New Kit: Scion of Murder - Looking for Suggestions/Feedback
LaughingMan
Member Posts: 65
UPDATE: Mod is done and available for download. Happy to take any feedback, ideas, etc.
Download available here: http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1023-cleric-class-kit-scion-of-murder/
Forum thread on download site: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/55624-mod-cleric-class-kit-scion-of-murder/
SCION OF MURDER: Some of the Bhaalspawn discovered their inherited power early in life and, whether they understood its true nature or not, embraced it. Rather than devoting themselves to some existing deity these scions turned their conviction inward, cultivating their own divine spark and reaping the nascent power of their progenitor.
ALIGNMENT: Any Chaotic or Evil
"Those who both respect the rule of law and the freedom or lives of others simply lack the ethical perspective required to become a living embodiment of murder."
EQUIPMENT: Scions may use Cleric equipment and wield all one handed melee weapons. Scions have access to all styles except two-handed, and may specialize in daggers, short swords, the single weapon style, and dual wielding.
"The Bhaalspawn are Scions of murder, not wholesale slaughter. Thus they favor weapons that can be carried casually and quickly thrust between the ribs or skull of an unsuspecting enemy."
REQUIREMENTS: 12 Str, 9 Dex, 12 Wis
ADVANTAGES:
- Invisibility: Once per day at level 1, with an additional use every 4 levels thereafter
- Backstab: While invisible or otherwise hidden the Scion may backstab as a thief of the same level
- Hold Person: Once per day at level 5, with an additional use every 5 levels thereafter
DISADVANTAGES:
- None
Download available here: http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1023-cleric-class-kit-scion-of-murder/
Forum thread on download site: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/55624-mod-cleric-class-kit-scion-of-murder/
SCION OF MURDER: Some of the Bhaalspawn discovered their inherited power early in life and, whether they understood its true nature or not, embraced it. Rather than devoting themselves to some existing deity these scions turned their conviction inward, cultivating their own divine spark and reaping the nascent power of their progenitor.
ALIGNMENT: Any Chaotic or Evil
"Those who both respect the rule of law and the freedom or lives of others simply lack the ethical perspective required to become a living embodiment of murder."
EQUIPMENT: Scions may use Cleric equipment and wield all one handed melee weapons. Scions have access to all styles except two-handed, and may specialize in daggers, short swords, the single weapon style, and dual wielding.
"The Bhaalspawn are Scions of murder, not wholesale slaughter. Thus they favor weapons that can be carried casually and quickly thrust between the ribs or skull of an unsuspecting enemy."
REQUIREMENTS: 12 Str, 9 Dex, 12 Wis
ADVANTAGES:
- Invisibility: Once per day at level 1, with an additional use every 4 levels thereafter
- Backstab: While invisible or otherwise hidden the Scion may backstab as a thief of the same level
- Hold Person: Once per day at level 5, with an additional use every 5 levels thereafter
DISADVANTAGES:
- None
Post edited by LaughingMan on
1
Comments
You could go around the fact that there is no more divine power coming from bhaal by explaining that his essence and power are stored within each of his bhaalspawn and that thry could somhow harness it to simulate divine power...
Some cool spells I thought about were related to blood loss, frenzy and mantle of despair etc... I had also thought about some kind of special items linked to the kit that we could find in some specific places linked to bhaal...
I'll try to find some sort of save frome my older work and I'll gladly help in anyway I can don't hesitate to PM
I'm not real solid on how to create new spells/abilities, though if anyone can point me to a straightforward tutorial or guide on the topic I'd be open to working on it. Frenzy never really struck me as Bhaal's domain, that's more appropriate for a war or madness aspected deity IMHO. Blood loss and despair though, those are good ideas to consider.
Based on that you could imagine some pretty nasty spells (and not only for BG:EE but for the later to come BG2:EE), like a cloud of daggers (similar to the insect swarm of the druids but with sharp blades !), immobilization and incapacitation, death rituals, etc...
For the frenzy I was imagining some sort of Murder frenzy (each murder commited was strengthening Bhaal), with some bonus applied on death of an opponent (don't know how's that work but I think an item from Dorn has this property - giving bonus to thaco upon death of an opponent - so that could be applied to a special amulet or symbol of bhaal acting as a catalyst of the divine heritage of CHARNAME ... ^^
For the items and spells creation I don't remember very well how that worked, shouldn't be to different but you'll need NI, DLTCEP and a good text editor like Context or something like that =p
If I were you I'd go search info on the Gibberling 3 or Spellhold studios forums
you can add more uses of invisivility to that if you want
I've been going back and forth on the backstab thing... given the limited uses of invisibility though, it may be worth adding. I don't want to overpower the kit though.
Apparently, the backstab ability was a hardcoded thing and could not be implemented for other class than Thief and Thief Kit. Dunno if that's changed now though, or that I was unable to do it back then...
About the spells : I had some chain lightning renamed as "Bhaal Torture" spell (for higher char in BG2), some Chaos spell, and a fireball spell renamed as "Mass Murder" hahaha
I also planned to add some "Ruse" spell, that could invoke some shadows assassins ... but all of my work was for BG2 and ToB, never had time to work on the HLA table though... or maybe just a draft ^^
Back then, we also talked about creating some special quests for the bhaal priest, along with a Bhaal Symbol, and some sort of crazy idea were the bhaalspawn would absorb some of his brethern soulpower by slaying them, making him more powerful ! (Hello Highlander's Quickening xD)
But I'm diverging... a lot xD
The base idea here is to create something fun to play but not over powered and it's very hard to do for BG only... the max level is around 12 (counting on a full playthrough) and that does not leave much space to develop a kit fully ... you have to keep in mind the global thing, from level 1 to 40 (max level in ToB)=/
I'm thinking something like "marked for death" that hits with a combo of slow (preferably just slowing movement if there's an opcode for that) glitterdust (maybe with lower penalties) and damage over time. The "fluff" would be wracking pain and shredding of tissue as you close in for the kill.
If/when BG2:EE comes out, I may add an HLA that effectively stops time, dimension doors you to the target, and straight-up murders them in the face with multiple stab wounds. Not a true time-stop effect though, more like a tiny cut scene attack. :P
Regardless I'll zip everything up and put it up on Google Drive for people to look at sometime this weekend.
Edit/Addendum:
I think I'm going to create a series of these kits, one for every core class. For wizard I may opt to just pump up the necromancer kit and add more "Bhaalspawn" flavor to it. For thieves the abilities will be nearly identical to the cleric kit. For fighters I'll probably go with some tricks to make targets more vulnerable or something. Paladins and Rangers are too "good" for something like this, and bards would probably get a tweaked version of the thief. Not sure about druids, though they seem like a natural fit for the concept.
If you want I could cook up a list of badass special abilities and spells for the Scion of Murder (at least the description on BG format, and maybe the actual spells - I've been poking around NI and DLTCEP and I'm starting to retrieve some handy skills ^^) maybe some portrait and even soundset eventually ^^
I'll wait your upload of the Kit to check the files and I'll PM you some ideas of what's feasible or not
For the backstabing I still don't see how you could make that work X_X
If nothing else I could probably make a custom version of invisibility that also applied opcode 0x107, as that's the only time the Scion would be able to backstab. Though that would take a lot of trial and error to tune that effect properly, as opcodes can be weird.
Or maybe you could modify the invisibility spell and make a special version that permit a x2 damage when you strike under the spell. I don't think that should be superior to x2 since it could become too powerful !)
The Stalker gets backstab via "AP_CL332", which I'll need to look into next time I sit down with this. 4332 isn't in the list of identifiers in the IESDP, so I don't know much about it at the moment. I'll just have to crack open CL332.spl and see how it works.
I'll also look into it i'm curious ^^
A minor issue, but worth noting.
Final layout of perks are Invisibility (self only) every 4 levels (plus 1 at 1st level), Hold Person every 5, and backstab. Backstab doesn't seem to end up being all that overpowered unless you set up a way to turn invisible a lot more often. If you already have a straight up combat rogue in the party, then it really doesn't make your party much stronger to have an extra backstabber unless you *really* work at it.
I need to tidy everything up and package the mod. I'll probably have it up somewhere for download this weekend.
Btw. Scion would be an amazing 3rd edition prestige class.
I kept thinking the same thing, but that's true of a number of other kits too.
If I may say, you kit package is weirdly put together. You should have a folder name Scion of Murder (with subfolders for spells, items (if that come later), .2da etc) along with just the tp2 and setup.
Anyway we packaged things like that back then to avoid loose files everywhere in the data folder =p
Is there something I missed?
I only kept the folder name short (along with everything else) because the tutorial (which is years old now) suggested as much.
Just a side note, If you want to use this along the Requiem's Kitpack, install scion of murder first. Sadly one of the Requiem's kit will not appear due to kit limitation per classes (seriously Beamdog couldn't past this limitation it's a shame)
The fact is that, in DnD settings (regardless of edition), murder for fame and profit is almost always the characters' careers. Good vs. Evil has more to do with target and motive than methods. So in thinking about the class I had the following considerations in mind:
- The Scion is not a disciple of Bhaal, but an individual infused with the portfolio of murder. Murder is a chaotic or evil act, but can just as easily be Chaotic Good (murder a tyrant and overthrow an evil regime) as Lawful Evil (trick someone into a position so as to murder them within the bounds of local law).
- As the Scion is taking ownership of that concept, they need to have an ethos that makes such "synchronization" possible, if not necessarily easy. Any Evil makes this simple, Chaotic Neutral just as much so. TN, LN, NG, and LG are all too far from the core ideas that lead to murder (rather than lethal combat). Chaotic Good, though, in most games I've played has had no problem using assassination to fight evil.
- I'm also the sort of DM/GM that makes assassins and similar classes open to Good alignments, if they serve a role that makes sense. This is in that same vein.
So I feel your position is completely valid, but prefer my own interpretation of alignment and ethics.
@neoesprit I know right? You'd think that would be a simple fix, comparably.