iron. Like all demons he is paranoid, he likely has a stash somewhere for both his own protection and to earn him favor with more powerful demons, but it is not for sale.
Once the merchants were fleshed out a bit and given a bit of history they needed wares worthy of demons. They will not generally sell items found at standard merchants. Instead the majority of their stock will be unique items. I have gotten a lot of suggestions and great ideas from the community.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/167/index/5499332
Below I have included a screenshot of the merchant and some of the new unique items and custom content. With these item I have started to edit some of the item property 2das. Allowing for additional feats to be added to items as well as custom spells so that not every item has a unique ability on use. The areas below are partially finished. Lighting both placed and area have not been touched as well as a few more visual effects may be added. The first three merchants all have usable and working crafting stations: smith, magical, alchemy.
The Damned Smith
Cursed to an eternity of crafting arms and armors for the Blood War this smith hammers away day and night with now rest. Right now I have been playing with a animated suit of armor to actually sell and buy things from the player, figuring the smith is unable to leave his hammer and anvil. The suit may stay or be thrown away allowing the player to interact directly with the smith. He will carry a variety of items but nothing made from cold iron. Like all demons he is paranoid, he likely has a stash somewhere for both his own protection and to earn him favor with more powerful demons, but it is not for sale.
Items: (not all)
-There are ten Celestial Killing items, eight melee and 2 range. These are all adamantine, +2/3 attack to good. About half have a plus 1 enchantment and they all have a damage property that celestial aren't immune to or have a high resistance to.
-There are also ten Devil Slaying items, eight melee and 2 ranged. These items are all alchemical silver and and a +2/3 attack vs lawful evil. These also have additional damage that will maximize damage to devils. Depending on the items power it may or may not have a +1 enchantment.
The above twenty items will not have a enchantment greater than +1, as they are considered specialized items against certain foes. The global on equip script has also been modified so there is a 25% chance that the user's alignment will adjust towards evil due to the corruption forged into this weapons.
-Abysmal Battle Axe.
This axe is shroud in flame causing additional fire damage. The red glow of the axe will light the area similar to a touch but hiding will be near to impossible.
-Cursed Kama of Envy.
Once owned by a jealous dwarven monk who sought to be better than every other monk in his monastery. When confronted by his superior the dwarf struck him down in anger. The dwarf's god sentence him to an eternity in the weapon that he used. On hit this kama will select one ability and shift the wielder's ability towards the opponent ability score. Each consecutive hit that the same random ability is chosen will increase the shift and the duration of the shift.
-Dagger of Unrelenting Attacks.
This +3 dagger allows the wielder to attack again and again against any opponent. They will not back down or become filled with fear. While they may not realize the danger to themselves due to the intelligence and wisdom penalties they will have both haste and barbarian rage to aid them in their attacks.
-Dire Claws (kamas using sunlee's claws) main hand and off hand.
These +2 claws will cause slashing bonus damage with one hand and bonus piercing with the other, while allowing for an increased parry ability. While these blades are sold separately there is no special bonus for equipping both of them other than just looking cool.
-Festering Disease
Disease and death were crafted into this long sword by the Damned Smith. While it is an unenchanted blade, it offers a +3 attack bonus and will infect the opponent with filth fever with a very high DC to resist. Unfortunately the blade does not spare the wielder from it's disease process and they suffer both a constitution and charisma decrease.
-Gluttonous Blood Drinker
This club feast on the blood of it's opponent. Upon inspection it appears to have no magical abilities, but once it hits an opponent it starts to grow in damage. Each consecutive hit against the same opponent will add an addition 1d4 of damage. At each 5th hit the player movement rate slows by an increasing percentage as they become bloated and full. Starving the weapon and time will remove the slowing effect.
-Soul Taster
This +2 scimitar actually steals fragments of the soul and give them to the user as vampiric regeneration. There is also a 20% chance that the wearer will shift in alignment towards their target.
-Wing Ripper
This scythe was created for fighting winged opponents. For simplicity it attacks racial groups that generally have wings. Dragons, feys and outsiders as well as any NPC with the wing feat. The weapon itself is only a +1 weapon with bonus to hit the above racial groups. On hit the opponent must make a reflex save to keep their wings or be permanently slowed.
-Plate of the Fallen paladin
This +2 full plate belonged to a fallen paladin. Due to the loses of the paladin's divine abilities the armor grants the wearer the abilities of a level 2 blackguard. Dark Blessing, Smite Evil and Bull Strength once per day. The armor is only usable by evil characters, but it won't restrict anyone from putting it on. Once wore it will enforce the alignment by shifting the wearer to an evil alignment.
-Zombie Hide Armor
This +1 studded armor provides the wearer with darkvision and a +4 AC vs undead, if they don't mind the charisma drop.
-Wright Hide Small Shield
This +2 small shield allows the player to bash their opponent once per round doing 1d4 of bludgeoning damage as well as the chance to paralysis the opponent. While bashing the player will suffer a -3 shield AC penalty for 1 round.
-Devil Hide Mask
The tanned face of a devil is worn as a mask. Granting the player an outworlder's vision. They gain an AC bonus and true seeing while suffering a charisma penalty.
Forsaken Desire
This succubus who turned down the advances of a powerful demonlord was cursed with aging. Though she may be immortal everyday her wrinkles deepen and her body weakens.
This demon will sell magical items to the player. She will carry scrolls for the player to increase their spellbook, note they will not be friendly spells. There will be no heroism, haste, globes of invulnerability. Instead fear, disintegrate, crushing despair, feeblemind and such.
Items:
-Hanged Crinimal's Head
This mummified head belonged to an executed criminal. dried bat wings have been crudely sown to the side of the head. The head is a single use item and once thrown into the air becomes reanimated and acts as a summoned creature until the spell ends, when it falls lifeless to the ground if not killed first.
-Crown of the Damned
Only usable by warlocks this crown offers them ability focus feats to improve their eldritch blast. (feats in kaedrin's pack)
-Flute of Control ***Updated***
This flute is crafted from a dead god's rib bone. Each use requires a sacrifice from the user and the results differ.
One each use there is a 1% chance of death. Otherwise the player must make a will save (death type save), the DC for the save decreases with higher perform skills. If the save fails the player takes 1 of 15 random effects. The duration of the effects are decreased with a higher spellcraft skill. Penalties: disease, poison, blind, slow, ability decrease, natural AC decrease, attack bonus decrease, silence, spell failure 100%, negative level. The target must make a will save, again the perform skill effects difficulty of the save. The target then has 8 effects. -4 to AC & attack bonus, charmed, frightened, paralyzed, confused, insane, dominated, death. Higher skill in perform tilts the random choice towards the end of the list.
-Profane Ring
One each use there is a 1% chance of death. Otherwise the player must make a will save (death type save), the DC for the save decreases with higher perform skills. If the save fails the player takes 1 of 15 random effects. The duration of the effects are decreased with a higher spellcraft skill. Penalties: disease, poison, blind, slow, ability decrease, natural AC decrease, attack bonus decrease, silence, spell failure 100%, negative level. The target must make a will save, again the perform skill effects difficulty of the save. The target then has 8 effects. -4 to AC & attack bonus, charmed, frightened, paralyzed, confused, insane, dominated, death. Higher skill in perform tilts the random choice towards the end of the list.
-Profane Ring
Created through dark rituals using a ring of a good Deity. This ring offers a +3 bonus to saves, and the ability to cast darkness 3 times a day.
-The Lyre of Orpheus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFb8AoiwmDw&feature=related
Twice per day the player can use the lyre. The target must make a will save or be killed, on success the Target takes damage. The damage and will save is based on the players perform skill. There is a 5% chance that the players strumming the lyre will anger the gods and they will be struck dead with no save.
-The belt of Unenduring Speed.
The wearer is under a effect similar to the spell haste, however they are unable to keep up with their increased thirst and hunger and also suffer the effects of fatigue.
-Wand of Darkness
50 charges of darkness, what more could you ask for.
Mistress of Passion
This Lilitu (from the Fiendish Codex I) acts as both the alchemy merchant and the divine merchant. Don't let her name or first appearance fool you. She would be more likely to kill in cold blood then to grant you your desire and passions.
Items:
-Belly of Blades
This sand like potion will rip through the drinkers stomach after drinking and surround them with blades similar to the blade barrier spell.
-Demonic Berserker Potion
Causes the the drinker to go into a battle rage similar to the frenzy berserker.
-Fleshing Gauntlets
These gauntlets act as a +1 spiked gauntlet doing 1d4 of piercing damage. Three times a day they can be activated for a duration of 2 rounds. During that time they will rend the flesh from their opponents causing and addition 1d6 slashing damage and a 1d4 decrease to constitution and charisma. A fortitude save will decrease the damage by half with no ability decreases.
-Hell's Fire
This potion will surround the player in a ball of fire similar to flame strike.
-Potion of Detect Undead
-Potion of Negative energy Protection
Will cause the drinker to ignore the first 5 point of negative energy damage for two hours. During that time they have a 10% vulnerability to positive energy damage.
-Potion of Remove Magic
Same affect a dispel magic
-Potion of Stoneskin
-Potion of True Seeing
-Taste of Demon
This potion will transform the drinker into a herzou for three rounds.
-Vial of Demonic Blood
This potion will give the effects of Spell Protection
-Poison Tooth ***Updated***
This fake tooth fits into the mouth of a character and allows them to make a touch attack once per round, unlimited uses. The player must have a vile of poison in their inventory to use the tooth and a random vile will be used with each bite. There is no check to apply poison to the tooth and a successful bite will cause 1d4 of piercing damage and apply the type of poison vile used. Should the attack miss the player must make a check equal to the apply poison check to avoid poisoning themselves. Certain races immune to the poison bite, constructs, elementals, undead and oozes. if the player chooses to bite them then several things can happen. When biting constructs and earth elementals there is a chance to break the tooth, destroying it. biting oozes causes acid damage to the biter, and fire damage for biting fire elementals. Biting an undead will infect the player with a random disease.
-Poison Tooth ***Updated***
This fake tooth fits into the mouth of a character and allows them to make a touch attack once per round, unlimited uses. The player must have a vile of poison in their inventory to use the tooth and a random vile will be used with each bite. There is no check to apply poison to the tooth and a successful bite will cause 1d4 of piercing damage and apply the type of poison vile used. Should the attack miss the player must make a check equal to the apply poison check to avoid poisoning themselves. Certain races immune to the poison bite, constructs, elementals, undead and oozes. if the player chooses to bite them then several things can happen. When biting constructs and earth elementals there is a chance to break the tooth, destroying it. biting oozes causes acid damage to the biter, and fire damage for biting fire elementals. Biting an undead will infect the player with a random disease.
The Lord of Kiste
This fury little demon is filled with greed and is actually a very poor merchant. He doesn't want to part with his loot and would rather pay high to avoid losing an item in a drawn out haggle.
Still playing with the walkmesh helper but eventually he will be standing on the crate he is currently in front of looking the player in the eyes. I am also looking at creating a script for when his store closes, it will have him try to steal a consumable from the player and add it to his hoard.
Items:
-Box of Holding
Not nearly as convenient as a bag of holding
-Enchanted Lockpick
Grants the carrier bonuses to thieving skills
-Everlasting Inkwell
Originally made for scribes this vial and can exploited. Two times a day it contents dumped on the ground creating an effect similar to the spell grease.
-Face Paint, Camouflage
Provides effects similar to camouflage spell
-Face Paint, War
Provides effects similar to the spell heroism
-Mirror of vanity
Grants the user a charisma bonus due to their over grooming and can cast hold person once per day.
-Robes of the Madman
Trapped within these robes, that were once +2 Robes of the Shining Hand, is a genius madman. Now the influence of the madman will effect all who wear these robes. The weaer will be granted bonuses due to massive intelligence the madman had in life, but they suffer both penalties to their charisma and wisdom. aAn additional effect of the robe will cause the wearer to often shout out random phrases as they adventure through the land. Phrases are either based on their current actions, attacking, sneaking or searching, or the areas types they are in (interior, underground, exterior, etc).
-Rod of Dragon's Breath
This rod hold 3 charges and each time it will unleash a powerful black dragon's breath attack.
-Bag of Greed
Work in progress may be dropped due to mechanics. Looking to make a bag that will have a chance to either duplicate an item within itself or destroy an item.
The Keeper of Artifacts
This rat-like demon shroud in purple fire has one of the largest collections of artifacts within the abyss. All manners of creatures seek him out to make deals and trade with. He will not accept gold, but wants items of interest and power and will offer unique rewards for them. The demon is short tempered and will only make an offer once allowing the player no time to consider the consequences of the deals.
This merchant has no store but will instead dig through the players items offer vague rewards for the items. The more powerful the item the better the reward. The player may be granted ability and skill changes, bonus feats and other unique items.
Several examples of items he may take. (Not going to give you too many because I don't want to spoil the surprises.) He will take the vial of life, for it was created in the upper planes and holds much power and could be horribly devastating if corrupted by evil. He will also take either Loroshin's Rage or Redemption, a long sword found in chapter 1.
Lots of the items above where created base on community members ideas and suggestion as well as from various dnd source books.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Planescape Chant
Progress on Risen Hero has slowed down to a crawl over the last month and will definitely be slow for the next few weeks. Several reasons for this: First and most obvious is the holidays. The season of shopping and weekend parties is here. The second new time sink of mine is the game Left for Dead 2. Normally I have minimal interest in 1st person shooter games, but this one is like crack. So my nights are often spent shooting zombies instead of working in the toolset. Finally Kamal has released an updated Path of Evil to playtest. He has modified a bunch of stuff and added a number of new areas that I am looking forward to playing.
With RH I have been kicking around the idea of adding another companion, because apparently I like to torture myself with massive conversations that have too many branches. I have been mulling this over for a bit and knew if I was going to add this companion I needed to do it very early in the creation of chapter 2. The second chapter will open up and come away from the linear play of chapter 1. If I wait too long to add the companion, updating conversations would be a massive task to include them correctly.
That idea has come to pass but instead of one companion I am adding 2. In a moment of pure genius I figured how to limit conversations, one of them is a mute. He will still have a base conversation and interjections into NPC conversations with probing stares and dramatic fist shaking. The two new companions will be found together and will be using the relationship system. Their relationship will be between level 1 and 2, so they will join with individual bonuses if they are both in the party.
As I started writing their intro conversation, their history and personalities started to emerge. About half way through the conversations I discovered that they were not native to Faerun, but instead came from the Hive in the city of Sigil. This called for a immediate rewrite or modification of the first half of the convo. As I needed to work a bit of chant into the conversation. So now the new companion gets to call people fun things like Berks, Bashers and Cutters. She also gets to tell people to shut their bone-box, or pay up some jink, all while avoiding being added to the dead book.
The key as a research chant is having her conversation lines remain understable. It would be very easy to turn her conversation lines into complete gibberish very fast. Luckily not being overly familiar with the dialect helps, as I need to be able to read and understand what I am writing. For the most part just a word or short phrase is replaced with the chant. These are often easily figured out using the content of the conversation. So my approach will be little pieces here and there and the phrases and words used will be fairly consistent. If she uses a phrase she will generally use it for that saying instead of switching back and forth between common and the chant. I have included several lines with a lot of chant and those will be difficult to understand. But with the PC responses if the player has a high enough lore skill they will translate the line (and earn a small xp bonus) or they can either ask a companion or just say what and have the line translated. These will be very limited. Right now I have two such lines. One is a side-quest opener and the second is how the player discovers where they come from and kind of why they left. "We lived in the Hive half a turn back, but a cony-catcher peeled us into some slippery business and we had to bolt from the Anthill."
At some point I will put together some decent screen shots of the areas I have been working on to break up these rambling posts.
With RH I have been kicking around the idea of adding another companion, because apparently I like to torture myself with massive conversations that have too many branches. I have been mulling this over for a bit and knew if I was going to add this companion I needed to do it very early in the creation of chapter 2. The second chapter will open up and come away from the linear play of chapter 1. If I wait too long to add the companion, updating conversations would be a massive task to include them correctly.
That idea has come to pass but instead of one companion I am adding 2. In a moment of pure genius I figured how to limit conversations, one of them is a mute. He will still have a base conversation and interjections into NPC conversations with probing stares and dramatic fist shaking. The two new companions will be found together and will be using the relationship system. Their relationship will be between level 1 and 2, so they will join with individual bonuses if they are both in the party.
As I started writing their intro conversation, their history and personalities started to emerge. About half way through the conversations I discovered that they were not native to Faerun, but instead came from the Hive in the city of Sigil. This called for a immediate rewrite or modification of the first half of the convo. As I needed to work a bit of chant into the conversation. So now the new companion gets to call people fun things like Berks, Bashers and Cutters. She also gets to tell people to shut their bone-box, or pay up some jink, all while avoiding being added to the dead book.
The key as a research chant is having her conversation lines remain understable. It would be very easy to turn her conversation lines into complete gibberish very fast. Luckily not being overly familiar with the dialect helps, as I need to be able to read and understand what I am writing. For the most part just a word or short phrase is replaced with the chant. These are often easily figured out using the content of the conversation. So my approach will be little pieces here and there and the phrases and words used will be fairly consistent. If she uses a phrase she will generally use it for that saying instead of switching back and forth between common and the chant. I have included several lines with a lot of chant and those will be difficult to understand. But with the PC responses if the player has a high enough lore skill they will translate the line (and earn a small xp bonus) or they can either ask a companion or just say what and have the line translated. These will be very limited. Right now I have two such lines. One is a side-quest opener and the second is how the player discovers where they come from and kind of why they left. "We lived in the Hive half a turn back, but a cony-catcher peeled us into some slippery business and we had to bolt from the Anthill."
At some point I will put together some decent screen shots of the areas I have been working on to break up these rambling posts.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
No Screen Shots?????
The overland map is just about done.
-I need to work on the goodies. I am planning to create swamp specific placeables and not use the SOZ goodies. Most likely I will be using something similar to wyrin's foraging system.
-I changed the lighting a bit. I received a comment about another green swamp, so I have taken it and changed it to more of a brown area. The lighting I originaly used was the default swamp lighting from the OC, which is very green. I tweaked the colors making everything more grey and brown, generally making more of a drab area. The area fogs have also been changed from green and yellow to tan and grey. It is a darker lighting, but I do think it looks nicer. I did leave the water a darker green, but I figure there is just a high algae count.
-The wandering monsters are all set. I have created three areas within the swamp and each area has a specific creature. Slime, lizardfolk and undead. There will be an sub-area for each main creature type with a boss. Once the boss has been defeated that group of creatures will be gone. This next part I haven't started looking at too much but will give it a try if it possible with the system. I would like to go and if 1 of the groups' boss is killed then they will no longer spawn. But the balance of the swamp has been thrown off and I would like to increase the chance for spawning creatures in the other areas. Kill of the lizard folk and their chieftain and they will no longer have war parties to protect their territory and hunt the undead so the undead numbers will increase and cause the player more trouble. Once all three of the groups have been killed the chance of encounter will greatly decrease and mostly be natural predators: alligators, snakes and such.
-The final thing I need to complete is the area transitions from the swamp to the sub-areas. The placeables are all in the swamp so they won't be spawning like SOZ. I looked at the spawning in but with the true .5 scale I didn't like the look and I don't want all these big blue glowing placeables either. I am either looking at making a trigger that will start a conversation if the location has been spotted. With the spot an area transition VFX will be placed in the trigger location. The other option I am considering is using the SOZ system but instead of spawning in the location placeable spawn in a marker. So all the locations will have the marker outside them to start the conversation to enter. This is most likely what i will be doing, just need to come up with a nice looking placeable to mark these locations.
I have been working on 3 of the sub areas so far. 1 is 100% complete. A smaller cave complex filled with myconids (thanks to RWS). My 5 year old drew up the plans and populated the mushroom caves. I did have to redirect his original plot as it was complete and epic story in itself. The 2nd area is nearly completed. It needs a few conversations and loot. It is for much later in the game as the CR is well beyond what a starting player would be at in chapter 2. The final area is a set of ruins that is populated by a demon cult all it needs is to have loot added and lighting/sounds.
At this time modding has been going very well. I have only try a few areas in game so far. Most likely I will try to get the swamp area mostly complete then go through it tweaking and improving. So it will be a while to I put up a bunch of screen shots.
I would like to thank everyone who has played through chapter 1. The feedback has been great and I have been keeping up on the little bugs here and there that are found. Checking that page is definitely a great way to gain some motivated before jumping into the toolset!
-I need to work on the goodies. I am planning to create swamp specific placeables and not use the SOZ goodies. Most likely I will be using something similar to wyrin's foraging system.
-I changed the lighting a bit. I received a comment about another green swamp, so I have taken it and changed it to more of a brown area. The lighting I originaly used was the default swamp lighting from the OC, which is very green. I tweaked the colors making everything more grey and brown, generally making more of a drab area. The area fogs have also been changed from green and yellow to tan and grey. It is a darker lighting, but I do think it looks nicer. I did leave the water a darker green, but I figure there is just a high algae count.
-The wandering monsters are all set. I have created three areas within the swamp and each area has a specific creature. Slime, lizardfolk and undead. There will be an sub-area for each main creature type with a boss. Once the boss has been defeated that group of creatures will be gone. This next part I haven't started looking at too much but will give it a try if it possible with the system. I would like to go and if 1 of the groups' boss is killed then they will no longer spawn. But the balance of the swamp has been thrown off and I would like to increase the chance for spawning creatures in the other areas. Kill of the lizard folk and their chieftain and they will no longer have war parties to protect their territory and hunt the undead so the undead numbers will increase and cause the player more trouble. Once all three of the groups have been killed the chance of encounter will greatly decrease and mostly be natural predators: alligators, snakes and such.
-The final thing I need to complete is the area transitions from the swamp to the sub-areas. The placeables are all in the swamp so they won't be spawning like SOZ. I looked at the spawning in but with the true .5 scale I didn't like the look and I don't want all these big blue glowing placeables either. I am either looking at making a trigger that will start a conversation if the location has been spotted. With the spot an area transition VFX will be placed in the trigger location. The other option I am considering is using the SOZ system but instead of spawning in the location placeable spawn in a marker. So all the locations will have the marker outside them to start the conversation to enter. This is most likely what i will be doing, just need to come up with a nice looking placeable to mark these locations.
I have been working on 3 of the sub areas so far. 1 is 100% complete. A smaller cave complex filled with myconids (thanks to RWS). My 5 year old drew up the plans and populated the mushroom caves. I did have to redirect his original plot as it was complete and epic story in itself. The 2nd area is nearly completed. It needs a few conversations and loot. It is for much later in the game as the CR is well beyond what a starting player would be at in chapter 2. The final area is a set of ruins that is populated by a demon cult all it needs is to have loot added and lighting/sounds.
At this time modding has been going very well. I have only try a few areas in game so far. Most likely I will try to get the swamp area mostly complete then go through it tweaking and improving. So it will be a while to I put up a bunch of screen shots.
I would like to thank everyone who has played through chapter 1. The feedback has been great and I have been keeping up on the little bugs here and there that are found. Checking that page is definitely a great way to gain some motivated before jumping into the toolset!
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