2 Mod Projects I'll Be Working On

[kakitadairu]

I've done some fooling around using WEIDU and DLTCEP... I'd like to concentrate on one of two projects now. Would appreciate some feedback.

 

Project #1: Shadow Druid Kit and Feldorn NPC

 

This mod has two components. The first component is a Shadow Druid Kit.

 

SHADOW DRUID: Dark practitioners of a heretical faith, the cult order of the Shadow Druids believe that the humanoid races exist in a parasitic relationship with Nature. In order to preserve nature, they seek to transmute humanity into something which coexists in harmony with nature- namely undeath. After all, so they reason, the Undead exist without partaking from the bounty of the earth.

 

In lieu of practicing the traditional Druidic magicks, Shadow Druids see no contradiction in combining the magic of living things with the dark magic of the dead. They command powerful necromancy that debilitate and attack the life force of living things.

 

ALIGNMENT: A Shadow Druid may be of either True Neutral or Neutral Evil alignments.

 

ADVANTAGES: Shadow Druids learn the following necromantic spells:

 

Level 1: Chill Touch, Larloch's Minor Drain

Level 2: Ghoul Touch, Ray of Enfeeblement

Level 3: Vampiric Touch, Skull Trap

Level 4: Greater Malison, Spirit Armor

Level 5: Lower Resistance, Contagion

Level 6: Death Fog, Feeblemind

Level 7: Energy Drain, Al- Rahim's Horrid Wilting

 

Shadow Druids have different HLA's than normal Druids.

 

DISADVANTAGES: Shadow Druids do not learn the following healing and summoning spells:

 

Level 1: Cure Light Wounds, Bless

Level 2: Slow Poison, Goodberry

Level 3: Cure Medium Wounds, Cure Disease

Level 4: Cure Serious Wounds, Neutralize Poison

Level 5: Cure Lethal Wounds, Mass Cure

Level 6: Heal, Conjure Fire Elemental

Level 7: Regeneration, Conjure Earth Elemental

 

So far I've implemented all of the spell changes, as well as made sure the spells still work for normal druids, priests and rangers. I've got some ideas for the HLAs but not sure how to implement them:

 

Melee Attacks auto- cast Vampiric Touch, Ghoul Touch and Chill Touch when successfully hit, deducting from memorized spells as normal.

 

An Aura of Malison that gives all creatures with a certain distance from the druid penalties to saves.

 

Racial Enemy bonus versus humanoid races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfing)

 

The second component is Faldorn as a Shadow Druid NPC that joins the PC after she is defeated at the Druid Grove. This explains her dramatic personality change from BG1 to BG2 as a result of the influence of the Shadow Druid cult. She only joins the PC if the PC agrees to aid her in accomplishing the goals of the cult. Depending on the PC's wisdom score, the PC could end up falling under her influence. If Minsc, Cernd or Valygar are in the party, Minsc will eventually fall under her influence, with lethal consequences for Aerie, and possibly Valygar and Cernd as well. I think this is a great opportunity for me to learn to code dialogue and, after doing that, quests.

 

Cults are evil, and this mod will show that.

 

Project #2: Vampire: The Masquerade Mod for Icewind Dale 2

 

I hope some of you guys are familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade... otherwise this mod isn't going to make sense. I'd like to modify the game so that you create vampire characters instead of D&D characters. I figure this is better (in some ways, ideal) with Icewind Date2's engine than Baldur's Gate. It makes sense for it to have flexible class level up.

 

Instead of leveling up in class, characters would choose a discipline to level up in. Therefore, instead of having classes like Fighter, Paladin and Sorceror, it would be replaced by Disciplines like Potence, Thaumaturgy and Obtenebration. Races with favored classes would be replaced by Clans with favored Disciplines (question: is it possible for races to have more than one favored class? How much is hardwired?).

 

I haven't been able to find many articles explaining how Icewind Dale 2 works, so I'm not sure this project is feasible, whether its possible to add new classes/ change classes or not.

 

If it is, I plan on first working just on making sure the system works- that is, make sure you can create a party of vampires and have it playable, compatible with the Icewind Dale 2 adventure. After that, maybe people who are interested in making V: tM adventures can create complete game mods for Icewind Dale 2.

 

I greatly appreciate both feedback and direction!

 

Cheers,

 

Kakita

[Domi]

I think that Shadow Druids actually are well defined as D&D class, and are different from what you are suggesting. I think, it would be better if you named your version differently, if it is AU. I view Faldorn very differently from you, obviously, but good luck!

[Rastor]

Project #2: Vampire: The Masquerade Mod for Icewind Dale 2

 

I hope some of you guys are familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade... otherwise this mod isn't going to make sense. I'd like to modify the game so that you create vampire characters instead of D&D characters. I figure this is better (in some ways, ideal) with Icewind Date2's engine than Baldur's Gate. It makes sense for it to have flexible class level up.

 

Instead of leveling up in class, characters would choose a discipline to level up in. Therefore, instead of having classes like Fighter, Paladin and Sorceror, it would be replaced by Disciplines like Potence, Thaumaturgy and Obtenebration. Races with favored classes would be replaced by Clans with favored Disciplines (question: is it possible for races to have more than one favored class? How much is hardwired?).

 

I haven't been able to find many articles explaining how Icewind Dale 2 works, so I'm not sure this project is feasible, whether its possible to add new classes/ change classes or not.

 

If it is, I plan on first working just on making sure the system works- that is, make sure you can create a party of vampires and have it playable, compatible with the Icewind Dale 2 adventure. After that, maybe people who are interested in making V: tM adventures can create complete game mods for Icewind Dale 2.

 

Unfortunately, a good bit of IWD2 is hardcoded. There are ways around this, but I'm not sure if you can change the names of the feats. You can, however, change what each feat does. Possibly string editing could change the descriptions, more research is needed.

 

AFAIK, I am one of only a very select handful that has ever tackled modding IWD2. That game is much harder to play around with that BG2, but I agree with you that your mod would be better as an IWD2 mod than a BG2 one (which already has tons and tons of mods).

 

What would be interesting, however, is how you'll deal with the daylight in IWD2. In the VtM roleplaying game, any vampire characters take damage pretty rapidly for each second that they are out in the sun. I imagine that this could get quite frustrating as a good deal of IWD2 at lower levels is spent in sunny areas where there is no way to get out of the sun. That's going to require some ingenuity on the part of the player.

 

Perhaps you'd be better off trying to make a conversion if you wanted to do this project. That is a lot of work, however.

[kakitadairu]

I think that Shadow Druids actually are well defined as D&D class, and are different from what you are suggesting. I think, it would be better if you named your version differently, if it is AU. I view Faldorn very differently from you, obviously, but good luck!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi Domi!

 

I've looked over the dialogue you wrote for Tutu NPC Project. I would like my NPC to be consistant with the NPC Project... Its just that the Faldorn I'm working on is going to be after the confrontation at the Druid Grove... so its extrapolating... so it actually makes sense if her personality changes. Faldorn is very young. I actually met some cult members (Moonies, although I didn't know they were Moonies when I met them) in college... Faldorn reminded me of them.

 

Its going to be two separate modules so I guess if you don't want Faldorn to be my dumb homebrew Shadow Druid Kit but still want Faldorn as an NPC, just install the NPC portion. I mean, I love the game aspect of BG2 already, so for me to work on the gameplay aspect would be in vain. The role playing/ fantasy aspect is much more important.

 

Cheers,

 

Kakita

[kakitadairu]

Unfortunately, a good bit of IWD2 is hardcoded.  There are ways around this, but I'm not sure if you can change the names of the feats.  You can, however, change what each feat does.  Possibly string editing could change the descriptions, more research is needed.

 

AFAIK, I am one of only a very select handful that has ever tackled modding IWD2.  That game is much harder to play around with that BG2, but I agree with you that your mod would be better as an IWD2 mod than a BG2 one (which already has tons and tons of mods).

 

I looked over Tioma's cleric domain and subrace mods. Not much help there, unfortunately scant internal documentation. I'm kind of stuck here. If the classes can't be modified, or if I can't create classes, this project isn't going to work. I saw that someone was using a .dll file from Diablo 2 to change some of the hardcoded aspects. I have no idea what that means or how that works.

 

What would be interesting, however, is how you'll deal with the daylight in IWD2.  In the VtM roleplaying game, any vampire characters take damage pretty rapidly for each second that they are out in the sun.  I imagine that this could get quite frustrating as a good deal of IWD2 at lower levels is spent in sunny areas where there is no way to get out of the sun.  That's going to require some ingenuity on the part of the player.

 

It would be good roleplaying!

 

There are a couple of ways around it...

 

First, just do everything at night like Vampires are supposed to. Vampires are supposed to get drowsy during the daytime too, unless they have high Fortitude. So maybe they get fatigued easily during the day and if they're outside they're toast.

 

Also, they could build up lots of Fortitude which would reduce/ negate the damage they take from sunlight and fire. Kind of useful.

 

Finally, I could just add in a magic item, Magical Sunglasses or something, to protect them from sunlight. Dumb ex deus machina.

 

Perhaps you'd be better off trying to make a conversion if you wanted to do this project.  That is a lot of work, however.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm hoping that this could be the start of a total conversion project, but first things first, I have to make sure the rules engine can be tweaked enough to make it worthwhile.

 

Cheers,

 

Kakita