Sneak Attack?

Greener

I'm curious about bringing sneak attack to the BG EE game

Quote
When Sneak Attack is in effect, any time a thief attacks an opponent from a flank or rear position, he or she can do additional damage once (and only once) on that opponent. The additional damage is plus +1d6 every 4 levels of experience (i.e., an 8th level thief could do +3d6 damage, and a 23rd level thief could do +6d6)

How do you edit to allow for extra damage based on the level of the character?

Aranthys

Calculating extra damage won't be too difficult.
The biggest problem here, is the positioning rule. I don't think the engine can manage that (Backstab positionning rule is hardcoded if I m not mistaken)

Shin

As @Aranthys says it's hardcoded, no real way I can think of to make a sneak attack ability position based.

Greener

By positioning do you mean, progressively increasing damage based on character level?

mlnevese

@Greener No. They mean there is no way to know if a character is flanked as the engine does not have that function.

Greener

As an example...Something to the effect if first attack of the round adds 1d6 of damage per level would be possible with the current engine?

Shin

Hmm.. as far as I can see, not automatically - there's no passive effect that could do that and only last for one attack. It could be somewhat emulated though, like an ability that creates a weapon that lasts for one attack and does increasing damage based on your level.

Greener

I've managed to create a version of sneak attack utilizing a melee hit effect (248) and an EFF file for the extra damage. Now is it possible to increase the number of extra dice based on level (eg. 2d6 for level 1-4, 3d6 for level 5-8 ect...)?

As mentioned previously I was not able to activate the ability based on the character being flanked, so instead I made it an innate ability that has to be activated and lasts for 5 seconds (1/2 round)

Shin

Right, that's another way to go about it, but could potentially lead to several attacks landing. To make it level-based, in the core spell you have to add another spell ability for each level increment. In the first one you assign minimum level as 0 or 1, in the second 5, in the third 9, and so on depending on what you want. Then inside each of these abilities you put identical spell effects except that they deal more damage with higher level.

For a good reference you can look at the fireball spell and see how it contains several spell abilities with progressively higher minimum level + higher damage.

Also, a round is 6 seconds, so you would currently have it last 5/6 of one.

Greener

Shin said:

Right, that's another way to go about it, but could potentially lead to several attacks landing. To make it level-based, in the core spell you have to add another spell ability for each level increment. In the first one you assign minimum level as 0 or 1, in the second 5, in the third 9, and so on depending on what you want. Then inside each of these abilities you put identical spell effects except that they deal more damage with higher level.

For a good reference you can look at the fireball spell and see how it contains several spell abilities with progressively higher minimum level + higher damage.

Also, a round is 6 seconds, so you would currently have it last 5/6 of one.

Thank you! I was actually using the Set Snare ability as a template

3 seconds = 1/2 round? Even if they where to have 2 attacks per round only one would have the extra damage?

Shin

Yes, most likely.. though as attacks per round increases the likelihood of getting several sneak attacks in would go up.

Greener

Shin said:

Yes, most likely.. though as attacks per round increases the likelihood of getting several sneak attacks in would go up.

Is there any other way to only apply this ability to the first attack of the round?

Shin

Like I mentioned earlier, you could implement it as a created, magical weapon. This would allow you to make it last for only one attack, with the slight drawback that damage will be unrelated to whatever weapon you're carrying at the moment as you'd incorporate both weapon damage and the extra damage from sneak attack in the created weapon's damage.

booinyoureyes

Didn't icewind dale implement this? or am I making it up?
would it be possible to at least mod "backstab" to include ranged weapons?

TwoWayFinesse

I think IWD gave you a tick box option - no backstab but use sneak attack. Been a long time since I played it though. No idea how the engine handled it though

Greener

booinyoureyes said:

Didn't icewind dale implement this?

You are correct, thats where I got the idea from

booinyoureyes said:

would it be possible to at least mod "backstab" to include ranged weapons?

I'm working on it, one step at a time...

TwoWayFinesse said:

I think IWD gave you a tick box option - no backstab but use sneak attack. Been a long time since I played it though. No idea how the engine handled it though

You are also correct, I'm re-creating it as an innate ability as backstabbing is hard coded

Grammarsalad

what about if you add a second apply eff (248) giving protection from spell (206) with the extra damage spell itself in the resource key. this effect would have to be put after the extra damage effect, of course. The duration could equal (at least) the duration of the damage effect.

I think this would ensure the extra damage applies only to the first attack (and only if out hits). Heh, assuming it works

smeagolheart

@Dee can you unhardcode whatever is hardcoded to let there be an option to sneak attack in lieu of backstab ala Icewind Dale?

Dee

I'll be honest, when I see a thread with "Sneak Attack" in the title all I think is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwp-lDSN3Qo

booinyoureyes

The elf wizard in that video could be my girlfriend's twin sister >.>