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Making a class that only has innate abilities unlocked IF there is a mage in your party?

00zim0000zim00 Member Posts: 267
edited April 2016 in General Modding
After the recent release of Final Fantasy IX on steam I was thinking of doing a Final Fantasy character Baldurs Gate run. With characters from the game such as Zidane (Fighter/Thief) Vivi (Mage) ect. But one character who came to mind that had unique mechanics was Steiner who has Swd Mag / Sword Art. For those who dont know, this 'class' could use some magic but ONLY if the Mage was also in the party. Otherwise he was stuck using his basic fighting abilities.

This got me thinking, was it possible within the scope of modding to add a restriction on a class for his abilities to only be unlocked if there was a Mage/Sorcerer or there kits in your party?

I was thinking of using an altered form of the fallen paladin mechanic where the base class is the "fallen" version which is the basic fighter (besides the friends spell they get). Then the 'un-fallen' version has all the spells, ect. That way the trigger to "fall" can happen when there is no mage in the party with the check being made during a 'reform party' function.


The basic idea of how the class would function is listed below. It also would be a paladin kit. Not sure if its fully balanced but I tried to do my best based on the restrictions.

KNIGHT OF PLUTO: Basic fighters with no unique abilities until there is a Arcane inclined friend in there party. At which point they are able to team up with this Arcane user to unlock there various Sword Arts and Sword Magic innate abilities. These arcane abilities include stat de-buffs and several powerful elemental based attacks. They are gained at a delayed pace to there mage counterparts who which a Knight of Pluto borrows their arcane knowledge to tap into the Weave.


Advantages:
  • Can not become Fallen
  • May cast the mage spell Friends once a day. Gain one use at level 1 and an additional use every 4 levels thereafter.
  • Sword Arts/Sword Magic: Fifteen arcane spells are adding to his/her repertoire as innate ability's all the way up to the 14th level. These spells can only be cast if there is a Mage/Sorcerer or there kits in your party and can only be cast once per day. These are listed below:
2nd Level: Chill Touch, Shocking Grasp
4th Level: Burning Hands, Larloch's Minor Drain.
6th Level: Ghoul Touch, Luck.
8th Level: Lightning Bolt, Vampiric Touch
10th Level: Emotion, Greater Malison, Enchanted Weapon
12th Level: Feeblemind, Lower Resistance.
14th Level: Chain Lightning, Flesh to Stone


Disadvantage:
  • Must have a Mage/Sorcerer or there kits in party to be able to use magic abilities.
  • May not use missile weapons:
  • Incurs a -1 penalty to Strength
  • May not turn undead
  • May not use Lay On Hands Ability
  • May not cast priest spells.
  • May not cast Detect Evil
  • May not cast Protection From Evil as an innate ability.
Stat Min/Max Changes
Str: 12/18 (Max Changed to 17)
Dex: 3/18
Con: 9/18
Int: 3/18 (Min Changed to 16)
Wis: 16/18 (Min Changed to 3)
Char: 17/18 (Min Changed to 12)



Possible additions or solutions depending if they are doable:
  • If the mage/Sorcerer is under the Silence status you can not cast spells either. I think this isnt possible and will make to many issues if you have multiply mages in your party or if you have silence protection or other strange combinations of circumstances.
  • Bards dont count as a magic user for this class.
  • Could be called Knight of Mystra if people wanted a more dnd friendly class.
  • As I said, might be to unbalanced? Could give like +1 to casting time on all spells to balance it more? If that's even possible.
Post edited by 00zim00 on

Comments

  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    You would need a Script to use this. My question is, to what do you intend to append the script? I would NOT use baldur.bcs.

    Also, I would not call this kit Knight of Mystra or Knight of Pluto. There are many other "flavor" names that are more appropriate.
  • 00zim0000zim00 Member Posts: 267
    Well, I have no idea about how to do any of it. I know making basic kits with some extra spells and things are "easy" but I didn't want to jump in and start working on it to find the main thing I wanted it to do with the kit wasn't possible. From the sounds of it there is no real way to append a script without potentially braking so many other things? So would that mean its really not worth it?

    As for the name, Knight of Pluto was only there as its the name of the class in the game im referencing. But it really can be anything its more the flavour of the class I was aiming for.

    Thanks for the feedback :D.
  • rapsam2003rapsam2003 Member Posts: 1,636
    edited April 2016
    00zim00 said:

    From the sounds of it there is no real way to append a script without potentially braking so many other things?

    No, that's not the concern. The thing is, your script would need to run constantly. The way scripts work in this game is that you create a BAF file. This is a text file that follows the basic script format. But your BAF won't do a thing until it appended to the BCS file in a WeiDU install file. In other words, the question is, since your script needs to run constantly, how is it run?

    There's 2 options, as I see it.
    1. You create a new companion. See here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=183524786# . This new companion would have your script attached to him/her and would have a new kit that is ONLY for that companion. This option seems more viable to me.
    2. You create a new kit for CHARNAME. The question there is, what is running the script? What BCS file would your BAF file be appeneded to? You need to constantly check whether there is a mage in the party, and the only script that runs constantly throughout the game is Baldur.BCS.
      It is usually not recommended to append things to Baldur.BCS. Most scripts are appended to area scripts (format of area script names are "ARXXXX.bcs"). But there's a LOT of area scripts, so that becomes an issue too.
      In short, I don't think that creating a new CHARNAME kit for this is a good option.
    See the below links for more information:
    http://www.weidu.org/WeiDU/README-WeiDU.html
    http://www.pocketplane.net/tutorials/simscript.html
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