Feral Magic (Request for help/advice)

wolpak

In my unreleased total conversion mod, I have decided to repurpose "Wild Magic" into something much more functional, fun and interesting. I am remolding the Barbarian into a "Wildling" who can learn the innate ability of "Feral Magic". What Feral Magic does is it "learns" from your enemy and gives you an ability that they have. This ability can be cast through the Wild Magic mechanic. Most of this has nothing to do with my request here, but just an understanding.

The most functional way for me to do this without scripts, is based on Class and possibly Race. What I wanted advice on is what you would "receive" for "learning" the moves of each class. Not all classes have to be learnable, and there are some obvious ones.

On a side note, if I wanted to really make this robust, I think I can make new Specifics and assign them to creatures and thus, have a more controllable method, but I am fine with using race/class for now. Maybe others that do not fall into those categories can be given specifics.

So, if there are any ideas of what can be learned, makes sense, and so on, it would be of great help.


RACE.IDS

101 ANKHEG
102 BASILISK - Petrify
103 BEAR
104 CARRIONCRAWLER
105 DOG
106 DOPPLEGANGER
107 ETTERCAP
108 GHOUL
109 GIBBERLING
110 GNOLL
111 HOBGOBLIN
112 KOBOLD
113 OGRE
114 FAIRY
115 SKELETON
116 SPIDER - Poison
117 WOLF
118 WYVERN
119 SLIME
120 FAIRY
121 DEMONIC
122 LYCANTHROPE
123 BEHOLDER
124 MIND_FLAYER
125 VAMPIRE
127 OTYUGH
128 RAKSHASA
129 TROLL - Regeneration
130 UMBERHULK
131 SAHUAGIN
132 SHADOW
133 SPECTRE
134 WRAITH
135 KUO-TOA
136 MIST
137 CAT
138 DUERGAR
139 MEPHIT
140 MIMIC
141 IMP
142 GIANT
143 ORC
144 GOLEM
145 ELEMENTAL
146 DRAGON - Dragon Breath
147 GENIE
148 ZOMBIE
149 STATUE
150 LICH
151 RABBIT
152 GITHYANKI
153 TIEFLING
154 YUANTI
155 DEMILICH
156 SOLAR
157 ANTISOLAR
158 PLANATAR
159 DARKPLANATAR
199 ETTIN

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wolpak

I guess I could shorten the list a lot. It's not like you are going to watch leather armor and learn how to hug the hips and look fashionable.

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wolpak

After analyzing it a bit, I removed class altogether as Race is definitely good enough. There are almost 60 possibilities, of which, I expect only half or so would be useful.

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semiticgoddess

This is quite possible, but it would be complex.

In a nutshell, you give your kit an at-will innate spell that can't be disrupted. This spell grants the target critter a bounce spell effect that reflects one spell--the spell level is 745 (say). It then instantly casts a level 745 spell at the critter, which grants the bonuses you want on your character and only affects certain races. That spell will be bounced back, without bouncing any other spells, and your character will get hit by the spell instead, gaining the bonuses. But you'd need multiple spell and .eff files to make it work properly.

I could design a spell that would work correctly, at least once I get home in a couple days and can use my computer, and post it on this thread. I don't have EE, but plan on getting it when I get home. I just need to know which races grant which bonuses. Or, I could just design the base files, and you could add in the effects to each spell file. Or, I could post in more specific detail how I would do it, if you're curious. I hesitate to explain because I'm on my iPhone and the explanation could take a while to type.

wolpak

My process is a little less complicated than that.

Basically, the character is granted an innate "learn" ability. That ability has like 30 use eff opcodes in it. Each use eff checks the race of the enemy it is casted on. If it is "troll" it proceeds to cast a spell back on the character with a learn spell called "regen" or whatever I plan on calling it. It shows up in the arcane spellbook and is usable by the opcode 202 i think it is, cast spell from book, which is used in Nahal's. I plan on reworking it so that there is an innate "wild magic" change when using any of these feral spells...you know, for flavor.

But if you have another method that is interesting or works as well, I'll definitely consider it. I am using the race as nothing other than a determinant for what spell to learn.

wolpak

@subtledoctor I wasn't planning on it being an innate bonus. Like you learn the giant, and now are strong. It is more like, you learn the monster and now you can cast a spell that does something that the monster does.

Grammarsalad

wolpak said:

My process is a little less complicated than that.

Basically, the character is granted an innate "learn" ability. That ability has like 30 use eff opcodes in it. Each use eff checks the race of the enemy it is casted on. If it is "troll" it proceeds to cast a spell back on the character with a learn spell called "regen" or whatever I plan on calling it. It shows up in the arcane spellbook and is usable by the opcode 202 i think it is, cast spell from book, which is used in Nahal's. I plan on reworking it so that there is an innate "wild magic" change when using any of these feral spells...you know, for flavor.

But if you have another method that is interesting or works as well, I'll definitely consider it. I am using the race as nothing other than a determinant for what spell to learn.

That's a fun idea!

semiticgoddess

@wolpak: Sounds like we had the same plan. How are you going to get the spell to target you without a bounce spell effect? Race-specific .eff files only apply to the target, not the caster, unless the caster already belongs to the race. My idea was to use the bounce spell effect to make the bonuses ended up on the caster, but the determinant of what the bonuses were would check the target's race. I don't know if your spell as you described it would grant bonuses to the caster and do so based on the race of the target.

wolpak

It works right now. I tested it. Basically, the spell cast from the effect has a target of self, and it works. So, the filter for who is affected is done when calling the effect, but the target for the effect can point to self and applies the spell.

wolpak

So I am trying to categorize these to match my plan in my mod. I am going to have 1 base class, Wildling, which will class change into 1 of 2 possibilities and then each of those has 2 possibilities. Given the races and types of monsters, I am trying to have somewhat of a sensical path here.

...........................................Wildling (Hunts Animal Race)
........................................./.....................................\
.....................Monster Hunter..................................Spirit Hunter
................../.................\........................................./...................\
Humanoid Hunter........Giant Hunter............Undead Hunter............Demonic Hunter

Not sure if this even makes sense, or if I plan on replacing Humanoid with Dragon (probably) and merging some humanoids in with other groups...

Any advice would be great

semiticgoddess

Wait, you're using your spell to change the character's class? Would the class' bonuses apply correctly? I'd thought kit abilities only applied on level ups. I assumed your spell would apply temporary, mutually exclusive bonuses, rather than changing the character to a subkit.

wolpak

I guess I left ambiguity to the class process. Everyone will start off as a base class. At level 7 they can choose between 2 subclasses (kits). At level 18, 2 more, making a tree of 7 total classes. The ranger can choose the archer or hunter path, the archer can choose the marksman or sniper path...and so on.

The wilding is a base class, and I am trying to come up with names/functionality for their sub classes. So, he base wilding will only be able to learn from animals. The monster hunter, from monsters and animals. The giant hunter, from Giants, monsters and animals.

Grammarsalad

Wait, so you're using the barbarian slot for this? And you are making it so a) spells can be added to their spell book and b) these spells can be cast using the NRD opcode???? And it works!?!

kjeron

Grammarsalad said:

Wait, so you're using the barbarian slot for this? And you are making it so a) spells can be added to their spell book and b) these spells can be cast using the NRD opcode???? And it works!?!

Of course, the select spell opcode for known spells doesn't care if you can actually cast mage spells at all, you just have to have them known in the mage spell book, which unlike the priest version also doesn't care if you have access to that spell level yet.

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wolpak

kjeron said:

Grammarsalad said:

Wait, so you're using the barbarian slot for this? And you are making it so a) spells can be added to their spell book and b) these spells can be cast using the NRD opcode???? And it works!?!

Of course, the select spell opcode for known spells doesn't care if you can actually cast mage spells at all, you just have to have them known in the mage spell book, which unlike the priest version also doesn't care if you have access to that spell level yet.

Which "priest" version are you referring to?

kjeron

wolpak said:

Which "priest" version are you referring to?

Priest Spellbook, doesn't let you add spells if you don't have spell level access.

Grammarsalad

kjeron said:

wolpak said:

Which "priest" version are you referring to?

Priest Spellbook, doesn't let you add spells if you don't have spell level access.

I'm going to assume both

Aaah, but what does it matter? You have the mage spell book, so you have the world!

wolpak

In reality, it is only really functional on those who do not have arcane magic. Otrherwise, you are allowing them to cast normal spells as well.

One drawback is that while you can see the spells in the spellbook, you cannot get info on them unless you activate the ability.

Grammarsalad

@wolpak your idea looks interesting, but maybe you can develop this into a psionicist, or something similar? I only suggest that because a) that is something I'd really like to see and b) psionics are a part of the world in question, but are non existent in the game. This leaves a (semi)conspicuous gap. Plus, you wouldn't have to start from scratch.