[Fighter Kit] Mercenary v3.1 [IWDEE, EET, BGEE, BG2EE]
Raduziel
Member Posts: 4,714
Introducing a new Fighter kit:
Hope you guys enjoy it. The kit (Component 1) info follows inside the spoilers.
The Component 2 alters Kagain's alignment to Neutral Evil and gives him the Mercenary kit. This component requires Component 1 and is available only to BGEE and EET.
The Component 3 gives to Korgan the Mercenary kit. This component requires Component 1 and is available only to BG2EE and EET.
Any suggestions, questions, bug and bad grammar/spelling can be reported in this thread
Enjoy!
The Mercenary
I was thinking about a good kit for Kagain and this idea come up to my mind. I know that Kagain is Lawful Evil, but I always change his alignment to Neutral Evil because seems to fit him better.Hope you guys enjoy it. The kit (Component 1) info follows inside the spoilers.
MERCENARY: For rulers who lack the funds for a standing army, who lack the loyalty of their people, or who simply need a decisive victory: enter the Mercenary. These hired killers, for good or ill, are not drawn into the politics of the land. Some fight for coin, reputation, power, or simply the love of battle, but always for personal gratification in some way or another.
Advantages:
- +1 bonus to hit, damage, armor class and speed factor.
- Gains the Skulduggery ability.
SKULDUGGERY:
The Mercenary is not bound by duty or honor, except that which further enhances their fame. Each victory serves their notoriety best and the Mercenary will commit to any manner of underhanded tactics to win the day.
Starting with one use at level 1, the Mercenary gains another use every 2 levels, up to ten uses at level 19. To be effective, a successful melee attack must be made within 3 rounds of the ability being activated.
Each fight brings a new challenge and the Mercenary will use whatever opportunity presents itself to best their foe. To represent this, there are five different techniques, with an equal probability of occurring. The effect of each technique lasts for 5 rounds and the target must make a save vs. Death with a -2 penalty in order to successfully defend against it.
1. Spit in the eye - target is blinded.
2. Punch to the jugular - target is silenced.
3. Shin stomp - target is slowed.
4. Belly shot - target is winded.
5. Blow to the nether region - target is stunned.
This ability will not work against undead, constructs, elementals, mists or plant creatures.
Disadvantages:
- Can only achieve Mastery.
- Can only wear up to and including splint mail.
- Alignment restricted to non-lawful.
Advantages:
- +1 bonus to hit, damage, armor class and speed factor.
- Gains the Skulduggery ability.
SKULDUGGERY:
The Mercenary is not bound by duty or honor, except that which further enhances their fame. Each victory serves their notoriety best and the Mercenary will commit to any manner of underhanded tactics to win the day.
Starting with one use at level 1, the Mercenary gains another use every 2 levels, up to ten uses at level 19. To be effective, a successful melee attack must be made within 3 rounds of the ability being activated.
Each fight brings a new challenge and the Mercenary will use whatever opportunity presents itself to best their foe. To represent this, there are five different techniques, with an equal probability of occurring. The effect of each technique lasts for 5 rounds and the target must make a save vs. Death with a -2 penalty in order to successfully defend against it.
1. Spit in the eye - target is blinded.
2. Punch to the jugular - target is silenced.
3. Shin stomp - target is slowed.
4. Belly shot - target is winded.
5. Blow to the nether region - target is stunned.
This ability will not work against undead, constructs, elementals, mists or plant creatures.
Disadvantages:
- Can only achieve Mastery.
- Can only wear up to and including splint mail.
- Alignment restricted to non-lawful.
The Component 2 alters Kagain's alignment to Neutral Evil and gives him the Mercenary kit. This component requires Component 1 and is available only to BGEE and EET.
The Component 3 gives to Korgan the Mercenary kit. This component requires Component 1 and is available only to BG2EE and EET.
Any suggestions, questions, bug and bad grammar/spelling can be reported in this thread
Link to Download
Thanks, @fluke13 for helping me with the text!Enjoy!
Post edited by Raduziel on
7
Comments
By looking at the Complete Fighter's Handbook we see the following kits among others: Cavalier, Gladiator, Myrmidon, Noble Warrior, Peasant Hero, Pirate/Outlaw.
Couldn't they be labeled as an attitude instead of an ability or a class?
The way a Cavalier fight is the same way a Gladiator fights? Or the Myrmidon and the Outlaw?
Every time I think about a kit I look for references in the PnP. Everyone can be an outlaw, but only a few choose to be an Outlaw. The same goes for mercenary and Mercenary.
About the feat system: I'm a big fan of M&G, but I personally don't like the feat system because I'm playing AD&D and not D&D 3. It is a matter of personal taste, I do recognize that @subtledoctor does an amazing job with his kitpack, but I'm just not the client for the feat component.
When I created the Dirty Fight I took the name of the ability from the D&D 3 feat - probably subtledoctor drank from the same fountain. But the only thing I copied was the name, every effect the ability have comes from me thinking about the way that Ser Bronn (from Game of Thrones) would fight. Or like anyone who values more the job than the honor would fight.
I do appreciate your feedback and it is very welcome, but I honestly disagree with your review.
Edit: Worst case scenario, this is a bad mod but it is a mod anyway. It is done, so I'm not harming anyone by letting it uploaded. I don't think that I'm a greater modder, quite the opposite actually, but I do know that for every lame mod there's a player that finds it interesting and if one people can have fun playing it then my effort and time were well applied.
Cheers!
I do applaud your effort bringing more options to the community. Your dedication is great, and no mistake.
As for what defines a kit: those kits from the PnP game are part of a wider game in which players talk and create their world and the DM defines, interprets and waives rules as they see fit. This is a (mostly) single-player game defined by a game engine. Kits have a different function here. This game is mostly about slaying things and taking their stuff. I'd wager most of our guys, even the paladins, will do what it takes to take down their foe the 500th time they are fighting for their lives - including kneeing someone in the groin or throwing sand in their face.
The special ability of this kit (and I think the mechanics/coding of the ability is cool!) seems to say, "your special ability is that you, unlike everyone else in the world, have decided not to fight by the Marguess of Queensberry rules, oh you scoundrel/lovable rogue." As special abilities go, I think that is a little marginal. The ability, and therefore the kit itself, is defined as the absence of something universal (sportsmanship/honourable fighting), rather than the presence of something rare (such as the ability to disarm a deadly trap, the ability to inspire through song, to channel divine power, to animate the dead as puppets for your dark desires, etc.). That's why I think the concept of the kit special ability is strange.
I understand and respect your point of view, but the way I see a kit, especially one for fighter or rogue, don't need to be a big deal. I think, for example, that the coolest thing about the Assassin kit is the concept of the kit, not exactly what it does: it comes only as a cherry on top of the cake.
And, for example, you don't need to be an Assassin to make the assassination quests from Assassinations. And you don't need to be a Wizard Slayer to slay wizard (thank God!). And so it goes.
The Fighter and the Rogue are regular persons (if any adventurer can be called "regular"). Pretty much everything they do can be put in your argument bolded above.
So it is not a matter of "you fight dirty". As it is not a matter of "you use poison" or "you complicate things for wizards". The concept needs to be stronger than the ability, otherwise we would be playing Diablo.
Again, I understand and respect your opinion, I just think that we have different standards.
Edit: By the way @Contemplative_Hamster , you clearly missed the memo.
Now go download it so this mod becomes one of those kits that we let rot at the character creation screen and always make us think "why the hell did I download that?" but we never actually uninstall.
One last point, though: the Assassin, the Berserker, the Wizard Slayer, the Necromancer are tropes of fantasy. The bloke at the bar who'll knock yer teeth out fer two bits (or the guy who'll sell his services to anyone who can pay and provide opportunities to be nasty to others) seems to be more a trope of crime novels or life in general: like, a a Cockney bastard with cauliflower ears called Big Dave or Medium-Sized Dave, or a mobster in track suits called Vinnie "Ears" Evilito. And that's why the assassin etc. seem more appropriate for DnD to me even if, mechanically, their kit abilities can be described in the same vein as I did the Mercenary's.
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I removed the file because doing some tests the duration of 1 turn for the ability was a little OP. I'm changing it to 5 rounds.
I'm also working on a component that will give this kit to Kagain.
Actually, some corporeal undead should be a valid target for some effects (like the Slow) what only complicate things even further.
I'm really open to ideas and especially in learning new and more powerful technics to modding: right now I'm been beaten badly by the "give Kagain this kit" component because I'm getting a Parsing error and I have no idea why as I took the code from some components of Divine Remix (pretty much everything I learn was reverse-engineering other mods).
Edit: Some of those won't be a problem because this attacked is labeled as a non-magical one. In a quick test I did here I wasn't even able to deliver any damage to a mustard slime (but I was able to do so to a green one) or a shadow or a flesh golem.
This mod will be updated one last time as soon as I figure a way to implement @AstroBryGuy 's suggestion without being buried under a mountain of Opcode 177.
Because as far as I know, 177 defines valid targets for a spell, not invalid ones.
But there's always a brutal chance that I'm wrong. Can you explain how this resource work, please? Took a look at IESDP but didn't made any sense to me.
Thanks to you both!
Only one thing is holding me from releasing the 2.0 (and final) version: I'm having a problem with the Unconscious effect.
As soon as the enemy falls down in an unconscious state it gets up and returns to fight as nothing has happened. No damage is delivered, the target isn't even being attacked, it just gets up on its own.
The duration is set correctly and the Wake-up on damage flag is set to 1 (No), so I'm out of ideas. I checked the spells Sleep and Emotion: Hopelessness and the settings seem to be the same that I'm using.
@AstroBryGuy @subtledoctor any ideas?
Here's the effect breakdown from NearInfinity:
I'm updating the file attached and the Github link in case anyone want to look at the .itm file.
Thank you all for your help and feedback.
Also I made a thread to give more visibility to this problem and put more brains behind it.
It's even better this way because the kit becomes more balanced: instead of 40% of chance to completely disable an enemy (stun and unconscious) now it have a chance of 20% (only stun).
Thank you all for helping me, especially @kjeron .
Everything is uploaded and I ran some tests without any sort of problem.
Enjoy
The I hate undead pack was fairly balanced and in line I feel with other mods. I do feel like it made IWD very easy. I pretty much breezed through the whole game.
Bodyguard seemed perfectly balanced to me and quiet fun.
The Mercenary while fun I rarely succeeded on the rolls. I felt like often times I was trading to much damage output for a chance to hit an opponent that would more than likely save. I feel in a BG or BG2 game that it might have more application on casters but even then would be more than obsolete by the end of shadows of Amn. This was the only kit I felt was in need of tuning.
I have a few Ideas about possible changes if you need to PM me.
I Hate Undead does make IWD easier, as it is a bunch of kits devoted to slaying undeads on a scenario where most of the enemies are undead.
I'm looking forward to any suggestions on the Mercenary. I was afraid of making it too powerful that seems like I tuned it too low. The idea is to use its special abilities to neutralize a more threatening enemy - usually a spellcaster. So if you felt this I'm happy to be in the right direction.
Just one quick question: did you play as a Mercenary in IWD or BG? Because in IWD he will be kind of obsolete for the same reason the I Hate Undead is strong: too many undead. And hordes of enemies (the Mercenary is designed for 1-to-1 battles, what rarely happens in IWD).
I'll MP you. Hope you had fun playing this
Thanks!
A contract is not a vow. If someone raises the stake a mercenary will double-cross its contractor. The terms of a contract will be followed according to the mercenary's convenience.
At least that was my reasons to enforce this limitation when I was designing the kit. As I said, largely inspired in Bronn from GoT. And in Kagain's attitude towards the search for Entar's son (you literally goes through one area transition and he gives up).
As a counterexample, I can point out the attitudes of Brienne of Tarth and Corwin (GoT and SoD respectively). They are a good example of what lawful means - and nothing in their ethos is remotely similar to Bronn's or Kagain's.