Initiative? Multiple item/spell abilities and switching between them?

[temnix]

This is kind of difficult for me to wrap my mind around, I don't know enough about equipment and its properties to ask the question... Let me try...

 

Combat is too predictable, because we know for a fact when everything will happen. In pen-and-paper the DM rolls 1d10 for every character, so the actual weapon/spell speed is not that important. This makes fighting scary and exciting, and there is no guaranteed caster-interruption either. I want to bring initiative to the games - imitate it. This hasn't been done yet, has it? Random speed of spell abilities and weapon/item abilities.

 

So let me ask...

 

A basic weapon, like a sword, usually only has one weapon ability - Melee in this case. That ability has a certain speed, and that's how quickly it hits. If you make another Melee ability, the player can right-click the weapon on the control panel. I'd like to know if it's possible to somehow randomize which Melee abilities are used? For example, after a hit? Or at the beginning of combat?

 

Random weapon speeds.

 

My idea: when the sword strikes, it is destroyed and replaced by one of several available others, from spell effects. We can set percentages there, so it would be 100-90 to be replaced with a copy that has speed 9, 89-79 with one that has speed 8 and so on. Every hit would then change the sword. But it's also important to have the weapon(s) automatically equipped and selected as the active weapon.

 

Possible?

 

Alternative: somehow apply a slowing effect randomly on all creatures every round, but one that would only affect casting times and weapon speeds, not movement or animations.

[Jarno Mikkola]

In pen-and-paper the DM rolls 1d10 for every character,

Erhm, nope. He might throw for the monsters, but the player roll for themselves. And usually it's a d20's. Ok, yeah, of course it depends on the party composition etc usually, but the game is balanced to have this as a feature (in the character statistics etc in the game rule set that give bonuses and penalties to the dice roll).

The game is not really made to have random initiates, it's a real time strategy with roleplaying rule set(with a pause). Just like the Starcraft is a real time strategy with no randomization, just with more unites.

 

I will bet that you can make the alternative done with combat counter and baldur.bcs if you extend the top of it... but of course that's going to be annoying, mostly.

[Ardanis]

You can patch the weapons to apply random speed factor penalty on hit, but it would hardly matter because two and more attacks per round will quickly diminish the significance of SF value down to nothing.

 

If you don't like casting interruption, use ToBEx/EE to enable 1d20 concentration roll, it's way more robust a solution.

 

Combat is too predictable, because we know for a fact when everything will happen. In pen-and-paper the DM rolls 1d10 for every character, so the actual weapon/spell speed is not that important. This makes fighting scary and exciting, and there is no guaranteed caster-interruption either.

 

That's closer to "randomly win or die" unpredictable, than "too many options to calculate them all". Although, to each their own, I suppose.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

You could apply a random Wait+Continue at the start of a combat script. This would work for every non-party CRE in the game if you patched them all. I think the easiest way to do it for party NPCs is to rely on the Honor System that the player would patch character scripts, too, in the same way.

IF
  True()
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    Continue()
  RESPONSE #100
    SmallWait(15)
    Continue()
  RESPONSE #100
    SmallWait(30)
    Continue()
  RESPONSE #100
    SmallWait(45)
    Continue()
  RESPONSE #100
    SmallWait(60)
    Continue()
END

I don't feel like editing it in. You'd have to run a global timer, too, so it didn't run more than once a round.

[subtledoctor]

This is an even more quixotic idea than my plan to disentangle spellcasting from the six-second round...

[temnix]

 

In pen-and-paper the DM rolls 1d10 for every character,

Erhm, nope. He might throw for the monsters, but the player roll for themselves. And usually it's a d20's. Ok, yeah, of course it depends on the party composition etc usually, but the game is balanced to have this as a feature (in the character statistics etc in the game rule set that give bonuses and penalties to the dice roll).

The game is not really made to have random initiates, it's a real time strategy with roleplaying rule set(with a pause). Just like the Starcraft is a real time strategy with no randomization, just with more unites.

 

I will bet that you can make the alternative done with combat counter and baldur.bcs if you extend the top of it... but of course that's going to be annoying, mostly.

 

 

Refresh the AD&D Player's Handbook in your mind. It's a d10, and it doesn't matter who rolls it. As for whether the Infinity Engine games are meant to be real-time strategy games or role-playing games, I opine in favor of the latter. If you like combat predictable, then I have no argument.

 

Looks like I'm on my own for a solution... As usual...

[temnix]

I think I found the way to do it. A mod will be appearing shortly, introducing initiative. The exact explanation of it I'll omit, but I was inspired by the 1d6 dice system of "The Dying Earth RPG." That system was designed to be quick, fun and emphasize randomness for heroics and fumbles. That's why it only uses a cube die.

 

If you haven't heard about DE, this is the brilliant system it uses to determine success or failure of an action: the player states the intention, and a check is made. The results can be rerolled from pool points of players, which represent their expertise.

 

1 is Dismal Failure, with something dreadful like shooting yourself in the leg or knocking out the teeth of a bystander, who happens to be the town mayor.

 

2 is Quotidian Failure, which means you fail - no more, no less.

 

3 is Exasperating Failure, where you get a glimmer of hope or a side benefit.

 

4 is Hair-Breadth's Success, where you barely or badly accomplish what you intended to do.

 

5 is Prosaic Success, which is about as interesting as it sounds.

 

6 is Illustrious Success, which is so spectacular that the enemies give up and convert to your cause or the mayor hosts you at his house.

 

In the spirit of this my initiative mod will apply random quickenings and slowdowns - of varying degrees of dramatism - to all parties in a fight. No one will be guaranteed to go first or to get a spell out unmolested - and, by the same token, much slower spells can be risked in the thick of fighting, and a hit from a two-handed sword might be lightning-quick on occasion. Read the full pitch in the main post.