Revised Fiends

[Demivrgvs]

Ok, because of a serious issue reported here I had to work on summoned fiends' scripts again, and being unable to quickly understand what the hell was happening I decided to spend the time not to simply fix those scripts but improve them by starting to introduce V4-like features.

 

More or less the new behaviour in my Beta is the following:

* fiend's allegiance is determined after a quick "mental duel" similarly to vanilla's Conjure Elemental

* there's 85% chance the fiend will accept to "work" for its summoner, becoming a true ally (green circle, his kills grant xp to party)

* there's 15% chance the fiend will not accept to "work" for its summoner, becoming a true enemy (red circle, will consider the AI his ally)

* when cast by the AI the fiend will always be on AI's side (a la SCS)

* if allied the fiend is not directly controllablem but follows its summoner everywhere (though I still have to implement area transitions)

* if enemy it will teleport to nearest party members until he kills them all, or he's killed

* fiends are only partially tolerant to their summoners (e.g. if players hurt them, even unintentionally, they turn hostile)

* Protection from Evil doesn't grant "immunity" to summoned demons anymore (making it consistent with SCSII)

 

Another advantage is that being fully allied or enemy their spell-like abilities will correctly target their opponents, whereas there were various targeting issues when fiends on both PC and AI side where in the area.

 

Possible refinements include:

* different % chances based on various conditions (charisma checks, caster lvl checks, caster class/kit check)

* add dialogs a la Limited Wish (for now I only use a simple display string which says either "Very well, I shall follow you" or "Now I will kill you all, foolish ones!")

 

If and when we'll be satisfied with the results I'll include these changes/fixes in the hotfixes.

 

Last but not least, let me know if these changes are welcome or if I'm working in a direction most of you dislike.

[Dakk]

This is fantastic!

I'd like to help testing, but I'm not currently in possession of my gaming laptop, although I could always install it on the one I have. What would I need; BG2, Fixpack and SR basically? How about BGT or SCS(II)?

 

* different % chances based on various conditions

I'd like that, with maybe 95% as a theoretical achievable maximum "serve" chance. Btw, I'd imagine you'd summon a PF because you're in deep shit, and I can just imagine the face of the player when the PF goes "Now I will kill you all!".

* for consistency with SCS Protection from Evil shouldn't affect these summons anymore

Aww... But maybe PfE could increase the %?

[Jarno Mikkola]

More or less the new behaviour in my Beta is the following:

* fiend's allegiance is determined after a quick "mental duel" similarly to vanilla's Conjure Elemental

Because you compared this feature to vanilla's CE spell, what does the "quick" mean in this sentence ? An hour, a turn(60 real second), a round(6 seconds, or was it the other way around), a second, or instant ? And does the summoner get slammed by the hold effect ?

I would support the 3-6 second non stunned caster(for the player, the enemies can cheat so they don't have this delay feature) delay, during which point the demon does nothing but observes if it's attacked and then goes hostile after the target that does.

[Demivrgvs]

This is fantastic!

I'd like to help testing, but I'm not currently in possession of my gaming laptop, although I could always install it on the one I have. What would I need; BG2, Fixpack and SR basically? How about BGT or SCS(II)?

Well, whichever install you already have (that includes SR) should be fine, and I have to test again SCSII compatibility too thus having it would be good.

 

* different % chances based on various conditions

I'd like that, with maybe 95% as a theoretical achievable maximum "serve" chance. Btw, I'd imagine you'd summon a PF because you're in deep shit, and I can just imagine the face of the player when the PF goes "Now I will kill you all!".

* for consistency with SCS Protection from Evil shouldn't affect these summons anymore

Aww... But maybe PfE could increase the %?

Well, the point is that having a 1st lvl spell grant you complete immunity to the most powerful creatures of the nine hells seems really absurd to me. aTweks's fiends have many ways to dispel ProEvil (Remove Magic, Limited Wish, ...), but I prefer to have consistency with SCS, and its solution to get rid of it is also much better imo. Pit Fiends have at-will Remove Magic (with SR/SCS they are 24th lvl casters) thus keeping vanilla's ProEvil would be a really unnecessary complication.

 

Having it affect the "% chance" is debatable. I had in mind only a couple of things:

- having Necromancers slightly advantaged for Summon DEath Knight

- having Conjurers slightly advantaged for Summon Fiend and Gate

- having good-aligned characters seriously disadvantaged

- ...

But a full "bargain-like" feature would require dialogs a la Limited Wish, and that would require way more time to implement.

 

 

More or less the new behaviour in my Beta is the following:

* fiend's allegiance is determined after a quick "mental duel" similarly to vanilla's Conjure Elemental

Because you compared this feature to vanilla's CE spell, what does the "quick" mean in this sentence ? An hour, a turn(60 real second), a round(6 seconds, or was it the other way around), a second, or instant ? And does the summoner get slammed by the hold effect ?

I would support the 3-6 second non stunned caster(for the player, the enemies can cheat so they don't have this delay feature) delay, during which point the demon does nothing but observes if it's attacked and then goes hostile after the target that does.

Right now it's a 3 sec delay, with no hold/stun effect on caster, and enemies don't have such delay at all. Anyway, this is a Beta, thus almost anything is debatable.

[DrAzTiK]

Having it affect the "% chance" is debatable. I had in mind only a couple of things:

- having Necromancers slightly advantaged for Summon DEath Knight

- having Conjurers slightly advantaged for Summon Fiend and Gate

- having good-aligned characters seriously disadvantaged

 

Sound really great, for my part, penalize a bit good alignment party is always welcome

 

 

I would be glad to test your beta. Will it be possible to install it in a game in process ? Considering my troubles with SR demons (again problem with almost invincible Glabrezu, maybe my SR fix was too old) I have just have installed atweaks fiends now. (I should do more test but they appears a bit weak)

[Incantatar]

Like in 3.5 D&D (I'm not sure of AD&D 2E) why not make the duel depend on summoner's charisma and level? E.g. a lvl 35 conjurer with 25 charisma should have no trouble binding a demon/devil. Also i see no difference for chaotic good summoners binding devils in comparison to evil ones.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, the point is that having a 1st lvl spell grant you complete immunity to the most powerful creatures of the nine hells seems really absurd to me. aTweks's fiends have many ways to dispel ProEvil (Remove Magic, Limited Wish, ...), but I prefer to have consistency with SCS, and its solution to get rid of it is also much better imo. Pit Fiends have at-will Remove Magic (with SR/SCS they are 24th lvl casters) thus keeping vanilla's ProEvil would be a really unnecessary complication.

But that shouldn't make a difference as the protection from evil... originally protected from the demons by making the protected character invisible to the demon... so the dispel spells etc cannot be casted on them... just like sanctuary does until hostile action is taken for everyone.

That's the original behavior, now if we make the protection from evil do different things, we can remove the invisibility, but we need to make the spell firstly undispellable, buff the effected characters stats, but in that only against the "purely rotten to the core" evil monsters...

[Demivrgvs]

Glabrezus and pit fiends are giving me an headache, for some reason I have to re-do their entire targeting system.

 

I would be glad to test your beta. Will it be possible to install it in a game in process ? Considering my troubles with SR demons (again problem with almost invincible Glabrezu, maybe my SR fix was too old) I have just have installed atweaks fiends now. (I should do more test but they appears a bit weak)

If you already have SR installed and not overwritten by something else, then it's only a matter of putting a bunch of files in the override.

 

aVENGER's demons cannot be considered "weak", and for some aspects theyr are smarter than SR/SCS ones, but in terms of raw power they are indeed much weaker.

 

Like in 3.5 D&D (I'm not sure of AD&D 2E) why not make the duel depend on summoner's charisma and level? E.g. a lvl 35 conjurer with 25 charisma should have no trouble binding a demon/devil. Also i see no difference for chaotic good summoners binding devils in comparison to evil ones.

Interesting, tying it to charisma may be cool, but probably undoable, while making the caster level affect the chance may be doable.

 

Making Protection from Evil not affect gated demons

But that shouldn't make a difference as the protection from evil... originally protected from the demons by making the protected character invisible to the demon... so the dispel spells etc cannot be casted on them... just like sanctuary does until hostile action is taken for everyone.

That's the original behavior, now if we make the protection from evil do different things, we can remove the invisibility, but we need to make the spell firstly undispellable, buff the effected characters stats, but in that only against the "purely rotten to the core" evil monsters...

Sometimes I ask myself if you're serious, or if you're only trying to get me mad.

 

Let's see:

* "that shouldn't make a difference as the protection from evil... originally protected from the demons by making the protected character invisible to the demon" --> WHAT is not going to make a difference? P.S ProEvil doesn't make the protected creature invisibile, it makes the recipient not directly targetable

 

* "so the dispel spells etc cannot be casted on them" --> untrue, just look at aVENGER's workarounds to that, and nothing prevents to make fiends cast Remove Magic near the protected creatures

 

* "but we need to make the spell firstly undispellable" --> we need to make ProEvil undispellable? Why?

 

* "buff the effected characters stats" ---> eh? WHY?

[Ardanis]

But a full "bargain-like" feature would require dialogs a la Limited Wish, and that would require way more time to implement.

I doubt it'll be more complex than the trap interface dialog, simply because there're three creatures only to work on. Do we have a time for it? Oh, and this way it means the bargain bonus from the ring may work starting from now

[Jarno Mikkola]

Sometimes I ask myself if you're serious, or if you're only trying to get me mad.

 

Let's see:

1* "that shouldn't make a difference as the protection from evil... originally protected from the demons by making the protected character invisible to the demon" --> WHAT is not going to make a difference? P.S ProEvil doesn't make the protected creature invisibile, it makes the recipient not directly targetable

2* "so the dispel spells etc cannot be casted on them" --> untrue, just look at aVENGER's workarounds to that, and nothing prevents to make fiends cast Remove Magic near the protected creatures

3* "but we need to make the spell firstly undispellable" --> we need to make ProEvil undispellable? Why?

4* "buff the effected characters stats" ---> eh? WHY?

1* In the regards of the scripts, if you cannot target the character, the target is invisible.

2* aVENGERS workarounds, make the spell "less than desirably useful", or correctly named as: useless... as it's meant to work around a problem that's not exactly there.

3* What's good about a dispelled protection spell that is only useful against a small set of targets if all the darn targets can and will automatically, without a single lost second, be able to dispel it?

4* Well, if we take away the invisibility, we have nothing but the name of the spell left. And this is where the 3ed's rules can be put to effect.

[Ardanis]

Jarno are you perchance aware that ProEvil grants +2 bonus on AC and saves vs evil creatures, which are above half of all opponents you meet, including fiends?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Jarno are you perchance aware that ProEvil grants +2 bonus on AC and saves vs evil creatures, which are above half of all opponents you meet, including fiends?

And that's not a "buff the effected characters stats" ?

What I meant was that the +2 is hardly noticeable... when one faces creatures that have 4 or more levels higher than the once in the original game... but that's just me.

[yarpen]

Interesting, tying it to charisma may be cool, but probably undoable, while making the caster level affect the chance may be doable.

- summon invisible creature with his own script

- check caster's Charisma and do some IF-THEN magic

- (optional) add bargain system

 

I'd rather prefer Charisma modifiers than need of paying with gems, but it's a good alternative.

[Demivrgvs]

I'm attaching the Beta in the first post, but it's better to have a decent knowledge of BG to test them (e.g. to suggest me what doesn't work in the scripts). Simply copy the files in the override.

Bargain with demons

But a full "bargain-like" feature would require dialogs a la Limited Wish, and that would require way more time to implement.

I doubt it'll be more complex than the trap interface dialog, simply because there're three creatures only to work on. Do we have a time for it? Oh, and this way it means the bargain bonus from the ring may work starting from now

We really don't have time for it imo. As soon as these "simple" scripts work without issues I'd go back to IR.

 

Interesting, tying it to charisma may be cool, but probably undoable, while making the caster level affect the chance may be doable.

- summon invisible creature with his own script

- check caster's Charisma and do some IF-THEN magic

- (optional) add bargain system

 

I'd rather prefer Charisma modifiers than need of paying with gems, but it's a good alternative.

I'd probably prefer it too. Where's the benefit of castin an invisible creature? My issu is that without "dialog a la Limited Wish" I don't think scripts can check anyone's charisma value.

 

With the current 85% chance of success seems too high..I just managed to summon an entire horde of allied pit fiends and death knights!

 

 

Protection from Evil

Jarno are you perchance aware that ProEvil grants +2 bonus on AC and saves vs evil creatures, which are above half of all opponents you meet, including fiends?

And that's not a "buff the effected characters stats" ?

What I meant was that the +2 is hardly noticeable... when one faces creatures that have 4 or more levels higher than the once in the original game... but that's just me.

We're not buffing anything, that's what ProEvil did before I was born, and +2 AC and saves for 1 hour is already a huge boost for a 1st lvl spell!

[Tonton Fred]

Nice !!

 

Since you're working on the subject and even plan to introduce V4-like features, are you planning to introduce more of aTweaks' fiends AI features (Blood War & co), as was discussed previously ?

 

I was suggesting a custom script for SR+aTweaks, which uses SR's fiends (statistics and abilities) with your added features (Blood War, rampaging behaviour, ...).

 

Else simply assigning your scripts to SR's creatures may be a sub-optimal "co-existance". You'd have SR's characteristics and combat abilities, with RR's special abilities, AI and cool features (Blood War, rampaging behaviour, ...).

 

Just my 2 cents, I'm sure you'll handle the matter egregiously.

 

Since aVENGER was ok with SR reusing his code, this should cut down on the implementation/bugfix time, hopefully.

 

Second point : if you start modifying Summoned fiends, does that mean that on a SR/SCS install, in-world fiends would now behave differently from summoned ones ?

 

Cheers,

Fred