Creature Morphology

[Proteus_za]

Well, I've gotten a little bit stuck on Mytos. This is the first real NPC I've tried to convert in a reasonable way, and the problem is an interesting one.

 

First I tried to see if I could determine Mytos' real level. According to the CRE, s/he's a level 8/8 FIGHTER_CLERIC, but if you look at the save and THAC0 the real level is more like 7/7. The level could be used to reflect turning or spell difficulty? I'm not sure how accurate this level field is in IWD1.

 

Anyway, Wes' CRE morphing has a lot of problems as I mentioned before. One is the multi-class level calculation. The recommended level conversion is to take the maximum level and add 1/3 of the remaining levels (rounding down, unless the result is zero in which case you use 1). This puts Mytos' IWD2 level at either 10 (e.g. 5 fighter, 5 cleric) or 9 (e.g. 5 fighter, 4 cleric). I have no problem with using 10 I guess.

 

The next problem is the experience reward. I believe the "challenge rating" field is only used for XP. Mytos is supposed to have a substantial XP reward which would mean that it should be boosted over the norm. I've tried profiling XP and CR in IWD1 and IWD2 respectively to see if there's any conversion formula I could use. Nothing pops up yet.

 

 

It might take you a while, but why dont you get a total of the experience a party is likely to get, in the various different parts of the game? Quest XP should be easy to total (most walkthroughs tell you how much you get) and you can look at your current experience to work out how much of it was from combat.

 

Do the same thing for IWD1 and 2, and you can work out how much experience the players get at certain poiints in the game.

 

Given the total, you can work out a formula for calculating individual monster experience, because we know that the total of IWD1TUTU experience must allow for one to gain an equivalent level in 3e as you would in 2e (and we know how much experience that is, because you can convert 2e levels to 3e, approximately).

 

then you need to work out how many monsters you will be fighting, what the impact the players level will have on the CR and XP, and then you can work out XP per monster, according to the relative XP differences in IWD1.

 

Then again, it might be simpler to do it by hand!

[FredSRichardson]

Proteus, I think you hit the nail on the head. I was just thinking of this after I posted. I actually have an IWD1 game in which I saved frequently (or tried to) for each area as I went along. The party has 6 members so I should be able to keep track of the average party level at each point. Then, as you said, I can convert CRE XP using the party level and the equivalent level increment for IWD2. This is a nice idea.

[cewander]

Remember to take respawning monsters into account (like skelettons in the caves in valley of shadows).