Salk Posted February 5, 2009 Author Share Posted February 5, 2009 I think your alternate system is very nice, Demi. I have no special remarks but I'd like to see the Stats and abilities for the other Familiars as well. Link to comment
yarpen Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Whoah, cool. But I would like to see this mage-type familiars as true mages, not creatures with one or two innate abilities as in original game. Look at Puk, Amon's familiar. Hey, as low-level wiz he's quite good! And damn, as a wizard I want to have true "right hand". And also, if familiars aren't going to be selected in-game: please, fix one of the worst choice of familair/alignment ever. Ferret (greatest "cutpurse") for LAWFUL NEUTRAL guy? No way. TN or CN, okay. But not this. It hurts. And at last, if there's a lot of simple .cre or .spl work, maybe we can help you with this? Link to comment
Mike1072 Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I don't know what other people are looking for, but I'd most like to see the following for familiars: Appropriate statistics in BG1 Scaling combat prowess Less powerful than party members, but not to the point of uselessness This should give me someone who would be a great help that I'd want to have around, but they wouldn't be a replacement for a party member. Ok, I still haven't work on scripts at all, but I have in mind more or less what has to be done now. I hope Mike will find some time to help me with the scripts though. To give a general guideline a lvl 1 Pseudodragon may have the following stats: * STR 9, DEX 16, CON 13, INT 10, WIS 12, CHA 10 * 8 hit points * AC 2 * THAC0 20 * 2 attacks per round (50% chance on hit to cause sleep for 5 rounds, save at +2 neg.) * Magic Resistance 35% Right now, the level 1 familiar you describe would probably be about as powerful as an average (non-uber) PC warrior, but it would quickly become less useful over time, as it would increase in power at half the rate of a PC. I'd suggest levelling them up at the same rate as PCs, but keeping them a constant ways behind (ie. Level 1 Fighter familiar is a Level 1 PC Fighter but with HP dice X sizes smaller, a +Y AC bonus, a +Z THAC0 Penalty, and special abilities. I'd also like to differentiate each familiar as much as possible, and in PnP Pseudodragons don't have spell-like abilities at all. We may keep this feature and offset it granting this familiar additional hit point and better thac0 (though it also already has the highest innate magic resistance amongst familiars), or something like that. This familiar could be the "warrior type", while for example the Faerie Dragon would be a "caster type", and the Cat "stalker type". What do you think about it? Do you prefer the more standard system used by vanilla and WTP? If you are going to give them type designations, and can manage to realistically spread the familiars out into at least 3 types, with no more than 3 familiars per type, then you could give players of all alignments a variety of choices with the following table (Salk's; coloured for 3 types): LG: LG LN NG NG: NG TN CG CG: CG CN NG LE: LE LN NE NE: NE TN CE CE: CE CN NE LN: LN LE LG TN: TN NE NG CN: CN CE CG Link to comment
Salk Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 I have revised my table because in the first attempt I noticed that alignments were not equally represented. Now they are instead. Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Rabbit (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) Neutral: Ferret (LN), Spider (TN), Cat (CN) Evil: Imp (LN), Dust Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) Total LG: 3 Total NG: 3 Total CG: 3 Total LN: 3 Total TN: 3 Total CN: 3 Total LE: 3 Total NE: 3 Total CE: 3 Total Warrior-oriented: 3 (Pseudo Dragon, Spider, Imp) Total Wizard-oriented: 3 (Fairy Dragon, Dust Mephit, Quasit) Total Rogue-oriented: 3 (Ferret, Rabbit, Cat) LG (Pseudo Dragon): Warrior TN (Spider): Warrior LN (Ferret): Rogue LE (Imp): Warrior TN (Spider): Warrior LN (Ferret): Rogue CG (Fairy Dragon): Wizard NG (Rabbit): Rogue CN (Cat): Rogue CE (Quasit): Wizard NE (Dust Mephit): Wizard CN (Cat): Rogue NG (Rabbit): Rogue LG (Pseudo Dragon): Warrior CG (Fairy Dragon): Wizard TN (Spider): Warrior NG (Rabbit): Rogue NE (Dust Mephit): Wizard NE (Dust Mephit): Wizard LE (Imp): Warrior CE (Quasit): Wizard LN (Ferret): Rogue LG (Pseudo Dragon): Warrior LE (Imp): Warrior CN (Cat): Rogue CG (Fairy Dragon): Wizard CE (Quasit): Wizard Said that, by this table, it is impossible to equally represent three different classes so we just need to think of what classes suit best different types of familiars. Above there's a mere suggestion. The inevitable duplications shouldn't be such drawback since the familars should just be oriented towards a class more than just belong to one. If this is though seen as a major issue, we can just drop the concept of class-orientation for familiars and just use PnP sources for their abilities. Comments and suggestions are welcome of course! Link to comment
Jarno Mikkola Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Rabbit (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG)Neutral: Ferret (LN), Spider (TN), Cat (CN) Evil: Imp (LN), Dust Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) ... Total Warrior-oriented: 3 (Pseudo Dragon, Spider, Imp) Total Wizard-oriented: 3 (Fairy Dragon, Dust Mephit, Quasit) Total Rogue-oriented: 3 (Ferret, Rabbit, Cat) That comes down to this: It's bad, because it doesn regard the ability to choose all three different choices.Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Rabbit (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) Neutral: Ferret (LN), Spider (TN), Cat (CN) Evil: Imp (LE), Dust Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) Now, what if we... Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Rabbit (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) Neutral: Dust Mephit (LN), Spider (TN), Cat (CN) Evil: Ferret (LE), Imp (NE), Quasit (CE) Of course if you feel that the Dust Mephit is too demonic, you can change it to something other... That only makes it difficult to give all choices to Chaotic Good, so we'll give him a 4(NG, CN, TN, CN), or 3(CG, NG, TN) choices. While True Neutral gets 3(LN, TN, CN) Lawful Neutral get 3(LG, LN, LE) Neutral Good would get 3(LG, NG, CG) Lawful Neutral would get 3(LG, LN, LE) Chaotic Neutral gets 3(CG, TN, CN) The corners alignments except Chaotic Good would take the 2 next to them, and their own. Link to comment
Shaitan Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Is it a problem that one alignment has more choices than another? Link to comment
Guest eros Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Now, what if we... Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Rabbit (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) Neutral: Dust Mephit (LN), Spider (TN), Cat (CN) Evil: Ferret (LE), Imp (NE), Quasit (CE) That only makes it difficult to give all choices to Chaotic Good, so we'll give him a 4(NG, CN, TN, CN), or 3(NG, CN, TN) choices. While True Neutral gets 3(LN, TN, CN) Lawful Neutral get 3(LG, LN, LE) Neutral Good would get 3(LG, NG, CG) Lawful Neutral would get 3(LG, LN, LE) Chaotic Neutral gets 3(CG, TN, CN) The corners alignments except Chaotic Good would take the 2 next to them. That makes a lot more sense, and I think the table of alignments for choosing familiars there is perfect, but if this has the opportunity to be re-worked I would definately drop the rabbit, and the final table could perhaps look like this, based on the type of familiar a character of that alignment might have, and following the pattern from SoA Instead perhaps Good: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Nixie? (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) -fey/draconic Neutral: Cat (LN), Ferret (TN), Spider (CN) -animal types Evil: Imp (LE), Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) -demonic types I couldn't find another small dragon like the other two used for the good alignments, so i thought a fey would be the closest, and the water-sprites seemed the most good. Maybe some sort of wisp instead? Just an idea, something else here could do, but the pattern is what is important i think. I think that, like demi said before somewhere, the attraction of the spell system here is its uniqueness, I think if we tried to conform each familiar to warrior/wizard/rogue, some of that is lost, whilst allowing them to be more like standard bg2 (even if not strictly pnp) gives the familars more personality. Link to comment
Salk Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Well, I see there is a lot to discuss here. Jarno thinks that my proposed table is bad (you figure). I think his is bad instead because one goal of this revision should be to keep it consistent enough with the PnP sources (he moved the Dust Mephit from an evil alignment to a neutral one?!). For the same reason I think that eros' table is equally wrong (where is the rabbit?). Not to mention that it would be internally inconsistent in the alignment distribution (quoting: That only makes it difficult to give all choices to Chaotic Good, so we'll give him a 4(NG, CN, TN, CN), or 3(NG, CN, TN) choices and The corners alignments except Chaotic Good would take the 2 next to them) My table doesn't move the familairs from their original position with the soleexception of the Rabbit that goes to NG (which was approved at the beginning of this discussion) and adding the Spider in the slot we thought was best (TN - also approved at the beginning of the discussion). And the alignment distribution is symmetric other than equal. Let's see what Demi has to say about all this... Link to comment
Demivrgvs Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Just a few things in no particular order: - I think we should move Spider to LN and Ferret to either TN or NG, mainly because Ferret is going to be a cutpurse familiar, and surely doesn't suit a lawful master. Spider shouldn't rely on stealth and may be considered slightly more "legal" though the creature's alignment is still TN. - I really don't know how to represent the Rabbit, it doesn't seem to suit any role. If we temporarily discard the portraits (which we probably have to do, considering I can't use Rabain's ones) we may simply replace the rabbit with another creature if we think it can be better, and we have an available animation. I can only think of bat (which is used in NWN with a fear gaze and howl) and rat, but I currently don't know if the former has attack animations. - as eros says "the attraction of the spell system here is its uniqueness, I think if we tried to conform each familiar to warrior/wizard/rogue, some of that is lost". Thus consider the "role" of the familiar as a general indication, they'll probably not fit the very same role perfectly (e.g. the Ferret focuses on pick pocketing and finding traps, while the cat may have better hiding skills and a small backstab bonus). Thus I think familiar's classes shouldn't be taken too much into account whan deciding which alignment summons them. - I've taken into consideration the suggestion about making mage-like familiars more similar to Pooky (which actually is a mid level mage instead of having very few abilities), and I think I like it. - regarding Jarno's suggested alignment changes I've only a few notes. Ferrets doesn't seem very lawful, but surely aren't evil. Imp has to remain LE because it's a well established fact in D&D lore (and quasit is its chaotic counterpart). Link to comment
DavidW Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 I really don't know how to represent the Rabbit, it doesn't seem to suit any role. If we temporarily discard the portraits (which we probably have to do, considering I can't use Rabain's ones) we may simply replace the rabbit with another creature if we think it can be better, and we have an available animation. I can only think of bat (which is used in NWN with a fear gaze and howl) and rat, but I currently don't know if the former has attack animations. Bats and rats have the same animation sets (abat1,abat1e / arat1, arat1e) Link to comment
Salk Posted February 6, 2009 Author Share Posted February 6, 2009 Demi, do you have PnP sources available for all the familiars? I have paper material only about Pseudo Dragons, Imps, Quasits and Spiders unfortunately. Link to comment
Demivrgvs Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 Demi, do you have PnP sources available for all the familiars? I have paper material only about Pseudo Dragons, Imps, Quasits and Spiders unfortunately. Animals are just animals as per Monster Manuals, Mephit should be in the MM too, while I have only AD&D Faerie Dragon...3rd edition Faerie Dragon should be in the Draconomicon. Anyway I think we're quite extending their original concept...especially regarding normal animals like cats and ferrets. Link to comment
yarpen Posted February 6, 2009 Share Posted February 6, 2009 What about... - instead of rabbit (which is dumb) spider - third familiar for good character: faerie Link to comment
Salk Posted February 7, 2009 Author Share Posted February 7, 2009 What about...- instead of rabbit (which is dumb) spider - third familiar for good character: faerie I think it's pretty much decided that there will be the spider. About the faerie, if Demi wants to follow the rather sensible advice given by Eros (good aligned: fey/draconics, neutral-aligned: animals, evil-aligned: demonic), then it could be a nice selection. So something like: Lawful good: Pseudo Dragon Neutral good: ? Chaotic good: Fairy Dragon Lawful neutral: Spider True Neutral: Ferret Chaotic Neutral: Cat Lawful Evil: Imp Neutral Evil: Dust Mephit Chaotic Evil: Quasit Demi, could we find a familiar that suits the draconic/fey position as NG? I like to see this spell developing! Link to comment
Jarno Mikkola Posted February 7, 2009 Share Posted February 7, 2009 Instead perhapsGood: Pseudo Dragon (LG), Nixie? (NG), Fairy Dragon (CG) -fey/draconic Neutral: Cat (LN), Ferret (TN), Spider (CN) -animal types Evil: Imp (LE), Mephit (NE), Quasit (CE) -demonic types This would work, if we can replace the cat with something animal mage type. Black cat? With Doom, Horror and Finger of Death. Link to comment
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