Interesting how this thread’s caught up to Drake’s in views and attention despite being announced a whole nine months later. I’m pleased and also somewhat nervous. Aura was definitely the hardest character for me to write because she’s a very different type of personality from what I’m used to and I wasn’t always sure if my ideas would work. While I sometimes feel I missed a few opportunities with Sirene and Drake I feel very ‘safe’ regarding them. Not so much with Aura.
No updates or previews this time, just sharing some thoughts.
I tried Aura out on a "Why not?" basis, and was pleasantly surprised. I haven't finished a full run with her yet due to (unrelated) mod bugs and updates, but I look forward to finishing her story.
Sunshooter: now configures between three modes: Rapid, Precise and Power
Original plan for the Sunshooter was too complicated. It now has three modes that it can switch between.
Rapid Shot: +APR, -damage
Precise Shot: +THAC0 and critical rate, -APR
Power Shot: +damage, -THAC0
This way the upgrades for the bow don't just stack on top of each other for a huge ball of stats. The bow can be configured by 'conversing' with the weapon.
Bit of fun pointless trivia: Aura is currently my most popular mod NPC in terms of views and downloads overall considering the time she's been available. The fact that 'gnome' is in the title may have something to do with it?
On another note, she was originally planned to be a BG2 side character for another NPC who I ended up scrapping. And when I decided to make her own mod, she was originally very different - a chaotic good, tomboyish, snarky, somewhat insufferable genius without the Kozakuran backstory. Somewhere in the middle of the planning stage I ended up completely rewriting her character. To this day I wonder which iteration would have done better - I just couldn’t stand writing an ‘annoying gnome’ archetype when the game’s got plenty of those already.
Improved automaton AI and dialogue - can now put automaton on standby. Runes no longer have a one-turn lockout timer, applying a new rune removes the prior rune's effect instead
Automaton no longer stays with the PC when Aura is removed from the party (BUGFIX)
Thank you for this. Unskippable pre-boss cutscenes are a crime against humanity (LOOKING AT YOU, SIEGE OF DRAGONSPEAR).
I'm a big fan of the writing in your NPC mods and Aura is no exception. If you'll allow me some constructive criticism, though...
Nothing new here, just more whining about the ninjas. The entire final quest - from the Undercellar onward - was more frustrating than fun, IMO. Invisible, poison, exploding, hide-in-plain-sight enemies are one thing; spawning them on top of the player pretty much guarantees a party death for every encounter, but without any real strategy or challenge, just "ugh, this again". I ctrl-Yd my way through the last one.
Also, Taito himself is possibly stronger than Sarevok, or at least close (18/00 STR, level 13, -7 AC, immune to fire, incredible saves...). I don't use SCS and don't generally look for major challenges in the mods I play, so introducing an enemy that overshadows the final boss is a little jarring.
Sorry if I come across as too negative here - the writing is great and I really enjoyed Drake's own encounter (using him for the first time as well on this run through). Just had the fights fresh in my mind and figured it was worth sharing.
Okay, okay, I'll lower the Undercellar battle's difficulty by another notch next update...
The final battle difficulty... I'll think about it, but the stats on all the enemies are actually legal (I created and exported every character). The AC and saves are due to a Potion of Invulnerability, and the immunity to fire is from the Protection of Fire cast before battle. I think both can be dispelled and once they are he's just a regular old 13th level Kensai - pretty strong, but not a cheater like Sarevok. I'm going to do a run through of the quest and see if it's really too hard and maybe find some reasonable way of tuning things down.
Okay, okay, I'll lower the Undercellar battle's difficulty by another notch next update...
The final battle difficulty... I'll think about it, but the stats on all the enemies are actually legal (I created and exported every character). The AC and saves are due to a Potion of Invulnerability, and the immunity to fire is from the Protection of Fire cast before battle. I think both can be dispelled and once they are he's just a regular old 13th level Kensai - pretty strong, but not a cheater like Sarevok. I'm going to do a run through of the quest and see if it's really too hard and maybe find some reasonable way of tuning things down.
Ahh, good to know about the buffs. I just ctrl-Q'd him and assumed those were all built in. That does change things, though going up against a level 13+ and his whole party at level 6 is a bit extreme, legal or no.
Edit: I guess the difficulty there comes down to player taste, as @Brokenkatana 's comment makes clear. So I would completely understand if things stay as-is - it's an interesting fight, I'll give it that - though I would hope future content isn't quite so aspiring-demigod-like in its overall power level.
For the ninjas, my complaint isn't about the Undercellar specifically - it's the spawn location for all of the ninja encounters (can't detect invisibility until they're already on top of you, can't use summon buffers for the same reason...) and the number of city encounters. It takes, what, three ambushes before things progress? I would just drop one of them, or use a different type of enemy in each. Just feels repetitive, and that adds to the frustration.
When I get around to it I'll probably make the spawn distance of the enemies significantly farther away from the player characters - maybe throw in some archers in place of assassins, possibly remove their backup potions of invisibility. I did mean for the encounters to be somewhat annoying but I think they might be too much.
Enemies in the Undercellar come in groups instead of individually, enemies have been de-leveled and grant more time between waves
Elite ninja ambush leaders have been replaced with named individuals with different classes
Added a new weapon
Fixed string and APR error on the Blade of Howling Souls
Added compatibility with IWD-style sneak attack setting
Added flag to prevent Aura from gaining LoB bonuses
Recolored and significantly downsized automatons
Aura now appears in the Troll Woods and Coalition Camp in Siege of Dragonspear regardless of whether she's been in the party beforehand
I went through several iterations of the Undercellar battle and wasn't fond of any of the results which were either just as frustrating as the original or worse in different ways. It may go through some more changes but for now I've just deleveled the enemies so they only backstab for x2 instead of x3 and come in 4 groups of 3 instead of one enemy every three rounds up to 10 enemies in total. This can be more difficult but I personally find it easier just because it's possible to remove their invisibility and take them all out at once. It's not entirely consistent but there's usually a slight delay between the time the enemies appear and when they actually attack, which gives a chance to prevent their first backstab. The outdoor ambushes were changed to be more individually interesting and rewarding.
The automatons have had their size reduced - I wanted them smaller to begin with but there was a rather ugly animation glitch that I wasn't able to solve until now. They're only slightly taller than a regular human rather than one-and-a-half their size, which I really didn't like. If anyone who doesn't like this change prefers the old size, I'll add a separate component to add them back in next update.
Will change all, except her .cre file already has 4 hp so I'm not sure what's wrong there.
Yeah, you're right. The component "Max HP for NPCs" of Tweaks Anthology is the culprit: it basically assumes that every Thief kit rolls d6 for hit points.......
Comments
No updates or previews this time, just sharing some thoughts.
- Improved a few item icons
- Fixed portrait icons
- Create Sunshooter Arrows: player may choose type of arrow to create at mk. III and IV in stacks of five, maximum ten arrows
I'm experimenting with a new idea to make the Sunshooter more interesting. It may or may not work.- Sunshooter: now configures between three modes: Rapid, Precise and Power
Original plan for the Sunshooter was too complicated. It now has three modes that it can switch between.- Rapid Shot: +APR, -damage
- Precise Shot: +THAC0 and critical rate, -APR
- Power Shot: +damage, -THAC0
This way the upgrades for the bow don't just stack on top of each other for a huge ball of stats. The bow can be configured by 'conversing' with the weapon.Also, new readme.
On another note, she was originally planned to be a BG2 side character for another NPC who I ended up scrapping. And when I decided to make her own mod, she was originally very different - a chaotic good, tomboyish, snarky, somewhat insufferable genius without the Kozakuran backstory. Somewhere in the middle of the planning stage I ended up completely rewriting her character. To this day I wonder which iteration would have done better - I just couldn’t stand writing an ‘annoying gnome’ archetype when the game’s got plenty of those already.
Updated with a fix.
Yeah, I... figured it out, but I'm a little confused as to when this started becoming a problem. I hope fixing it doesn't cause any different issues.
- Fixed automaton animation
v1.8.2- Fixed polymorph error in installation
v1.8.1- Elite ninjas will not drop fireballs on death if disabled (e.g. stunned) before death
- Game now saves before end-of-quest battle
Some quality-of-life improvements for that silly random out-of-nowhere quest.I'm a big fan of the writing in your NPC mods and Aura is no exception. If you'll allow me some constructive criticism, though...
Nothing new here, just more whining about the ninjas. The entire final quest - from the Undercellar onward - was more frustrating than fun, IMO.
Invisible, poison, exploding, hide-in-plain-sight enemies are one thing; spawning them on top of the player pretty much guarantees a party death for every encounter, but without any real strategy or challenge, just "ugh, this again". I ctrl-Yd my way through the last one.
Also, Taito himself is possibly stronger than Sarevok, or at least close (18/00 STR, level 13, -7 AC, immune to fire, incredible saves...). I don't use SCS and don't generally look for major challenges in the mods I play, so introducing an enemy that overshadows the final boss is a little jarring.
Sorry if I come across as too negative here - the writing is great and I really enjoyed Drake's own encounter (using him for the first time as well on this run through). Just had the fights fresh in my mind and figured it was worth sharing.
Okay, okay, I'll lower the Undercellar battle's difficulty by another notch next update...
The final battle difficulty... I'll think about it, but the stats on all the enemies are actually legal (I created and exported every character). The AC and saves are due to a Potion of Invulnerability, and the immunity to fire is from the Protection of Fire cast before battle. I think both can be dispelled and once they are he's just a regular old 13th level Kensai - pretty strong, but not a cheater like Sarevok. I'm going to do a run through of the quest and see if it's really too hard and maybe find some reasonable way of tuning things down.
Edit: I guess the difficulty there comes down to player taste, as @Brokenkatana 's comment makes clear. So I would completely understand if things stay as-is - it's an interesting fight, I'll give it that - though I would hope future content isn't quite so aspiring-demigod-like in its overall power level.
For the ninjas, my complaint isn't about the Undercellar specifically - it's the spawn location for all of the ninja encounters (can't detect invisibility until they're already on top of you, can't use summon buffers for the same reason...) and the number of city encounters. It takes, what, three ambushes before things progress? I would just drop one of them, or use a different type of enemy in each. Just feels repetitive, and that adds to the frustration.
When I get around to it I'll probably make the spawn distance of the enemies significantly farther away from the player characters - maybe throw in some archers in place of assassins, possibly remove their backup potions of invisibility. I did mean for the encounters to be somewhat annoying but I think they might be too much.
Will change all, except her .cre file already has 4 hp so I'm not sure what's wrong there.
- Enemies in the Undercellar come in groups instead of individually, enemies have been de-leveled and grant more time between waves
- Elite ninja ambush leaders have been replaced with named individuals with different classes
- Added a new weapon
- Fixed string and APR error on the Blade of Howling Souls
- Added compatibility with IWD-style sneak attack setting
- Added flag to prevent Aura from gaining LoB bonuses
- Recolored and significantly downsized automatons
- Aura now appears in the Troll Woods and Coalition Camp in Siege of Dragonspear regardless of whether she's been in the party beforehand
I went through several iterations of the Undercellar battle and wasn't fond of any of the results which were either just as frustrating as the original or worse in different ways. It may go through some more changes but for now I've just deleveled the enemies so they only backstab for x2 instead of x3 and come in 4 groups of 3 instead of one enemy every three rounds up to 10 enemies in total. This can be more difficult but I personally find it easier just because it's possible to remove their invisibility and take them all out at once. It's not entirely consistent but there's usually a slight delay between the time the enemies appear and when they actually attack, which gives a chance to prevent their first backstab. The outdoor ambushes were changed to be more individually interesting and rewarding.The automatons have had their size reduced - I wanted them smaller to begin with but there was a rather ugly animation glitch that I wasn't able to solve until now. They're only slightly taller than a regular human rather than one-and-a-half their size, which I really didn't like. If anyone who doesn't like this change prefers the old size, I'll add a separate component to add them back in next update.
Before-after animation comparison: