Thieving Skills for Bards

[Jarno Mikkola]

19 minutes ago, Grammarsalad said:

Lol, so I take it this isn't really something you are interested in. Lol, I have no idea what you meant earlier, but that's ok.

So it was a Bard exclusive thing in the vanilla games ? Cheeseus.

What I intended was that bards, rangers and any other kits that gain thieving sub skill points should be able to pick their prefered place and not be restricted to a .2da table of their class design. Now, that of course comes with a hassle of added user interface problems, but those can be solved later. Which is where the off topic remark came in.

[Grammarsalad]

4 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

What I intended was that bards, rangers and any other kits that gain thieving sub skill points should be able to pick their prefered place and not be restricted to a .2da table of their class design

Do you mean they should be able to assign skill points as a thief. Doable without eeet as far as I know (can confirm it is doable pre 2.6). 

Anyway, I don't think we should clutter this thread anymore with this stuff, but please feel free to start a new topic and ping me. I'm very happy to talk about it.

 

Edit:

'Was it bard specific in vanilla'

As far as I know, you couldn't assign new buttons to different classes so, in general, it wasn't an issue. But, this did come up in the development of eeex, and it was only an issue for the bard (where the button was hardcoded to only pick pockets). 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Grammarsalad

[morpheus562]

@Grammarsaladthe issue with bards being able to assign thieving skills during level up is weird coding in the back end that makes them quickly go negative skill points to assign after a few levels. Pre v2.6 were you able to get a bard from level one to the end of the game and to assign skill points successfully?

[Grammarsalad]

1 hour ago, morpheus562 said:

@Grammarsaladthe issue with bards being able to assign thieving skills during level up is weird coding in the back end that makes them quickly go negative skill points to assign after a few levels. Pre v2.6 were you able to get a bard from level one to the end of the game and to assign skill points successfully?

Ya know, I never tested past level 1, so maybe not (ah, I guess that is what the imp was talking about).

As for that issue, I'm wondering if this issue affects any other classes. It may be fine as it sounds like that has more to do with the 100% set trap. Hmm, maybe that was an issue in earlier versions as set trap is automatically there as well.

[Jarno Mikkola]

In the non-EE games, there was the special tripple class thief that needed to use extra space in their User Interface.. so they ended up assigning the thieving ability to F12, aka under the special abilities button. So you were able to assign the thieving ability that way all the way in BGToB games, via MAKE_KIT's CLAB ability assigning to non thieves. But the problem to my memory was that it was just pick pocketing for them.

[morpheus562]

@GrammarsaladSo I have a functional, non-released version, that allows Rangers to gain skill points similar to Thieves. Unlike Bards, the Rangers do not go negative skill point assignment after a few level. Instead, Rangers add the initial skill point assignment to what they are supposed to receive each level. For example: a Ranger initially gets 15 skill points at level 1 to assign. Every level after if I want them to get 5, they will instead get 20 (15 initial level + 5 every level = 20 every level now). So they too have something unique going on in the background; however, it doesn't prevent players from assigning skill points similar to Thieves.

FYI: After all the background math, I have Rangers and all Ranger kits set to receive 15 skill points at level up with an additional 20 (15+5) skill points every level up. Once released, Rangers will get the added ability to Detect Illusions.

Edited January 15, 2022 by morpheus562

[Grammarsalad]

1 hour ago, morpheus562 said:

@GrammarsaladSo I have a functional, non-released version, that allows Rangers to gain skill points similar to Thieves. Unlike Bards, the Rangers do not go negative skill point assignment after a few level. Instead, Rangers add the initial skill point assignment to what they are supposed to receive each level. For example: a Ranger initially gets 15 skill points at level 1 to assign. Every level after if I want them to get 5, they will instead get 20 (15 initial level + 5 every level = 20 every level now). So they too have something unique going on in the background; however, it doesn't prevent players from assigning skill points similar to Thieves.

FYI: After all the background math, I have Rangers and all Ranger kits set to receive 15 skill points at level up with an additional 20 (15+5) skill points every level up. Once released, Rangers will get the added ability to Detect Illusions.

Nice! 

Speaking of rangers, I have a working version of set natural snares. It's exactly like thief set traps, but it can only be done in the wilderness. I would happily donate it if you like.

[Grammarsalad]

I also have other suggestions, but let me know if I'm going beyond the scope of this mod. Just a couple right now:

Druids/Rangers: add the bardsong button and give them abilities to progressively affect animals and/or other "beasts" in various ways (fear, charm, etc.)

Cleric/Paladins: Replace turn button with bardsong button to simulate different turn like effects. Could do (idk) d4 dam to undead per round at 1st level and then get better as you level up. At higher levels could do more damage and affect other creatures like demons.

You could also do something more powerful abilities. To balance, activating these specials disables the "turn" bardsong button for a period of time. 

No pressure, though. I'll definitely do this stuff at some point otherwise.

I've also got plenty of other ideas (e.g. to make the monk and barbarian closer to their 1e implementations and give read scrolls to 10th level thieves like pnp)

 

Edit: 

Jarno:

"In the non-EE games, there was the special tripple class thief that needed to use extra space in their User Interface.. so they ended up assigning the thieving ability to F12, aka under the special abilities button. So you were able to assign the thieving ability that way all the way in BGToB games, via MAKE_KIT's CLAB ability assigning to non thieves. But the problem to my memory was that it was just pick pocketing for them"

 

Ahh. Interesting

Edited January 15, 2022 by Grammarsalad

[morpheus562]

@GrammarsaladI think that would be awesome to incorporate setting natural snares for Rangers, thank you!

I wouldn't be opposed to broadening the scope of this mod (and renaming it) to allow for broader class changes thanks to the power of EEex. Any interest in collaborating together on it?

[Grammarsalad]

3 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

@GrammarsaladI think that would be awesome to incorporate setting natural snares for Rangers, thank you!

I wouldn't be opposed to broadening the scope of this mod (and renaming it) to allow for broader class changes thanks to the power of EEex. Any interest in collaborating together on it?

Absolutely, 100%!

Now to track down my work! I've had a mod like this on the back burnt burnerfor way too long

Edited January 16, 2022 by Grammarsalad

[morpheus562]

50 minutes ago, Grammarsalad said:

Absolutely, 100%!

Now to track down my work! I've had a mod like this on the back burnt burnerfor way too long

Awesome! Let me know when you find it, so we can start looking at the scope for this thing.

[Graion Dilach]

IWDEE was overlooked but it works there (did an edit on 1.2 to allow it to install and my bards got trap detection).

[morpheus562]

That is great news! I'm guessing you just added IWDEE to the allowed games?

[Graion Dilach]

Yup, that's all what I did. The Enhanced Powergaming MO-CORE script doesn't pick it up though (nor auto-detection nor the D button reacts to it, install order is correct) but manual trap detection seems to be functional.

[morpheus562]

Honestly, that's me needing to make a few changes in the scripts to pick it up.