Demo Material on the Vault

I have posted a small demo campaign on the vault. This demo includes the relationship system and feats. I still need to complete the companion conversations with checks when adding or removing members in relationship extremes (hatred and inseparable). There is also the half-fiend as a playable character with racability feats that are given as they level up and the tintable quasit. Several of the half-fiend feats still need some work, one being a blank script and two others still need some more testing, but the half-fiend will now be able to desecrate holy spots. I have an ipoint that if it is is the area of effect it will identify any alters and the script will destroy them then fire off a second script. The second script will be unique to each ipoint so if you go and destroy an alter in a temple of helm all the clerics and paladin will attack you.
I originally had no intention of going and releasing this material separate from the game so there may be issues with reserved lines in the 2das.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Scripts.Detail&id=125000&id=213

Dank and Gloomy Underground Ruins

So again I am posting that progress is being made. For the Past, oh... long time, I have been working on caverns and ruins. A while back I made a medium size area for a side quest and following whims and just plain old craziness during the area design I started added cave openings in the cliff walls that surrounded the area. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing or more importantly the consequences of what I was doing. When I was done I realized that I had 12 cave openings in a single side quest area. So several other quest have been added so these are not a bunch of random nothing caves. This area isn't part of the main quest and the story will not be broken if it is missed, though after all the time I've spent here I hope it isn't missed. Decisions made in this area will have some effects that carry into the main plot and some companion story-lines are also developed here. It has also given me the chance to try somethings that I have been thinking of but had nowhere to place them. This story is really being developed as it progresses. It has a main outline of the plot and major points in the story but there is a lot of freedom and room for growth in the story as it goes from point A to point B.

The first several caverns were fairly standard with several having multiple entrances (trying to use up some of the cave openings.). But as design went on the caverns slowly became slightly larger and started to develop darker stories. I am sure some of this had to do with my choice of music while working on the toolset, Nick Cave is slowly becoming one of my favorite modding artist.

Below is a series of screen shots of various areas in these caverns of DOOOOOOM.



Green glowing fog......what could possible go wrong in an area like this?


This is a different set of ruins accessed through, yes one of the 12 caves. I took full advantage of the broken and destroyed furniture to build this area as well as all the skeletal corpses. I tried to give it the look of a plundered mountain stronghold. The dead occupants had made numerous barricade points of piled up broken furniture during their last stand.

Every set of ruins needs a ghost who is willing to talk to you and shed a little insight on the history while maybe even give you a quest or something like that. This is the second ghost to appear in my mod. The other ghost is much taller and skinnier but they both have distorted scales. My ghost also have a single color in varying shades for their tints.

This is a maze that you may encounter, it is made of many single tile rooms with 1 to 4 doors each. Whenever a door is open there is a 25 percent chance for zombies to "pop out" of the floor in the new room and your room, then the door behind you closes. The area disables your companion's on blocked scripts so they don't go around opening doors causing other doors to close and possible spawning in an obsene amount of zombies. My first test of the area went horribly wrong with 4 companions running around opening any door they could find trying to get to zombies.

And finally here are some screen shots of some older areas just to prove that this game isn't going to be all doom and gloom crawling through dank dungeons and stuff.

So here is a nice sunrise at a river crossing.

A small house where a fisherman lives with his wife and cow. The House is situated on top of a hill at a bend in the river. This also shows the retaining wall for their little garden.

The second module of the campaign is getting closer to completion. Two more areas need to be designed and maybe a half dozen plus conversations need to be completed. I believe most of the scripting has been completed with the exception of one cutscene that will end this module. So once this is completed that will mark approximately the halfway point for chapter 1. So that is where it is now.

Party Relationships

I have completed the companion relationship system. This will tracks how certain companions feel about each other similar to how the influence system tracks the opinions the companions have for the player. There are seven different levels on a scale -100 to 100. As the relationships change the characters will be given feats to match their relationship level (excluding the starting neutral level.) Bonuses or penalties will be given to attacks/saving throws/skills as the relationships develop. Once the relationships reach a certain level their positive or negative feelings will carry over to the rest of the party members. The effects will only be applied when both companions are in the party together.

-Neutral: nothing
-Friendship:(level 1 positive) +1 to relationship companions
-Unwavering friendship:(level 2 positive) +1 for all party members
-Inseparable: (level 3 positive) +3 for relationship companions, +2 for all party members.
Companions will also not separate from each other and must either both be in the party or out
of the party. Similar to BG1, Dynaheir & Mincs.
-Untrusting:(level 1 negative) -1 to relationship companions
-Dislike: (level 2 negative) -1 to all party members
-Hatred: (level 3 negative) -2 to all party members.
To have both companions in the party an influence check will need to be made. And if both
members are in party random interjections between companions could lead to companion
leaving party or companions trying to kill each other.

Quasit

So instead of writing conversations like I should I have been exploring custom content and I have now added another NPC for the PC and their party to battle, quasits. The demons were feeling a little left out since the devils had their imps. At first I was just going to tint either the imp/mephit/homunculus. But all the tint maps just weren't right and didn't allow much variation. So with some help from crystal violet from the bioware custom content forum I was able to create a tint map for the ice mephit. It has three tintable areas: skin, horns and spikes, wings and detail squiggles and stuff.



Quasit Stats Outsider level 2, CR 2, Chaotic Evil, Hitpoints 13 Armor Class 17
Strength 8, Dexterity 17, Constitution 10, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 12, Charisma 10
Feats: Weapon proficiency (creature), weapon finesse, improved initiative, Darkvision
Attack: claw 1 and 2: 1d3 with poison(DC=14 Dex 1d2), Bite 1d4
Imp Skin (immunity to poison, fire Resistance 5/-, regeneration +2)
Damage reduction 5/cold iron
Special Abilities: Cause fear, invisibility

Half-Fiends **Spoiler Ahead**

I have completed a new subrace for my game, half-fiends and are part of the planestouch racial type. They will be a playable race but not a PC race with custom racial abilities as well as fire and brimstone. The half-celestial was used as a template and I also used d20 web site.

Half fiends :

Ability Adjustments:
Strength +4, Dexterity +4, Constitution +2, Intelligence +4, Charisma +2

Race Abilities:

Darkvision, Damage Reduction 5/magic, Immunity to Poison, Natural Armor +1

Resist (Acid, cold, fire, electricity), Spell Resistance, Smite Good, Wings.

Racial Spell-like Abilities:

level 1 Darkness, Level 3 Bane, Level 5 Inflict Serious Wounds, Level 7 Poison, Level 9 Contagion, Level 11 Mass Inflict Serious Wounds, Level 13 Unholy Aura, Level 15 Horrid Wilting, Level 17 Summon Demon and Level 19 Destruction. (several of the spell-abilities don't quite match with the d20 but not wanting to make a bunch of custom feats I choose some that best match but are far from a perfect match.

Favored Class: Barbarian

Level Adjustment +4

The spell like abilities I have been unable give as the half-fiend advances in level and from posting on the bioware forum I found that racial feats are only applied at character creation.

For the NPC placed in the game I have several different blueprints with the correct feats in place. For the one companion (if the player chooses to take her) she will gain the feats in conversation after she levels up.

Similar to the half-celestial which use the aasimar the half-fiend uses the tiefling as a model. The female half fiend shown above has the fire genasi visual effect for the flaming halo and the erinyes wings. The other half-fiend has smoldering feet and no wings, unfortunately the succubus wings do not line up with the tiefling bodies. The whole wings thing in this game drives me absolutely mad how the wings only line up with a single model most of the time.

Screen Shots

The starting point in a quiet destroyed village

A fun kobold cave

*Please note your companion off screen is talking not the severed head as cool as that would be*

A nice forest cave filled with kobold death

A wonderful sunset in a desolate mountain valley

Here are several screen shots from the game, they are progressive through the game. The areas in my opinion have greatly improved visually as I gain experience and comfort using the terrain tools. I have been doing numerous touch ups to old areas as I discover new techniques.

Companions

Companions in my opinion can truly make a good game great or long and tedious. Having fun and different companions in your party who interact with the PC and the other NPCs can add a whole new depth to a game. Each companion needs to have their own personality and reason for being in the party. Interjections are also a must. The companions need to let you know their opinions and feelings throughout the game. These are some of the ideas that I have tried to keep in mind while designing and writing the dialog for the Risen Hero companions.

Currently there are five companions available to the PC. Some will come forward and offer their assistance while others will only join under certain circumstances It is likely that when playing this game not all the companions will be willing to join the PC's party. This will be determined through choices in conversations as well as alignment and class, one companion even has a random 50/50 chance in a conversation to join you. Each companion will have thier own back story some will be more elaborate and other will only be revealed in bits and pieces throughout the game. From the start of the story you will be warned about your companions, some will help you and others will betray and try to use or destroy you.

The majority of the companions (currently all but one) have their own class packages with feat and skills. They were chosen based on the companions personalities and history as well as to allow some to multiclass later in the game.

The MOTB influence system has be used and their influence amount will show up on their character sheets. Currently there are no influence feats and I don't even think that I will be using a system similar to the MOTB influence feats. Current plans are to grant some companions special powers/feats based on influence through conversation.

All companions will be added and removed from the party through conversation. They will remain at the location when you dump them unless you have some base of operations and then you have the choice to leave them or send them back.

A lot of time has been spent on companion conversations. There is a common conversation skeleton that is the same with all companions -History/background, -skills and abilities, -Area information/recommendations and -Opinions of party members. These four groups each have dynamic replies from your companions that continue to evolve throughout the game.

A relationship/friendship system is also being established between the different companions. Currently the main backbone script for this has been written. During conversation the companions will interact with you and each other and this will have a positive or negative effect relationship. Most of these changes you the PC are the catalyst that can either improve or destroy these relationships. Other characters will slowly built a mutual hatred of each other despite your best efforts to make them get along. There are only a limited number of relationships between companions for the simple reason that managing too many would be a nightmare for the player and me writing the stupid conversations. This system still has a lot of work to be done but I feel the companions and the game play will greatly benefit from it.

So this is the end of my rambling post on companions.