The Planes - A BG2 Mod

[Grim Squeaker]

But this mod is supposed to be about introducing these odd creatures. Imagine Charname meets a Dabus character. The first thing he's gonna ask is 'What are you?'. And if the Dabus does reveal that he's a Dabus, Charname would instantly respond with 'What the hell is Dabus?'. And then you're screwed.

[BR³]

I'm currently adding the new NPC's and adding the biographies, perhaps that will give you some idea of my intention for the character

[BR³]

Oki doki, i've updated the NPC's. 3 new NPC's have been added, along with biographies for all the NPC's.

 

I'd like to thank sporeboy for the permission to use his artwork in my mod, and especially for allowing me access to some of his private works Awesome stuff man, cheers

 

Also, i've removed Khaz'rhk the Githyanki, as Andyr is already doing a Gith warrior and i figured that it was best to do something different rather than reinventing a wheel that he seems to be doing a great job on already

 

Let me know if you have any suggestions, etc

[Grim Squeaker]

Heh. Unfortunately the portrait below is the one I was thinking of when you posted the original Aasimar portrait.

 

 

It tended to be the fact that when sporeboy! portraits came along one of us bagsied them for some mod we were developing. So yeah, this one is already being used, sorry. To my knowledge all the rest are still valid however.

[Domi]

Guys, really, mod release is such a conditional thing, that I think it would be odd to sort of place a hold on a portrait, unless it was made specifically for the modded character. In all other cases, if the artist does not mind, I think it is prefectly fine to use a portrait for more than one character in planning.

 

[start rant]

 

In the case of this proposed mod, I am classifying it in the never to be finished category, simply because the scope is too ambitious.

 

If we were talking about just adding up NPCs, sure, one can pull it off if s/he writes quickly and cleanly. But anything that has to do with adding new settings, storyines, quests, etc, on such a big scale in BG2.... is firstly unsurmountable, and secondly too difficult to make fit. The character forecibly thrown into the planar prison for a short adventure - why not? a character who has Imoen to rescue, Suldanesselar to relieve, his soul to win back, his kin to defeat forcibly removed to the planes for an unspecified amount of time is as hard to swallow as the whole new setting added to the Underwater City (say you get dragged not to the Underdark but to Matzika...) . So, you are left with a Total Conversion, filling the gaps between BG1 and BG2 and ToB and after ToB, and the "weird twist of fate" solutions.

 

Do I want a game in a Planar setting? Heck, yes. Do I want to play it with a Bhaalspawn? mmgh, I am not so sure about that. Do I believe that a new game can be made sucessfully by a modder? I am again not so sure. The only released examples so far are Vlad's series that simply port 2 chapters from IWDI into BG2 and Sir Billy Bob's Classical Adventures. Both are build on existing material as far as the story-line, quest contents and areal artwork were concerned. And that is imo why they were feasible. All the other ones - Tower of Iron Will, Dragonlance TC - all of them had failed, even if the teams actually included people who could do graphics.

 

Yes, one can rip off all the areas from Torment, and expand on a few maps already in BG2 (Plane of Air in CI, some fire areas in the Nine Hells, Planar Sphere quest, ToB) but maps and NPCs do not make a game. What makes a game is a story and lots and lots and lots of scenery dialogue, when those landscapes become saturated with the non-joinable NPCs, sidequests and side banter. That's appart from every other player sniffing dejectedly at the recycled art and providing you with the piece of mind that "I have seen it all before, and therefore I cannot play your mod".

 

I think we chatted about BG3 by the modding community and Andy was proposing a planar setting for that. I remeber being very excited, untill I remebered what it takes. Hells, I wanted to make one small quest mod as an expansion to the Planar Prison/Theatre quest without any joinable NPCs with a small self-contained story based off my own fan-fiction, but again, I saw that even this small story would require much, much more than I can do. I am speaking from experience here.

 

I worte about four full quests for BG1NPC, a number of small encounters, one major planned out "separate adventure mod" with the description of the areas and lists etc, one prelim drafts on one bigger quest (the planar one). I am quite convinced that people just do not realise how much planning and writing work (let alone coding, which I also done plenty) goes into quests and making a storyline that is not a linear "get to the main boss and kill him if you are evil, and spare him if you are good".

 

Of course, there are people who write with much more ease and speed than I, but my advice to anyone who wants to do a big mod is to start with a break-down of areas, quests per area, non-joinable NPCs per area, approximate counts of special dialogues per area, sequencing the events per area, rather than the joinable NPCs. They are cool to dream up, obviously, and they do require tons of work each, but compared to everything else, they are the easy part.

[/end rant]

[Grunker]

Any takers on advice for the animations?

 

I don't know **** about modding, but as I said, try PMing Avenger. As far as I recall, he worked on the minotaur avatar for Glory of Istar (which was sadly dropped, but they made it as far as creating a minotaur avatar that could equip items and so on).

[Guest Louis Cypher]

As a PS:T fan I just have to say one thing - this mod kicks ass! I really hope BR that you won't get bored or tired working on it. Good luck.

 

I like the NPCs (Razakel is my man ) , although one thing bothers me - the mod lacks a thief-like character. Thought about creating one? I actually have two concepts:

 

a) A Neutral Evil Negatai (genasi of Negative Energy) Assasin - yeah, I know we have Sarai with the elemental heritage, but in my opinion only that would connect the two. Especially if you get to know the Negatai's habits.

 

http://www.planewalker.com/codex/entry.php?intEntryID=10547 - here is some info on Negatai's for 3rd Edition

 

b) A Chaotic Good Bariaur Swashbuckler - only thing that concerns me is the graphical issue (probably would require much work).

 

What do you think about it?

[BR³]

Negatai assassin would be a good idea. Only problem i can see is that it looks like i'm the only one wanting to work on this project, so while it will continue, it'll happen quite slowly... so realistically i intend on just getting the current NPC's to a non-dialogued but playable state first, and then we'll look at extras from there

[Deathsangel]

First, I love Planescape and might be good to replace ToB, but I wonder about compatibility since other NPC mods do have reactions to ToB stuff that might get screwed up if it gets replaced... Monster of Mod to work alone on by the way, though I am doing some similar with the Mod for the Wicked Though it is not even this large... I kind of agree with Domi, even though (once again) I have to say I really really love the planescape setting.

 

On another note. You do know your two evil characters can not work together? That is Baatezu and Tana'ri you are trying to mix then That just spells disaster...

 

It tended to be the fact that when sporeboy! portraits came along one of us bagsied them for some mod we were developing.  So yeah, this one is already being used, sorry.  To my knowledge all the rest are still valid however.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Where can you find something on this mod?

[Grim Squeaker]

Where can you find something on this mod?

 

That particular portrait is for an NPC by BevH which does not yet have a public forum (because its still in the planning stage).

[Louis Cypher]

On another note. You do know your two evil characters can not work together? That is Baatezu and Tana'ri you are trying to mix then .  That just spells disaster...

 

You won't be able to have them both in your team. They will begin to rumble on sight. It's written in Razakel's and Anu-Kirxach's characteristics on the 1st page.

[Deathsangel]

On another note. You do know your two evil characters can not work together? That is Baatezu and Tana'ri you are trying to mix then .  That just spells disaster...

 

You won't be able to have them both in your team. They will begin to rumble on sight. It's written in Razakel's and Anu-Kirxach's characteristics on the 1st page.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Okay, stupid me It is not specifically there, but in the beserk modes. Okay, then the following a Glaberzu is extremely high up. Perhaps it is better to downgrade him to i.e. a Babau (5hd less and as such more in even an Abishai).

Demons and Devils do have notion of sex and some demons and devils are preferably one. Thinking here on the Succubus or Marilith (manly female for Tana'ri) and Erinyes (still even with male types, but female form surely there). This is not to critize the descisions made, just to point it out.

Cessation-of-Emotion is described to use tatoos. Perfectly possible, but it does give me a feel of having a Fell copy there. Using tattoos is not that extremelly common... That they speak in rebuses does not make them hinged towards tattoos

[Louis Cypher]

Okay, then the following a Glaberzu is extremely high up. Perhaps it is better to downgrade him to i.e. a Babau (5hd less and as such more in even an Abishai).

 

Personally, I like the concept of a Glabrezu companion. Yes, he seems compared with other NPC's a bit too much overpowered but you can always tone down his resistances. On another thought, his basic weakness is vurnebility to cold-forged iron weapons, so I wonder how our happy modder plans to use this. (an extra cold iron weapon hidden under the pillow for every Sigil inhabitat? )

 

 

Cessation-of-Emotion is described to use tatoos. Perfectly possible, but it does give me a feel of having a Fell copy there. Using tattoos is not that extremelly common... That they speak in rebuses does not make them hinged towards tattoos.

 

True, but Cessation at the beginning was supossed to be somewhat a copy of Fell. How much he will be like the most famous fallen dabus in the Multiverse depends only on the creator of this mod. I kinda like the idea of tattoos increasing his statistics depending on what choices the protagonist makes.

 

What bothers me is, if the PC will in his adventures find himself in Sigil how will a "standard" dabus react to a rogue one. And what about the Lady of the Pain?

[BR³]

What i'd be more worried about is what wacko chaotic effects the normally predictable effects of the tatoos will have when Cess is in Limbo...

 

A Question : how would one appropriately present the consequences of the protagonist trading his afterlife for the prospect of power? Some form of geas?

[Louis Cypher]

So, you mean that <CHARNAME> will be able to sell his soul to our doggy adventurer? Well, a geas-like effect would be satysfying. You only have to state what speciffic actions of the PC will determine, when "the deal" is endangered (f.e. if he tries to kick out the Glabrezu out of the team, attack him, or he does too much good things with Anu at his side).

 

That would be kind of good for roleplaying matters. Anu could intimidate <CHARNAME> with the perspective of "paying his price".

 

|Anu-Kirxach|: You want me...to leave you? Now, now little Bhaalspawn, aren't you forgetting about something? *an evil grin appears on the demon's face*

 

|<CHARNAME>|: *A sudden chill passes your body. You feel that your heart starts to beat faster than it should. Some strange fealing of weakness enters the mind and the flesh. You feel that your own legs are from steel. The world upon you starts to blur...or are your eyes playing tricks on you?*

 

|Anu-Kirxach|: We have made a *deal* mortal. Do not forget about it. I will not let you escape from me...until you give me, what is mine now.

 

|<CHARNAME>|: *You start to feel like an anvil was placed in your chest. Every breath of air starts to become a torture and even catching it becomes a serious difficulty to you. You fall on your knees*

 

|Anu-Kirxach|: Oh no...I won't let you die <CHARNAME>. Not yet. But do not think that you can trick me, maggot. Do i make myself clear?

 

|<CHARNAME>| : *Everything passes as it came to you. You breath deeply, capturing as much as air as your lungs can storage. The brutal truth comes to your thoughts. Anu-Kirxach is not going to leave by himself. And forcing him to do so may result in serious consequences to you. More sinister than even death*

 

|Anu-Kirxach| : Good. Then let us carry on our travels...

 

 

I couldn't resist.