Wondering about adding some abilities to the shapeshifter.

[Loké]

Well, as time passes bugfixing this (jaw-droppingly) buggy class, I'm starting to get some ideas to augment it, but I'm leery of beeing it up too much. It's alreadyquite the powerhouse now it's been fixed, the greater werewolf especially. I'm hitting an AC of something approaching -16 with it. (The joys of a natural -6AC eh?)

 

1. Infravision while shapeshifted.

 

Logic behind this: a werewolf has a damned good sense of smell right? So shouldn't have much trouble picking out things at night. Since we don't have any other effect that can simulate a better sense of smell, Infravision would be the best of a bad job.

 

2. Howl/snarl. I was thinking of adding at least one of these innate skills the snarl/roar would work something like this: save vs. spells or perhaps petrification where the werewolf snarls (and shows fangs et al) and people in a (small) area have to make a save or be scared and/or suffer attack/damage penalties. Greater Werewolf would have a more powerful version, in that it would be a reduced saving throw of say, -2.

 

Logic to this: you're a big hairy, scary walking chunk of muscle with glowy red eyes and large sharp teeth (but mainly muscle). I can see someone having second thoughts when one roars in it's face.

[BigRob]

These seem like fair enough abilities for the shapechanger. The snarl should have a limited affect on certain creatures though, since stuff like undead, dragons and giants are probably not going to worry too much over a werewolf.

[Loké]

These seem like fair enough abilities for the shapechanger. The snarl should have a limited affect on certain creatures though, since stuff like undead, dragons and giants are probably not going to worry too much over a werewolf.

True. Off the top of my head though, I'm not entirely sure how to make it work on certain types of creature only.

[Miloch]

Off the top of my head though, I'm not entirely sure how to make it work on certain types of creature only.

You'd probably use an EFF file for something like PANIC and make it only affect humanoids in general.ids, maybe even put a saving throw on top of it (a peasant might run, but an grizzled veteran probably not ).

 

So if you're going to beef it up and it's already a powerhouse, what about nerfing it too? There's a 'silver' flag for weapons but it's hardly used (at least to my knowledge in BG1/Tutu - might be in BG2). Either way, you could make such weapons more damaging and widely distributed, possibly even negating your godlike AC somehow.

[Loké]

Off the top of my head though, I'm not entirely sure how to make it work on certain types of creature only.

You'd probably use an EFF file for something like PANIC and make it only affect humanoids in general.ids, maybe even put a saving throw on top of it (a peasant might run, but an grizzled veteran probably not ).

 

So if you're going to beef it up and it's already a powerhouse, what about nerfing it too?

(shrugs) I never set out to make it balanced. I set out to make it 'work'. Besides, while it's pretty much unstoppable in tutu (That being said, my shifter nearly died when set upon by a pair of greater dopplegangers), it was never designed for BG1, but for BG2, and if my memory serves (going to playing through that soon enough again too) magical weapons were common enough.

 

Anyways. That EFF thing. I've never used one before, so I don't suppose you could give me a quick-and-dirty guide? I'll have a look at the Mace 'Skullcrusher' for an idea, but even so.

Any diea what things like Gnolls are too? I assume the race list is akin tot he Ranger's chosen enemy thing-I've never done EFF stuff before.

 

Edit again: Just realised something-if I mess with the name of the innate, that means dialog will have to be added to the dialog.tlk file. I think I'm going to back off the howl/snarl for this reason-I want a simple patch (that and I have no idea how weidu works, or inclination to learn) that's easy to install. Besides, as suggested already, there werewolf is quite the brawler now. Especially if you plop a ring of gaxx on 'em.

[Miloch]

...it was never designed for BG1, but for BG2, and if my memory serves (going to playing through that soon enough again too) magical weapons were common enough.

Was talking about the 'silver' flag not the 'magical' flag. Sure, there's magic weapons all over the place, but I've never seen a silver dagger or bullet (slingstone of course ) and you'd think they'd be more common than magical weapons, especially with lycanthropes about, unless there's some kind of silver shortage or something.

Anyways. That EFF thing. I've never used one before, so I don't suppose you could give me a quick-and-dirty guide?

Erm I'm probably not the best authority, but I've messed around with 'em a bit. The IESDP is probably the best authority, though it doesn't cover all the custom potentials. Maybe there's tutorials out there too but I didn't turn up anything specific for EFFs in a quick search. I could probably hack up an example... do you use DLTCEP (PC) or NI (PC/Mac)?

Any diea what things like Gnolls are too? I assume the race list is akin tot he Ranger's chosen enemy thing-I've never done EFF stuff before.

Humanoids. Most things you want to affect are probably that - otherwise they're animals, undead, monsters (like dragons) or 'giant humanoids' (like ogres - maybe you want to affect them too, I dunno).

Edit again: Just realised something-if I mess with the name of the innate, that means dialog will have to be added to the dialog.tlk file. I think I'm going to back off the howl/snarl for this reason-I want a simple patch (that and I have no idea how weidu works, or inclination to learn) that's easy to install.

That isn't really all that tough though. You'd probably just rename the spell/effect and patch it in with your text (this is like 3-4 lines of code plus whatever your text is, unless there's more complexity to what you're looking for that I'm not grasping).

[Loké]

Edit again: Just realised something-if I mess with the name of the innate, that means dialog will have to be added to the dialog.tlk file. I think I'm going to back off the howl/snarl for this reason-I want a simple patch (that and I have no idea how weidu works, or inclination to learn) that's easy to install.

That isn't really all that tough though. You'd probably just rename the spell/effect and patch it in with your text (this is like 3-4 lines of code plus whatever your text is, unless there's more complexity to what you're looking for that I'm not grasping).

Thing is, I'm *very* old-skool item/spell maker. I used to use TBG's toolset several years ago before I stopped playing the BG series for about the third time, so I'm also relearing how to do this stuff.

 

Now (Oh god, I'm going to sound like an old fart) it's all new and different and I dunno what to do! (flails arms pathetically, anime style). Been having trouble trying to get the thing to work anyway. I thought I'd 'borrow' (read: steal) the moon dog figurine's howl, as it does various things-such as immunity to fear, prot from evil-but also makes humanoids do a save v. fear. Delete the bits I don't want and stuff, but... eh. Oh well, nothing for it, is there-going to have to learn this new-fangled weidu. Jesus, back when I first started doing this sort of thing, we didn't HAVE weidu.

[Guest Guest]

Us young whippersnappers got no respect for the likes of you, Loké. The future is now, old man.

[Loké]

Us young whippersnappers got no respect for the likes of you, Loké. The future is now, old man.

Shut up n00by wipper-snapper, I was making items and spells before you'd even heard of Baldur's Gate. (Decends into geriatric ranting mumble)

 

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Right, old fart syndrome asside, I've been messing around with the howl thing, and I'm getting there. Just one teeny problem. While it does indeed effect humanoids and so forth, it's affecting party members too. How can I iron this little bug out-it's a bit of a problem, having half your party break (werewolf included!)

[Guest Guest]

That ain't yo member number, that's yo age!

 

By the way, I do like the sound of your shapeshifter enhancements.

[Loké]

That ain't yo member number, that's yo age!

 

By the way, I do like the sound of your shapeshifter enhancements.

thanks, need to get the to work first. I thought about a movement bonus, but wolves don't get one or anything so meh. Still having trouble with the affecting party-members too thing. And I can't seem to find a tut. for Weidu either.

[Miloch]

While it does indeed effect humanoids and so forth, it's affecting party members too. How can I iron this little bug out-it's a bit of a problem, having half your party break (werewolf included!)

You probably want to make the 'Target' something like 5 'Not in party'.

 

As for WeiDU, there's Japheth's WeiDU Tutorial and the WeiDU doc. But you don't really need hardcore WeiDU for what you're doing (just DLTCEP and NI) except when you go to patch it in to the kit and assign text, but that part should be relatively easy (maybe Cam has something on it in his kit modding series).

[Loké]

Thanks. I've been tweaking the howl a bit since my last post, and I've noticed that it seems to effect everyone on the map. How does one (ie, me ) go about making it only effect people in visual range? I can't see to see anything relating to that.

[Miloch]

You got me there. But maybe you could set it up so the effect is calling an innate spell, like a clone of Horror (SPIN105). This has a range of 30, which is the maximum visual range (you could change that). Then you could mess with the effects too (delete the visuals and add a 'howl' sound instead ). But I'm just guessing 'cause I haven't done a whole lot of work with spells. Maybe some ubermodder will come along and post some sophisticated WeiDU code that would do it too.

[Loké]

Well I've used the Moon dog howl as a template (ie, nicked it) and gutted it. When that figurine does it's howl all evil creatures do a saving throw or moral breaks. They did it via an eff file, and I've done something similer. I can't see how to avoid it effecting the party memebers though which is annoying.