Korax the Ghoul NPC Mod
semiticgoddess
Member Posts: 14,903
I've heard a few people say they'd like to be able to bring Korax the Ghoul into the party, and since I recently made a Lilarcor NPC mod, I decided to go ahead and create a mod that would make Korax into a joinable character. You can download the mod at the bottom of this post.
He's not the chatty sort, but I gave him some flavor text if you decide to talk to him. You can feed him meat and kiss him, and if you feed and kiss him more than 10 times, you can marry him and he'll get a cool little magical wedding ring. For those of you who aren't creepy weirdos, you can maintain a perfectly platonic relationship with Korax instead.
To get him into the party, you just need to talk to him with less than 6 party members. Instead of being charmed for 2 hours and then going hostile, he'll join the group permanently. Korax is a bit overpowered on his own, so I gave him a custom kit to balance his powers and let them scale with levels. Here is the full kit description:
He's not the chatty sort, but I gave him some flavor text if you decide to talk to him. You can feed him meat and kiss him, and if you feed and kiss him more than 10 times, you can marry him and he'll get a cool little magical wedding ring. For those of you who aren't creepy weirdos, you can maintain a perfectly platonic relationship with Korax instead.
To get him into the party, you just need to talk to him with less than 6 party members. Instead of being charmed for 2 hours and then going hostile, he'll join the group permanently. Korax is a bit overpowered on his own, so I gave him a custom kit to balance his powers and let them scale with levels. Here is the full kit description:
Korax is a gross, ugly monster. He has long since forgotten whoever he was in life, but he seems not to mind the loss of his former identity. Underneath his twisted, rotting face and the putrid stench of death, he is a fairly cheerful "person" and surprisingly friendly. Still, whenever you catch him staring at you with his dead, unblinking eyes, you can't shake the feeling that he's thinking about eating your flesh.
Being undead has its advantages. As a ghoul, Korax is immune to many of the afflictions that plague humankind, and his very touch is toxic to living creatures. Undeath has left his mind hopelessly broken, however, and he cannot seem to grasp the concept of using his hands for anything other than grasping his prey. He cannot wield a weapon, dress himself, collect firewood, or do anything that a beast of burden could not. At the campfire, he spends most of his time staring intently at his companions or gnawing on a bone.
Korax might be a disgusting creature who constantly gets his noxious odor all over your clothes and personal possessions, but he is a faithful companion and attack dog as long as he has plenty of raw meat to sate his powerful hunger. Keep him well-fed, and he will be the most loyal crime against nature to ever call himself your friend.
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Immune to hold, paralysis, stun, petrification, poison, disease, confusion, feeblemind, charm, domination, fear, sleep, unconsciousness, fatigue, berserk, and Finger of Death effects
- Regenerates 1 hit point per round
- Cannot die from ability score drain effects
- Ghoul Touch: Korax's natural attack deals 1d6+1 crushing damage, and if the victim fails a save vs. death, Korax also drains 1 additional point of HP and paralyzes the target for 6 seconds.
- Every 3 levels, Korax gains +1 to hit, damage, and AC (starting with an AC of 5 at level 1).
- Every 3 levels, Korax's victims must save vs. death at an additional -1 penalty to avoid being paralyzed.
- Every 6 levels, Korax's natural weapon strikes with an additional +1 enchantment.
Disadvantages:
- Immune to healing spells
- Cannot drink potions
- Cannot wear armor, helmets, or shields
- Cannot use weapons
- Is a hideous freak who smells terrible
- Hit Die: d10
If you want Korax to follow you around without joining the party, just tell him to "keep his distance" and he will be treated as a familiar instead of a new party member. Being undead has its advantages. As a ghoul, Korax is immune to many of the afflictions that plague humankind, and his very touch is toxic to living creatures. Undeath has left his mind hopelessly broken, however, and he cannot seem to grasp the concept of using his hands for anything other than grasping his prey. He cannot wield a weapon, dress himself, collect firewood, or do anything that a beast of burden could not. At the campfire, he spends most of his time staring intently at his companions or gnawing on a bone.
Korax might be a disgusting creature who constantly gets his noxious odor all over your clothes and personal possessions, but he is a faithful companion and attack dog as long as he has plenty of raw meat to sate his powerful hunger. Keep him well-fed, and he will be the most loyal crime against nature to ever call himself your friend.
CLASS FEATURES:
Advantages:
- Immune to hold, paralysis, stun, petrification, poison, disease, confusion, feeblemind, charm, domination, fear, sleep, unconsciousness, fatigue, berserk, and Finger of Death effects
- Regenerates 1 hit point per round
- Cannot die from ability score drain effects
- Ghoul Touch: Korax's natural attack deals 1d6+1 crushing damage, and if the victim fails a save vs. death, Korax also drains 1 additional point of HP and paralyzes the target for 6 seconds.
- Every 3 levels, Korax gains +1 to hit, damage, and AC (starting with an AC of 5 at level 1).
- Every 3 levels, Korax's victims must save vs. death at an additional -1 penalty to avoid being paralyzed.
- Every 6 levels, Korax's natural weapon strikes with an additional +1 enchantment.
Disadvantages:
- Immune to healing spells
- Cannot drink potions
- Cannot wear armor, helmets, or shields
- Cannot use weapons
- Is a hideous freak who smells terrible
- Hit Die: d10
Post edited by semiticgoddess on
31
Comments
Nice job, @semiticgod !
I would just get rid of this:
I could nerf the duration to 3 seconds instead of 6, or grant a starting save bonus, maybe +2 to +4. @Raduziel, what do you think?
@subtledoctor, you're a game balance guy. What would you do to balance out this critter?
Whatever your install, the basilisks must be modded; that "Hold III" effect doesn't exist in the unmodded game. Korax is simply immune to petrification, so he's only immune to unmodded petrification.
It doesn't matter in this case. Korax has protection to X, SR changes X to Y, no matter if Korax comes first or after the change is made.
What @semiticgod might try to do is add a check to the creature's coding to verify if SR is there and protect Korax accordingly.
As for the saving "issue", I would just remove the penalty. Leave the save and the duration as it is.
But it is your baby and I'm not a very balanced guy. @subtledoctor is way better than me with this.
You may use:
I went ahead and gave him immunity to the GAZE projectile, both the BASILG1.itm and BASILL1.itm basilisk attack weapons, and every spell that uses the petrification opcode (aside from Chromatic Orb, since it doesn't petrify in SR and Korax's immunity to petrification already works fine if SR isn't installed). Now, basilisk stares won't affect him at all; he won't even flinch from him. Even when I removed his immunity to petrification, the basilisks couldn't touch him. The update is already uploaded.
@Zaghoul: Download the updated version above and reinstall it. Korax shouldn't get petrified even in your SR install.
The reason why there are two different creature files to begin with is because I wanted him to have his original, stronger combat stats if the player approached him with 6 party members. Vanilla Korax has 26 more HP, one more attack per round, and 8 better THAC0 than the modded Korax, so if you don't want him in the party, I wanted him to still be as strong as he usually was.
Sounds like that changed with the NPC version if he does not join if I'm reading that right, think I've got it straight now.
*Check on his leaving and re-entering the party if ya would. I can get him to leave and wait but can;t get him to join me again when using option "let's continue on as before".
Question 2: Does "- Cannot wear armor, helmets, or shields" mean he can wear ie boots of speed?
Well done!
Edit:
Jokes aside, good job @semiticgod !
*Heh, I haven't actually played the game at all in years, except to test mods, but ya know
May be use the pnp monster enchantment per level for Korax attacks, but its not a huge thing because of only use him in bg1.
Creature vs. Creature
One obvious question that arises in the minds of those with a logical bent is "How do
other creatures fight those immune monsters?" In the case of monsters, sufficient Hit
Dice enable them to attack immune creatures as if they were fighting with magical
weapons. Table 48 lists various numbers of Hit Dice and their magical weapon
equivalents.
These Hit Dice equivalents apply only to monsters. Player characters and NPCs cannot
benefit from this.
Table 48:
Hit Dice Vs. Immunity
Hit Dice Hits creatures requiring
4+1 or more +1 weapon
6+2 or more +2 weapon
8+3 or more +3 weapon
10+4 or more +4 weapon
10/10, would Korax again
@semiticgod I don't know if you know that already, but the code that does that is packed within the party-joinable NPC's Override script.
Just a matter of copy and paste.
Would I just assign that override script to Korax's creature file, or would I just tack on that particular segment of the script to an existing script of his, or write the triggers and commands into his dialog file?
Just add it to the top of Khorax's override or use extend_top at the Weidu file.
Check my Pfaug's override script to see a model:
https://github.com/Raduziel/Pfaug-NPC/blob/master/Pfaug_Raduziel/Baf/RAPFAUG.baf
Starts at line 12. You may change the XP values to better fit your needs (those are the values used for SoD).
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@semiticgod
//This one is to adjust the XP if Pfaug joins late IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,249999) XPLT(Myself,250000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,250000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,199999) XPLT(Myself,200000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,200000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,160999) XPLT(Myself,161000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,161000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,134999) XPLT(Player1,161000) XPLT(Myself,135000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,135000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,109999) XPLT(Player1,135000) XPLT(Myself,110000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,110000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPGT(Player1,89999) XPLT(Player1,110000) XPLT(Myself,90000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) ChangeStat(Myself,XP,90000,SET) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END IF Global("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",0) InParty(Myself) XPLT(Player1,90000) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetInterrupt(FALSE) SetGlobal("BD_JOINXP","LOCALS",1) SetInterrupt(TRUE) END