Feature Request/Suggestion

[Lauriel]

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

In-game, you will suffer some non-trivial penalties (mah stats!) and it can be implied that this will keep happening until you find Irenicus and reverse it.  The game already has an example of a wasting curse, in the Baron Ployer plot.  It makes complete sense that Irenicus would have contingency plans that could included something like "cripple Charname if he/she is more than one mile away from me."

I was actually going to do something like this, but not have it really tied to I4E, though it fits there perfectly.  It just makes sense that he's done 'bad things' and symptoms of that should surface.  I was just going to have it be an "icing on the cake" motivation to go and the real motivation be a completely different mod - one where you don't have to choose between the lesser of 2 evils.  Anyway, so yeah, since I had the same idea, of course I think this idea is awesome. LOL

Edited October 5, 2020 by Lauriel

[jastey]

I'll add to my earlier statement: ...or make the idea a stand alone mod without any ties to I4E, works for me too (I'd hope for compatibility, though).

[Lauriel]

6 minutes ago, jastey said:

I'll add to my earlier statement: ...or make the idea a stand alone mod without any ties to I4E, works for me too (I'd hope for compatibility, though).

You know, for certain, anything I do will be compatible with it since it's on my permanent install list.   I only ever came up with the other reason to go to Spellhold BECAUSE of I4E. LOL

[jastey]

Haha! That's hilarious!

Thanks for the kind words, though.

[subtledoctor]

59 minutes ago, Lauriel said:

I was actually going to do something like this, but not have it really tied to I4E, though it fits there perfectly.

Yup - the more I wrote about that, the more I realized that it need not be tied to I4E at all - though as you say, there is no conceptual or technical reason the two ideas would not work fine together.  Feel free to break this off into its own thread, if this is polluting the I4E forums, but here are my basic thoughts:

-- I like the idea of stat penalties, because people like their high stat rolls and this will provide real motivation to go and fix the problem.  Nothing in chapter 2/3 is so difficult that a couple missing stat points will hamper you; but the Underdark really is a step up in difficulty, so having a stat boost would be nice there (even if it is mostly for your own self-confidence).

-- OTOH it's always worth brainstorming other ideas!

-- Could simply make a spell that has an equal chance of reducing each stat, or take a more curated approach and make six different spells and decide the order in which they are applied.  Or could do both and give the user a choice at install-time - this is not difficult to make.

-- I'm not sure about how/when to apply penalties.  I mentioned the Irenicus dreams, but I'm not even sure how many of those there are, or when they happen.  Another possibility is something like whenever you finish a major quest.  Like I say that borrows pretty directly from the Superbrothers game, and it would really create the question of "just how much 'free adventuring' do you really want to do...?"

-- I presume attaching a ForceSpell() action to the appropriate events would not be very difficult, though this is admittedly the part I have no experience with.

-- (Would have to watch out for mods like SCS "Restoration heals ability score damage.")

-- Then, upon going through the soul-steal dream and being dropped in the maze beneath Spellhold, could simply apply another spell which uses opcode 321 to cancel the various stat-penalty spells.  Bob's your uncle - you have lost your soul, but because the terms of Irenicus's contingency curse have been satisfied and he doesn't need you anymore, you get your stats back.

-- It would probably want a small bit of exposition.  Maybe make it a 'quest' that adds a journal entry when it happens for the first time, and then have the quest close out when you get to the maze beneath Spellhold?  This too is something I have no experience with.

I think that's it?  It seems pretty small in scale, just a bit of a poke at the player to goose them in the right direction.  I could draft the skeleton of a mod - .SPL files and basic .tp2 structure - but I would want to confer with more experienced people (like you all) on how best to implement the script and journal stuff.

[Lauriel]

9 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I could draft the skeleton of a mod

Cool!  I'm up for collaborating, if you are.  I'd be happy to snag it for my mod that brings in another motivation to go to Spellhold. 

[jastey]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

-- Then, upon going through the soul-steal dream and being dropped in the maze beneath Spellhold, could simply apply another spell which uses opcode 321 to cancel the various stat-penalty spells. 

Not sure it's something else or the same thing but applying some effects and removing them again works well with ADD_SECTYPE.

[Endarire]

I was thinking of the Dark Souls Scorched Contract mod recently where after every boss kill, the main character receives stat penalties.  The player has some choice in what to kill next, so as to beat bosses early when their stats are higher or later when they have better gear but lower stats.

[Lauriel]

24 minutes ago, Endarire said:

I was thinking of the Dark Souls Scorched Contract mod recently where after every boss kill, the main character receives stat penalties.  The player has some choice in what to kill next, so as to beat bosses early when their stats are higher or later when they have better gear but lower stats.

I don't think I've heard of anything so awful in my life LOL  Um...uh...no?  Not in my game.    Please don't take offense.  I will politely now say, gee, what a novel idea.  I think I'll try to forget I heard that.

[xiaoleiwen]

This could be a vanilla thing but it would be great if there is something to prevent it. Imoen will get same amount of xp regardless of her dual-class status. So, let say if you dual her at 160000 xp before SOD, her new class will gain 200000 xp when she rejoins in SOD, end up a total xp of 400k when the other party members is just around 200k. 

Not a real issue to most MOD players though since it can be corrected via console or ee keeper easily.

[jastey]

I agree that's much. My mods use the same level-up script like the EE NPCs do, so I wouldn't know how to prevent that.

[xiaoleiwen]

Spoiler

Just a thought when seeing this dream scene with this MOD. Personally I feel that this scene is referring to PC left Imoen behind in the palace, so it could feel slightly odd when I saw this dream scene in Chapter 9 (SOD). I guess changing it the other time point also won't really help, so I guess I have to treat it as a random weird dream that is not related to what has happened in reality.

[jastey]

Thanks, I'm not too aware of the SoD dreams it seems. Maybe I'll come up with something.