Hexxat shouldn't be immune to confusion?
kamuizin
Member Posts: 3,704
As an undead, shouldn't Hexxat be flagged immune to confusion, be it from spells or abilities?
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Just need to follow the Requiem rules (Ravenloft scenario)
If it's about AD&D not allowing it as playable class, the game take some large exceptions here. We can play an Slayer, and dead bhaalspawn that's not dead anymore, a blackguard, a bear with stats that should make every bear in forgotten realms jealous, 2 drows, and this is just the peak of the iceberg, with all the crazy stuff BG history bring.
Vampires doesn't have brains exactly. They're sentient beings for sure, but the phisiology of their brains is irrelevant. it's not the organic functions of their brains that make them work, but the supernatural forces that act over vampires that give them that possibility.
If you carve a knife into a vampire's head, he's not going to die or become dumb because of that, he will not even aknowledge the knife as damage if it's not magical.
Chaos, confusion and other similar spells act on organic beings to develop effects, and vampires among any other undeads are immune to it, but not to the effectt: "confusion" itself, that can come from specific sources that affect undeads, like false dawn.
wheter that's faithful to "real dnd" I have no idea, but at least it is to the game
Maybe i'm just trying too much compare hexxat to valen, and that's unjust, valen mod was too good.
Once again, this is a good idea roleplay-wise, but it cannot fit in BG2 due to engine limitations and game-balance reason. The only way of making it balanced would be to create a special HLA for Hexxat, for example.
Playing a true vampire, with all the bonuses but also all the disadvantages, would have been quite complex, or maybe impossible as some travels take more than a whole night, every location that needs more than the time between sunset and sunrise would result in the party reaching the destination with the vampire destroyed. So some quests would be impossible or only possible dropping temporarily the vampire and playing with a man (or undead...) less than normal, and the vampire NPC would not get any Xp from those quests.
You want the bonuses? Here you are, but take also the consequence of it.
Something good for a mod, if you like the idea, not for a vanilla game, on that I agree.
But what about a vampire NPC that has only the pros (even if not all the pros of a true vampire) and almost no disadvantages, with some uber stats, 20 STR, 20 DEX 98 total.
And maybe give it the real OP class of the game, the Thief, and, as it is not enough, create also for her a new kit that allow to hide when in sight of the enemy.
Is that not cheesy and crappy?
Cheesy and crappy, but still funny to play I suppose as for now I have played only the initial tomb and now sister Hexxy is parked in the CC and the only things of her that remains in my party are the coffin and the bag of holding, for now I like to explore some of the other new NPCs, more serious or maybe more traditional, this run Neera, that I appreciate very much, the next run maybe Rasaad.
@Arunsun I agree that Black razor is a really powerful weapon, but in my experience its strength is not the level drain, but the other bonuses, as you start tho hit something you get in a very short time that haste and STR bonus, is like having Crom AND a personal mage servant with plenty of IH for you. If you can hit you win anyway, no level drain needed. It was created as the super weapon of the original pre ToB game, available only for the final battle, combined with an high APR is devasting. Now the people is fooled by those many +5 and even +6 weapons but imo there is only an halberd that you can get very late in ToB that is better if the enemies does not need more than +3 enchantment to be hit.
But I don't think that it would be so difficult to script the enemies to fight against a vampire, there are so many effective ways to counter them. They was my nightmare when I was a newbie, but now that I have learned to play a little better they are so easy to beat, almost no pre buffing or special equipment is needed.
There are some clerical and arcane spells that are very effective against them and a really good AC or PFMW are easy ways to avoid the level drain (if he can not hit he can not drain...), no AoP and Mace of Disruption needed. Also there is plenty of enemy clerics in the game and there is no defense against their special ability, every time the vampire meets a cleric with 4 more levels is incapacitated and if the levels are 8 he explode. Sure to change the scripts of all the enemy mages and clerics, and maybe give some levels more to the clerics, is a lot of work, but is nothing compared to create new quests and areas or some (not payed) work of mods like SCS or Improved Anvil, where the whole AI is completely re worked.
Weimer made valen mod with a full vampire and still the game was hard enough for her to play, with a lot of protection from undeads distributed to NPCs.
The time travel could easly be doubled and any travel stat change should be ignored when traveling long range areas.
Because as she is now she has way better stats that any charname that I ever rolled in my life, the natural str alone give +8 dmg and +3 thac0 bonus, so +7 when backstabbing, on a kit that can hide in sight of the enemy each round for free. The dmg bonus is added and not multipied in the backstab, but still can be the difference between an enemy mage killed right at the beginning of the fight or a inyuried one that protects himself (maybe with a contingiency) and confuses or bomb with ADHW your party. And anyway is applied to every succesful hit, from the moment you meet her, when there are not so many str enhancing items available. About dex +3 to hit ranged and -4 ac, and a bonus to her thieving ablilties.
And you can rise both if you import the tomes, each bonus get an additional +1.
This is like to give her a very good str belt in the game for free, and frees that belt or an other str item for an other party member, is still very useful until the end of ToB.
She brings to the party also a bag of holding at the beginning of the day, that can be used also if you drop her, so every party can benefit from that, but there can be some RP reasons to don't use it if the party is good and anyway is something that contributes to her usefulness as NPC.
All this with almost no cons as the most of the fights and exploration are in dungeon and you can time the few other hard battles to happen at night.
This is my point, I think that having a vampire in the party can be a good idea for some players, both for RP and to justify her personal quest, but functionally, balance wise, she does not need more.
The level drain applies also on stoneskinned mages, and pfmw lasts only 4 rounds, using the lev drain she erases spells from their spellbook, potentially barring them from casting the higher levels and she can hide and repeat. Give her boots of speed, belt that halves magic damage and shield of reflection and add to the mix the immunity you proposed. She can dedicate some rounds before the battle some time to hit the enemy mages and in the battle continue with 6 apr using the speed bow under IH, with almost 100% chance to survive and very good chance to take only minimal damage and you can soft the enemy mages quite a bit. Really abuse of it and every fight can be against lev1 mages (1 lev 1 spell only) and with the best fighters level, and thac0, drained.
This is why I agree with @subtledoctor , for a mod it can be a good idea, but for the vanilla game she has still more than any other soa npc, adding the 2 proposed things would be too unbalancing.
I understand from this and my theory regarding undead: You can not charm/sleep an undead. You can, confuse an undead, if it has sentience:you can not confuse skeletons and zombies, as they have no brain functions, but a vampire is fair game since they think, too. A lich is susceptible too but next to impossible as liches have spell defenses and great saves. Those in the middle of the undead chain are a bit blurry, ghouls/ghasts and wights seem to have an intelligence and thinking pattern, however weak it is, so they may be vulnerable if they are in a thinking phase (like Korax in bg1) but maybe not so much if they are in a feral/feeding frenzy. Non corporeal undead like shadows, wraiths, spectres, ghosts and banshees should be immune to confusion, though, they are in a wholesome different wave-length.
Imo, even if I find insightful your argumentation, is not so, for 2 reasons.
About skeletons they have no muscles but they can move, and they surely have some sort of mind, the not summoned ones, like the ones you find in some tombs, can act autonomously, they are not robots controlled by a mage. In some cases they even talk to you. So they must be considered as the non corporeal ones. Beings with a mind, that don't use a physical brain as support. This can be also true for zombies, who have a brain, but a rotten one.
And manipulating the physical brain, also in RL, is only one of the ways to manipulate the mind, think about hypnotism. In FR the mind is manipulated using magic and we have no clues afaik that this is done magically manipulating the physical brain, it can be also a magical hypnotism or some other way, and I guess that it works like that.
Is easy to manipulate the brain to have a sleep or confusion, there are plenty of drugs and dopes to do it also in RL, but to have some domination only manipulating the physical brain is something really difficult, probably you have to operate some extremely complicated reworking of the synapses configuration, I find it very unlikely, and a mage with that power over the physical brain of an other being could do much better, like causing some damage to the artery causing a severe cerebral hemorrhage and killing the pour guy.
Like no one forced the developers to make a vampire NPC.
Valen IS by all means a more realistic vampire than Hexxat, who has no urges at all.
Dorn (a very well done NPC in his own role) shows often his need for bloodlust, for example.
Having Hexxat the vampire or Jan Jansen the gnome when visiting a temple full of clerics/paladins or even talking to the 99% of the vampires in the game (IIRC she has 3 dialogs in total when approaching others of her kind) is hexxactly the same.
By playing Hexxat have you ever felt that you had a damn vampire in your party, aside switching an item in her inventory (most annoying thing ever)?
I personally did not.
So the idea that his very low intelligence can be confused, screwing up the very basic agenda (killing the intruder or the enemy of his summoner) his intelligence allows, is as good as yours.
Until we define how exactly the mind control spells work, in which way and at which level of the mind functions. thing that afaik is not possible, we have not enough clues to give an answer.
So I say that is a draw, not that this is a competition between you and me, but someone must chose which is the right interpretation mainly according to his personal tastes and feelings.
The core of my request isn't only vampires benefits, i would love to have healing magics (and potions) harming hexxat instead of curing her (and cursed realing potions and harm spells healing her), i would love to get an immediate hostile reaction when i enter the temple of lathander with Hexxat. I would love if half of the NPCs of the game change their behavior with me because of hexxat, also i would love to have hexxat vampire urges failing to be controlled and screwing some of my social contacts in the game.
Valen brought all that to me and was the first mod that made half of the sword coast hostile and was still fun!
It always puzzled me why would one make an optional bear NPC, while forcing a vampire to respect normal stardards to fit your party behaviours.
I'd reather have an optional vampire NPC, but in line with the pros and cons that comes with it.
It's a vampire! It has to be powerful and feared and hated!
Anyway, I expressed this idea of mine immediately during the beta of BG2:EE, it won't be changed.
It's just a pity because if you want to put something on the market when there is already an appreciated version of it, you HAVE to give people something new and better they can look at.
That's the only thing about EE I can't get over with, that and the fact that I want an ending for The Black Pits...
Now sorry for the OT, I'll retire myself in the Void for a couple months more...
Wilson is supposed to be a funny easter egg so I'm willing to cut him some slack. Hexxat on the other hand, is THE Evil Thief NPC players wanted for ages. It's logical to have higher expectations here.
The point here is that Valen gave us an awesome experience with a vampire mod and play with hexxat doesn't feel like playing with a vampire unless you open the character record screen and see vampre wrote there.
Exactly for being core content that i raised my OP, she should be labeled at least as undead, thus receiving the proper immunities and penalties. Inverse healing / harming spells already would help the environment of this character.
Let's do a vampire, because is cool, give her uber stats because the players love uber stats, and add also that bag of holding at the beginning of the game (there where other possibilities to handle the coffin stuff and no need at all to put it in that bag), so she will be even more attractive.
But wait, playing a vampire is problematic, so let's do al those things, but don't make a real one, instead make a regular npc with just the flavor of the vampire, no cons but having normal stats in sun light, and all those attractive pros. It seems to me like to want to make the new NPC more attractive and appealing for the potential buyers than the original NPCs, but in the wrong way.
But I can not read the mind of the devs, obviously, I can be wrong about that.
And I have played only the first tomb so I don't know how her quest is written and how being a vampire is really an essential part of that, or the same storyline could be adapted to a not vampire npc with not essential changes. Mine is just a first not informed impression.
Also the players that wanted for ages an evil thief is true. But the 2 original thieves was neutral one of them
and the other is a multiclass.
The good parties could have two mage NPCs that could also handle traps and locks, that is not being thief, and that was an advantage. But now the good parties who want a real single class thief are at disadvantage.
With the new thief there are far more problems having her in the party than keeping the rep under very high score, being her a vampire a lot of RP issues rise if a good party want a single class thief that
A second single class neutral thief imo would have been a better solution.
Well, so as not to offend your sense of realism in supernatural creatures that don't exist, Hexxat has had a long time to get her urges under control (which still didn't stop her from ripping out Clara's throat in front of the party and making a bad first impression on many). Yes. She has 20 strength, takes damage in sunlight, turns into a cloud when she reaches 0hp, and mentions her undead state in the majority of her dialogue. If anything, I think it's stressed too much.
It's hard to believe a vampire is "inherently balance-breaking" when you stomp NPC vampires like kobolds for a good chunk of the story.
That being said, I don't think Hexxat is weak as she is. Single-class, non-kitted Thieves are really not that good but they still have the overpowered HLAs and Hexxat's gas form is kind of buggy, allowing her to tank huge amounts of damage.
She just doesn't feel like a vampire in gameplay, in part because you fight so many of them in the game you have a point of comparison.