Userunfriendly Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 Well, this just popped into my head (amazing, since I'm a pinhead), how about when Del shapechanges into a werewolf a minor horrify spell is cast, centered on her? Like I stated elsewhere I don't know terribly much about lycanthropes in the Forgotten Realms, but I'd suspect that it be terrifying to the weak. Perhaps a horrify effect with a high saving throw modifier, like +8? Also, perhaps when she's badly injured she might go berserk, similar to a vampire's frenzy in V:TM. how about a variant of cloak of fear...one you would not have to cast at all, its just a natural side effect of the shapechange...while del is a ravening huge werewolf, she scares enemies...heck, she would scare me silly... now since cloak of fear is not a terribly effective spell in the game, only gibberlings and orcs would flee in terror...very much in character with the traditional werewolf...quite useful at low levels, but not useful at all at the higher levels...which is ok,since most really powerful creatures are highly resistant to fear and have a save bonus for fear and panic. Link to comment
Uriel Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 so to really disable a dragon you must use feeblemind...then poly morph to squirrel, and have aerie chase it around with a warhammer...priceless screenshot... I'm going OT for a moment here. Aerie was instrumental for downing both Firkragg and the Shadow Dragon. She flamestruck the SD twice, doing over 100 hps of damage. As to firkragg, she managed to blind him as well as doing a fair amount of damage with MMs. I'm an Aerie fan, and as such I'm a tad defensive of her. Please though, I don't wish this to start yet another flame war, I shall not be a party to it. As to "priceless screenshots", I have a "priceless event" to share. After slaying Firkragg, I had Jahiera summon a nymph to take a 'picture' of the party posing over Firkragg's dead corpse. She cast "mass cure" to simulate the flash. Right after this a team of hostile bounty hunters, seeking Tashia, arrived. All this right after the battle with a dragon, heh. Back on topic here, how about a spell, exclusive to Delainy, that can summon various types of wolves to her aid? Wolf types could range from the common wolf, all the way to the Vampiric Wolves, with their immunity to normal weapons and paralyzing bites. Del's level would determine which type would be summoned. This spell would be similar in effect to "Spider Spawn". This spell makes sense IMO, since the Wolfweres had these types of wolves in their company on Balduran's ship. A possible name for this spell could be "Feral Whispers", or something along this line. I stole this name from V:TM, I admit, I guess that's expected since I'm such a thief fan. Uriel Link to comment
Bri Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 Summoning a variety of wolves will be done, but with one of her Howls (It is going to be called Mielikki's Summons). As for the horror effect...well, I think I prefer to tie it into her howl as well, rather than having it as an everpresent effect in werewolf form... Link to comment
Userunfriendly Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 so to really disable a dragon you must use feeblemind...then poly morph to squirrel, and have aerie chase it around with a warhammer...priceless screenshot... I'm going OT for a moment here. Aerie was instrumental for downing both Firkragg and the Shadow Dragon. She flamestruck the SD twice, doing over 100 hps of damage. As to firkragg, she managed to blind him as well as doing a fair amount of damage with MMs. I'm an Aerie fan, and as such I'm a tad defensive of her. Please though, I don't wish this to start yet another flame war, I shall not be a party to it. As to "priceless screenshots", I have a "priceless event" to share. After slaying Firkragg, I had Jahiera summon a nymph to take a 'picture' of the party posing over Firkragg's dead corpse. She cast "mass cure" to simulate the flash. Right after this a team of hostile bounty hunters, seeking Tashia, arrived. All this right after the battle with a dragon, heh. Back on topic here, how about a spell, exclusive to Delainy, that can summon various types of wolves to her aid? Wolf types could range from the common wolf, all the way to the Vampiric Wolves, with their immunity to normal weapons and paralyzing bites. Del's level would determine which type would be summoned. This spell would be similar in effect to "Spider Spawn". This spell makes sense IMO, since the Wolfweres had these types of wolves in their company on Balduran's ship. A possible name for this spell could be "Feral Whispers", or something along this line. I stole this name from V:TM, I admit, I guess that's expected since I'm such a thief fan. Uriel oh yeah...i too am an aerie fan, cleric mages rock... and try shadowkeepering her to cleric of lathander and mage...the boon is surprisingly effective...Next game, i'm going to try the cleric of helm, the seeking sword stinks, but the true sights could be very effective... or cleric of talos...aerie, bolt mage!!! you know, bri, that makes a tremendous amount of sense!!! its one thing for a group of goblins to be scared by a shapeshift...its another thing for them to be pissing in their pants when they hear a werewolf howl... :alien: "I'm an Aerie fan, and as such I'm a tad defensive of her." the only reason i mention aerie in the chasing around firky in squirrel form is that i used to have a screenshot of her, a little slip of a girl with this big old war hammer, and i managed to take the shot just as she was saying "Faster than chikkita fastpaws!!!" and subtitles were on... it looked funnier than heck to see aerie chasing this little rodent around with a war hammer bigger than herself... and frankly, in most games, aerie racks up 1-3 dragon kills by the end of tob... a chain contingency implosion is a thing of terror.. Link to comment
CamDawg Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 Uriel, if you keep this up I might have to open up the workshop. You've already "outed" two ideas we had under discussion. And welcome UU! I was hoping you would wander over here eventually. Link to comment
Userunfriendly Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 thanks!!! urm....this is going to be a concern of any mod maker, to keep dirty little cheesers like me from exploiting the game engine...but one of the classic and evil cheeses with shapeshifter kit, (Without shapeshifter rebalancing from wiemer) has been to shapeshift to werewolf, then cast dispell on the werewolf, the paws that the shapeshift give you go away...then the druid could equip new and much more effective weapons than the claws that the vanilla shapeshift gives you....and the druid keeps the regeneration bonus of the kit... has this been resolved???  everything leads me to believe that the delainey shapeshift has magic items in place that will serve as the werewolf claws...which can be dispelled, and del can now wield scimatars or shortswords or whatever... Link to comment
CamDawg Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 The problem with werewolf claws has been a frequent topic of discussion at the Baldurdash forums. The best solution Kevin had proposed (before his disappearance) was to make the shapeshifter completely immune to dispel magic while transformed. All of the other workarounds eventually seemed to run into hardcoded limitations. Presuming we could fix this bug with KDs method, it still begs the question of whether we should include bug fixes with an NPC mod. My personal inclination would be to leave it out. Link to comment
Uriel Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 The problem with werewolf claws has been a frequent topic of discussion at the Baldurdash forums. The best solution Kevin had proposed (before his disappearance) was to make the shapeshifter completely immune to dispel magic while transformed. All of the other workarounds eventually seemed to run into hardcoded limitations. Presuming we could fix this bug with KDs method, it still begs the question of whether we should include bug fixes with an NPC mod. My personal inclination would be to leave it out. I ran into this same problem when I created my dragon kit long ago. I would playtest the dragon by going on a mass murdering spree in Athkatla. When the wizards arrived, they dispelled the dragon's claws, hence removing whatever advantages the bestowed. To combat this debilitating bug, I gave the character immunity to dispel magic while shapechanged. However, this made the kit even more unbalancing than it was before, being immune to all dispels and all. A possible solution to this would to have a special ability that would give the shapechanger's claws back. The ability would only be available when shapechanged, of course. Link to comment
Bri Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 Heh...yeah, we will figure something around this...or a variant option...but thanks for pointing out the problem with the claws... Link to comment
CamDawg Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 A possible solution to this would to have a special ability that would give the shapechanger's claws back. The ability would only be available when shapechanged, of course. This solution still doesn't address UU's cheese loophole. The fact that the claws can be dispelled means that you can use another weapon in its place. Imagine Delainy with her werewolf powers dualwielding swords instead of her claws. Even if you prefer her claws, you can stick Belm in her offhand and unfairly gain another attack. We essentially have three choices: make shapeshifters immune to Dispel Magic, make the paws dispellable and therefore replacable, or make no changes. Since people are going to regard either of the first two options as a tweak (since they're not strictly bugfixes) I believe we should leave it alone. Link to comment
Userunfriendly Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 I just thought of another approach...if you look at the cre file for demogorgon, he's got an undroppable magic weapon in his right hand... it would mean making a seperate cre file for each level of shapeshift, but this will completely avoid any problems with dispell magic, and still not permit anyone to replace her weapon with something else...fill her right hand slots with an undroppable magic weapon... what do you guys think??? the only question is what happens to del's currently equipped weapons when you shapeshift...but a spell to unequipp the weapon, similar to the casting of melf minute meteors should fix that... Link to comment
CamDawg Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 OK, I'm starting to get a little out of my depth here, but I'm going to try it anyway. Every character has a hidden weapon slot reserved for magically created weapons. Whatever is in this slot overrides what is actually being wielded in the main hand by the character. Melf's Minute Meteors, Phantom Blade, Shillelagh, Flame Blades, Black Blade of Disaster, etc. all work by creating a magical weapon that goes in the hidden slot. Your actual weapons remain in inventory. There are two problems with the hidden slot. Any item in it, regardless of what's flagged in the item file--even indestructible--can be dispelled. The other problem is that while it replaces your main hand weapon, your offhand remains active, whether it's a shield or another weapon. This is not a problem with the current spells since they all create one handed items, but it makes no sense for the shapeshifter to get an AC bonus from a shield that can not be used. The offhand exploit could potentially be averted by flagging the paw as two handed but I have the feeling this will probably cause a crash. The other option is to create the weapon in the inventory, in the fashion of Weimer's shapeshifter rebalancing. If created directly in a weapon slot, or quick item, it will overwrite whatever item is there, meaning goodbye items. I don't think you can move an item out of a quick slot or hand via spells since it's limited to existing spell effects, not scripting. If created in the inventory as an equippable item, we've essentially given Delainy an unlimited amount of shapeshifting. Since the WW shapeshift provides a CON bonus we've also given Del an instant full heal while the game is paused by equip, un-equip, repeat. Most creatures with custom abilities such as Demogorgon or vampires use custom, undroppable weapons in their main hand. However they don't have to worry about switching weapons. : Link to comment
Userunfriendly Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 i had no idea that's how magic weapons like melf and black blade works...sigh... i do know that it is possible to script a inventory drop...in the imoen romance mod, there is a scripted inventory drop just before the tickle attack scene, as the party leaves the underdark... actually from a role playing perspective, having a werewolf drop all items from inventory when shapechanging does make a lot of sense...but it would be too much of a pain in the butt for most players... well, if it comes down to a vote, i'd vote for dispell immunity...since the shapechange ability in this mod lasts for a fixed number of rounds, it makes the most amount of sense, and is the easiest to implement... Link to comment
Uriel Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 >A possible solution to this would to have a special ability that would give the shapechanger's claws back. The ability would only be available when shapechanged, of course. This solution still doesn't address UU's cheese loophole. The fact that the claws can be dispelled means that you can use another weapon in its place. Imagine Delainy with her werewolf powers dualwielding swords instead of her claws. Even if you prefer her claws, you can stick Belm in her offhand and unfairly gain another attack. We essentially have three choices: make shapeshifters immune to Dispel Magic, make the paws dispellable and therefore replacable, or make no changes. Since people are going to regard either of the first two options as a tweak (since they're not strictly bugfixes) I believe we should leave it alone. I know it doesn't fix that cheesy cheat, I guess it's truly up to the player's honesty if they'll exploit it. Any of the solutions to this claw-dispel problem could invoke a slew of other, unbalancing problems, so I agree, leave it alone, unless another better solution presents itself. Uriel Link to comment
Bri Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Yeah...if people wish to cheat on the game or such as it is, or there are other bugs, we will do our best, but ultimately, it may not be desired by all parties all around. Link to comment
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