Morpheus562's Kitpack

[morpheus562]

6 minutes ago, Connelly said:

A Final Fantasy flavored Dragoon? Now I know what I'm trying in my next game. If it had some sort of connection to dragons somehow it'd be golden.

A minor doubt I have about the Deathbringer and Archmage kits. I might be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that when importing a savefile/character between games, one should install the same kits in the same order in both installations (something about kits IDs at the time of installation?). If true, wouldn't those kits being BG2 only cause problems for non-EET playthroughs?

 

For the prestige kits, those both require a character receive a certain level can can only be achieved in bg2. The conversation and changing of the character kit occurs through scripts, and I don't imagine there to be an issue caused by imports.

[Connelly]

9 minutes ago, morpheus562 said:

For the prestige kits, those both require a character receive a certain level can can only be achieved in bg2. The conversation and changing of the character kit occurs through scripts, and I don't imagine there to be an issue caused by imports.

Sorry, I didn't mean about the time when you're taking the kits, but when BG2 reads the kit in the BG1 save/character file against the ones it has listed in kitlist.2da. Although looking up now that file for both of my installations and seeing how different they are thanks to quest and npc mods being installed before kit mods proper... I guess if there was a real problem someone would have noticed earlier.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, Connelly said:

Although looking up now that file for both of my installations and seeing how different they are thanks to quest and npc mods being installed before kit mods proper...

This. NPCs make this a much bigger problem than one kit mod will, and importing characters with mod kits from BGEE to BG2EE has always been problematic for this reason. I have made a little mini-mod that can address the issue, though. 

[morpheus562]

Overall, this will be an easy fix and I can add it to bgee even though the characters will not get the prerequisite levels to use it.

[morpheus562]

22 hours ago, Connelly said:

A Final Fantasy flavored Dragoon? Now I know what I'm trying in my next game. If it had some sort of connection to dragons somehow it'd be golden.

A minor doubt I have about the Deathbringer and Archmage kits. I might be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that when importing a savefile/character between games, one should install the same kits in the same order in both installations (something about kits IDs at the time of installation?). If true, wouldn't those kits being BG2 only cause problems for non-EET playthroughs?

 

For the dragoon, I'm thinking of removing the 20% chance to knock an enemy back and deal extra damage. I could have it add an elemental resistance and deal elemental damage per hit depending on the alignment of the Dragoon.

Edited January 28, 2023 by morpheus562

[Connelly]

I see why you want to remove it, it'd be like having a chance based Smite HLA enabled all the time. The elemental resistance/damage would be tied to the types/colors of dragons representative of each alignment? On one hand seems a interesting to tie an ability to your alignment, and I can't remember many pole arms that do much with elemental damage/res, so it would be a way to cover that hole. On the other hand, you might always find someone who finds passives aren't exciting.

My D&D lore is lacking so this might be silly, but to go back to the alignment based idea, maybe turn it into an equivalent to the dragon disciple sorcerer kit? Instead of focusing on physical bonuses, the character focuses on magic growth, and similarly acquires bonuses or skills depending on the dragon type they descend from. Have the elemental resistance grow with level (as a fighter kit more AC and physical stats could be overkill), maybe a dragon breath instead of weapon elemental damage, and whatever else you might want to add. Not that I like the idea, but there it is.

If you were open to leaning into the Final Fantasy angle (the first game was basically a homebrew D&D campaign anyway), I can think of a few things you could steal from IX or XIV, but that would be more complexity and work poured into the kit, and bordering on turning the kitpack into a quest/item mod.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Connelly

[morpheus562]

8 minutes ago, Connelly said:

I see why you want to remove it, it'd be like having a chance based Smite HLA enabled all the time. The elemental resistance/damage would be tied to the types/colors of dragons representative of each alignment? On one hand seems a interesting to tie an ability to your alignment, and I can't remember many pole arms that do much with elemental damage/res, so it would be a way to cover that hole. On the other hand, you might always find someone who finds passives aren't exciting.

My D&D lore is lacking so this might be silly, but to go back to the alignment based idea, maybe turn it into an equivalent to the dragon disciple sorcerer kit? Instead of focusing on physical bonuses, the character focuses on magic growth, and similarly acquires bonuses or skills depending on the dragon type they descend from. Have the elemental resistance grow with level (as a fighter kit more AC and physical stats could be overkill), maybe a dragon breath instead of weapon elemental damage, and whatever else you might want to add. Not that I like the idea, but there it is.

If you were open to leaning into the Final Fantasy angle (the first game was basically a homebrew D&D campaign anyway), I can think of a few things you could steal from IX or XIV, but that would be more complexity and work poured into the kit, and bordering on turning the kitpack into a quest/item mod.

I'll take a look at ff9 as I liked Freya in that game. Ff tactics too. I've already been looking at ff14. One idea I had was to add a counter leap ability which would be a 5% chance on being hit to counter with a leap attack on the person who hit you. This would be passive and maybe starting at level 15 or some such.

Edited January 29, 2023 by morpheus562

[Connelly]

I'm ambivalent about that counter leap. I like the idea that if an archer hits me, suddenly I'm there on top glaring them down because how dare, and you can get someone fast to disrupt the ranged group of an enemy party. But you're already have faster movement and the normal leap to close the gap. Also, being an uncontrollable passive means that it might mess with what you're doing. As an extreme example, say you go for an enemy spellcaster hoping to stop a big bad spell, that archer hits you, and because the RNG gods hate you, suddenly you decide the prickle shooter is more dangerous.

If you could have the choice on whether or not activate the counter leap when/if allowed to, that'd be a different matter. A lower chance alleviates that concern, and not having enemies basically killing themselves hitting you, but then you risk making it irrelevant. I dunno, I'd almost prefer a harmless jump that could target friendlies so that you can move fast to protect them or retreat fast to a healer. At least you'd still have some control about where and when you move.

re: looking at FF games (spoiler for space):

Spoiler

The dragoon in 14 has two interesting things, thematically. One, it's like a knight with some barbarian traits. Aggressive, high mobility, polearm mastery, and no heavy armor. You're already half way there, you'd just need to include the armor limitation (like no plate armor except dragon ones). To replace the stun/know effect, I could think of some weak or non lethal effect on hit. I want to say a bleed, or a small penalty on piercing and/or missile AC, just to soften the defenses of a dragon or someone with plate mail.

You could include leap variants like the Dragonfire and/or Elusive jumps , just with more limited uses than the normal one. I have no idea how the Elusive jump could work in the IE, i guess this could be your counter leap instead. But for Dragonfire jump , something like one use at level 7-9 and another one each four-six levels sounds about right, with low or no damage on target, but fire damage on a small area scaling by level. It's not supposed to be a main damage skill, but to provide a small help to the party's area damage.

As for the dragon connection, there are different (mostly horrific) ways in universe people can tap on a dragon's power. Here, you could do something similar to the great wyrms' eyes. Have the player kill or befriend an adult dragon like Firkraag for an item, that can be equipped as a pseudo holy symbol or in a quick slot. You can only utilize one at a time, and they vary depending on the particular dragon and acquisition method (weaker but safer when negotiated, and stronger when looted but with hefty inconveniences). If you first negotiate, the dragon is weakened, but killing them at that point changes the item to the kill version. Make the player decide what do they care more about.

Random examples, Firkragg's item grants you a chance on hit for a mild stab+fire attack, while killing him gives you very strong permanent Rage bonuses with random control loss; dealing with Adalon grants you a small chance of invisibility, and killing her grants you a chance on hit to cast paralysis or true sight on target (make going for that demon halberd a bit of a gamble), etc.

All this would be more for flavor than any real balance, but I doubt this really meshes with the FR lore and it risks moving the mod beyond being a kitpack so /shrug

Freya in 9 is sort of a magic knight with three qualities: extra physical damage to dragons, her limit break turns the jump into multi target and multi hit (this could be a once per day HLA, can only take once), and a selection of "Dragon" skills. That's an interesting mix of skills; potentially overpowered when translated to the IE, but they're mostly about prolonging a party's battle time potential and some conditional damage, so not any more broken than a Wish/Rest loop or a triple ADHW trigger. But if that still ends up looking too strong, you could restrict it to no dualing into mage or cleric, or make it a F/M or a paladin kit with a special or restricted spell selection.

You could emulate the kill count dependent attack by providing some sort of bonus for killing dragons; either by upgrading one skill (the same, or maybe a different one per encounter), or by granting unrelated passive bonuses. Or you could learn one of those skills from each kill. Any of these which might be probably easier to implement than the looted/negotiated item idea above.

If I had to mix, the martial aspects of FF14 (you already got half the job done anyway) and the FF9 killcount idea for the dragon theme might probably be the best idea.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Connelly

[morpheus562]

2 hours ago, Connelly said:

I'm ambivalent about that counter leap. I like the idea that if an archer hits me, suddenly I'm there on top glaring them down because how dare, and you can get someone fast to disrupt the ranged group of an enemy party. But you're already have faster movement and the normal leap to close the gap. Also, being an uncontrollable passive means that it might mess with what you're doing. As an extreme example, say you go for an enemy spellcaster hoping to stop a big bad spell, that archer hits you, and because the RNG gods hate you, suddenly you decide the prickle shooter is more dangerous.

If you could have the choice on whether or not activate the counter leap when/if allowed to, that'd be a different matter. A lower chance alleviates that concern, and not having enemies basically killing themselves hitting you, but then you risk making it irrelevant. I dunno, I'd almost prefer a harmless jump that could target friendlies so that you can move fast to protect them or retreat fast to a healer. At least you'd still have some control about where and when you move.

re: looking at FF games (spoiler for space):

  Hide contents

The dragoon in 14 has two interesting things, thematically. One, it's like a knight with some barbarian traits. Aggressive, high mobility, polearm mastery, and no heavy armor. You're already half way there, you'd just need to include the armor limitation (like no plate armor except dragon ones). To replace the stun/know effect, I could think of some weak or non lethal effect on hit. I want to say a bleed, or a small penalty on piercing and/or missile AC, just to soften the defenses of a dragon or someone with plate mail.

You could include leap variants like the Dragonfire and/or Elusive jumps , just with more limited uses than the normal one. I have no idea how the Elusive jump could work in the IE, i guess this could be your counter leap instead. But for Dragonfire jump , something like one use at level 7-9 and another one each four-six levels sounds about right, with low or no damage on target, but fire damage on a small area scaling by level. It's not supposed to be a main damage skill, but to provide a small help to the party's area damage.

As for the dragon connection, there are different (mostly horrific) ways in universe people can tap on a dragon's power. Here, you could do something similar to the great wyrms' eyes. Have the player kill or befriend an adult dragon like Firkraag for an item, that can be equipped as a pseudo holy symbol or in a quick slot. You can only utilize one at a time, and they vary depending on the particular dragon and acquisition method (weaker but safer when negotiated, and stronger when looted but with hefty inconveniences). If you first negotiate, the dragon is weakened, but killing them at that point changes the item to the kill version. Make the player decide what do they care more about.

Random examples, Firkragg's item grants you a chance on hit for a mild stab+fire attack, while killing him gives you very strong permanent Rage bonuses with random control loss; dealing with Adalon grants you a small chance of invisibility, and killing her grants you a chance on hit to cast paralysis or true sight on target (make going for that demon halberd a bit of a gamble), etc.

All this would be more for flavor than any real balance, but I doubt this really meshes with the FR lore and it risks moving the mod beyond being a kitpack so /shrug

Freya in 9 is sort of a magic knight with three qualities: extra physical damage to dragons, her limit break turns the jump into multi target and multi hit (this could be a once per day HLA, can only take once), and a selection of "Dragon" skills. That's an interesting mix of skills; potentially overpowered when translated to the IE, but they're mostly about prolonging a party's battle time potential and some conditional damage, so not any more broken than a Wish/Rest loop or a triple ADHW trigger. But if that still ends up looking too strong, you could restrict it to no dualing into mage or cleric, or make it a F/M or a paladin kit with a special or restricted spell selection.

You could emulate the kill count dependent attack by providing some sort of bonus for killing dragons; either by upgrading one skill (the same, or maybe a different one per encounter), or by granting unrelated passive bonuses. Or you could learn one of those skills from each kill. Any of these which might be probably easier to implement than the looted/negotiated item idea above.

If I had to mix, the martial aspects of FF14 (you already got half the job done anyway) and the FF9 killcount idea for the dragon theme might probably be the best idea.

Making the Dragoon not able to use heavy armor is very easy to implement. I'm undecided if it would be worth it to carve out an exception for dragon skin armor. I am definitely interested in doing different leap/jump attacks, and I was going to see about doing an AOE variant one that is unlocked at a higher level. I'm also thinking about making the Dragoon immune to wing buffet at level 10.

[morpheus562]

What I have so far:

DRAGOON:

Dragoons are warriors who dedicate their lives to the use of polearm weapons (quarterstaff, spear, and halberd). These warriors focus on leap attacks at their enemies while quickly maneuvering around the battlefield.

Advantages:
– Moves 2 points faster than other characters.

– 3rd Level: May use the Chaotic Spring ability once per day and gains an additional use every 3 levels thereafter.

CHAOTIC SPRING: The Dragoon will instantly leap up to 15 feet away dealing piercing damage and stunning all targets for 2 seconds within 8 feet. The damage inflicted is equal to 1d6 per level of the Dragoon (up to a maximum of 10d6). A successful save vs. Death with a -2 penalty negates the stun and reduces all damage from the leap by half.

– 5th Level: Gains the Fleet of Foot passive ability.

FLEET OF FOOT: The Dragoon becomes immune to Grease, Entanglement, and Web effects.

– 7th Level: May use the Heaven's Thrust ability once per day and gains an additional use every 5 levels thereafter.

HEAVEN'S THRUST: The Dragoon will instantly leap up to 15 feet away dealing piercing damage to a single target. The damage inflicted is equal to 1d8 per level of the Dragoon (up to a maximum of 10d8), or half with a successful Saving Throw vs. Death at -2. Additionally, the hit target suffers 3 points of additional bleeding damage per round for 3 rounds.

– 10th Level: Gains the Arm's Length passive ability.

ARM'S LENGTH: The Dragoon creates a passive barrier nullifying most knockback and draw-in effects.

Disadvantages:
– May only attain Grandmaster in polearm weapons (quarterstaff, spear, and halberd) while all other weapons can only attain Proficient.
– May not wear armor heavier than splint mail.

Edited January 31, 2023 by morpheus562

[Connelly]

The concept of skills dependent on your dualed/multi'ed class combination sounds like a very interesting idea for all kits in general. I think there was some old lost mod that did the same with the basic classes but I never tried it.

Been playing a bit with the current dragoon in BG1, just to Nashkel, and I see the stun/knock effect does proc quite a bit often even with 2 APR . Not enough to be too powerful, but you notice it when having to run after the knocked targets becomes a background nuisance. Although I haven't been able to use it against casters to see how often it disrupt them. The extra piercing damage is nice in ensuring a kill on trash and reinforcing a stab or harder stuff; no issues there.

The leap lands weirdly, in that most of the time my character ends up behind the target, looking away and loosing the target. Not a big problem, although one would need to pay attention if you send them half a street away for a leap with the AI off and get distracted with something else. Besides that, the stun feels pretty natural and fun.

Dualing wise, I'm not sure if there's much incentive to remain single class or wait later than 9 for dualing. Doing so at 9 leaves you with up to 8 extra damage per bash, and three uses of leap doing up to 54 damage each, while 13 you're still doing 8 damage even if on 2d4 instead of 1d8, and four leaps doing up to 79. If you aren't interested in pure damage, there doesn't seems to be much of a difference, so you might as well do it at 9. I have the Artisan's rework for fighter so waiting to 14 for the improved power attack or even 16 for specialization in all weapons could be an idea, but depending on how fast you're getting xp points you've better not be planning to dual Sarevok as well. :_D By that point you might as well remain single class to keep making that leap stronger (although I admit the idea of goomba stomping Sendai and her statues fills me with idiotic glee).

Edited January 31, 2023 by Connelly

[morpheus562]

4 hours ago, Connelly said:

The concept of skills dependent on your dualed/multi'ed class combination sounds like a very interesting idea for all kits in general. I think there was some old lost mod that did the same with the basic classes but I never tried it.

Been playing a bit with the current dragoon in BG1, just to Nashkel, and I see the stun/knock effect does proc quite a bit often even with 2 APR . Not enough to be too powerful, but you notice it when having to run after the knocked targets becomes a background nuisance. Although I haven't been able to use it against casters to see how often it disrupt them. The extra piercing damage is nice in ensuring a kill on trash and reinforcing a stab or harder stuff; no issues there.

The leap lands weirdly, in that most of the time my character ends up behind the target, looking away and loosing the target. Not a big problem, although one would need to pay attention if you send them half a street away for a leap with the AI off and get distracted with something else. Besides that, the stun feels pretty natural and fun.

Dualing wise, I'm not sure if there's much incentive to remain single class or wait later than 9 for dualing. Doing so at 9 leaves you with up to 8 extra damage per bash, and three uses of leap doing up to 54 damage each, while 13 you're still doing 8 damage even if on 2d4 instead of 1d8, and four leaps doing up to 79. If you aren't interested in pure damage, there doesn't seems to be much of a difference, so you might as well do it at 9. I have the Artisan's rework for fighter so waiting to 14 for the improved power attack or even 16 for specialization in all weapons could be an idea, but depending on how fast you're getting xp points you've better not be planning to dual Sarevok as well. :_D By that point you might as well remain single class to keep making that leap stronger (although I admit the idea of goomba stomping Sendai and her statues fills me with idiotic glee).

The updates I posted above are in the main git repo (unpublished) if you want to check them out. I might add more jumps along the way to give players an incentive to stick to it being a single class instead of dualing.

[Connelly]

I'm looking at them now. I'm guessing Trip Attack will be the current knock/piercing proc moved into a skill, and Hamstring a possible alternative?

Chaotic Spring and Heaven's Thrust look nasty and I'm sure they'll be fun for BG2. Someone with a better head for balance might want to look at the potential damage, but at least they have limited uses and a top damage, instead of being auto attack procs and having unlimited growth.

Quote

– 5th Level: Gains the Fleet of Foot passive ability. FLEET OF FOOT: The Dragoon becomes immune to Grease, Entanglement, and Web effects.

I'm sure someone will be against this, but by that point a normal warrior in BG1 would've be getting the Spider's Bane anyway, and a free action ring right after at the Iron throne, so eh. Easily justifiable as an abstraction of the character naturally leaping over boulders, tables and trunks to avoid the effects.

Quote

– 10th Level: Gains the Arm's Length passive ability. ARM'S LENGTH: The Dragoon creates a passive barrier nullifying most knockback and draw-in effects.

I imagine Arms' Length will be useful for more than dragon buffets, so that's interesting; I can't remember what other if any similar effects are there in the vanilla game so it might not be worth the time, but maybe you'd want to differentiate effects that the character can resist through fortitude and balance from magical or sudden effect that would bypass the skill (say being lifted through telekinesis or a strong enough explosion). As a minor nitpick, you might also want to change the spelling a bit. The original spelling ("creates a [...] barrier") fits a setting where even strictly physical warriors are still using magic for basic moves, but might feel a bit too magicky for a D&D fighter.

Also making it a passive hurts me deeply in the Titan Extreme PTSD, but don't worry about that.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Connelly

[morpheus562]

41 minutes ago, Connelly said:

I'm looking at them now. I'm guessing Trip Attack will be the current knock/piercing proc moved into a skill, and Hamstring a possible alternative?

Hamstring was simply removed.

41 minutes ago, Connelly said:

Chaotic Spring and Heaven's Thrust look nasty and I'm sure they'll be fun for BG2. Someone with a better head for balance might want to look at the potential damage, but at least they have limited uses and a top damage, instead of being auto attack procs and having unlimited growth.

Damage added can reduced by half with a successful save vs. death at -2. I am debating if I should get rid of this -2 penalty.

41 minutes ago, Connelly said:

I imagine Arms' Length will be useful for more than dragon buffets, so that's interesting; I can't remember what other if any similar effects are there in the vanilla game so it might not be worth the time

I'm specifically blocking the Wing Buffet (opcode 235). This is also used in Dragon's Wing Buffet, Comet, Staff of the Ram, Ring of the Ram, my Psi Warrior, etc. as the knock back effect.

Edited February 1, 2023 by morpheus562

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Connelly said:

I imagine Arms' Length will be useful for more than dragon buffets, so that's interesting; I can't remember what other if any similar effects are there in the vanilla game

If you combine this mod with the Scales of Balance weapon styles, many enemies with shields can perform a shield bash knockback, so this buff would be quite useful in such a game!