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Suggestions Thread: Game Mechanics (scripts, spells, feats, combat)

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  • AllatumAllatum Member Posts: 16
    edited December 2017
    jww said:

    I don't think I'm adding anything new, but just in case Beamdog is counting the number of forum requests for a feature before adding it to the Trello board, I might as well post my wish list.

    1. Add a small number of races or sub-races to the base game without requiring mods, in particular ones that provide bonuses to INT, WIS, or CHA (which none of the existing races do) and also ones that include cleric, sorc, or druid as favored classes (which also none of the existing races do). I'm not sure which specific races should be added, since it may depend on whether ECL can be implemented, but I like aasimar and tiefling.

    2. Add a small number of base classes to the base game without requiring mods. My personal favorites would be:

    - Favored Soul
    - Spirit Shaman

    3. Add a small number of prestige classes to the base game without requiring mods. Personal favorites would be:

    - Eldritch Knight
    - Mystic Theurge

    (These particular base and prestige classes would also require that spell books and spell progressions be unlocked, but that's already up for votes on Trello, and hopefully they can add that feature. Mystic Theurge in particular takes it another step further, requiring two spell progressions at once, but hopefully if it's completely unlocked, it would still be possible.)

    4. Add feats:

    - Natural Spell
    - Able Learner
    - Practiced Caster

    5. Add following spells to Bard and Wiz/Sorc lists:

    - Heroism
    - Greater Heroism

    6. Un-hardcode monk combat progression.

    7. Quickcast menu.

    8. Let bards cast in light armor without a chance of spell failure (not sure if this was a 3.0 or 3.5 thing).

    9. Area-of-effect targeting graphics.

    10. Change Shield and Mage Armor spells to provide shield and armor AC bonuses, respectively.

    11. An interface that lets you map a series of commands to a single key-binding. (e.g., press F12 to cast long-term buffs, F11 for short-term buffs, so that you don't have to select them all individually each time).


    I like some of these but I'll note:

    #1 - currently a GUI issue but has been worked around for a while by different means (LETO, NWNx scripting)
    #2 - Needs spellbook stuff un-hardcoded
    #3 - can be done easily with haks, seen it on several servers and maybe even as a part of the Player Resource Consortum
    #4 - These would be really nice, Practice Spellcaster can be replicated with haks+scripts though
    #5 - Haks/scripting to add spells
    #6 - Would be nice to be able to replicate Pathfinder's unchained monk
    #7 - Yes please
    #8 - Workable but a non-clunky option would be nice, also a the ability to edit armors to be light/medium/heavy regardless of their AC bonus
    #9 - Very much wanted
    #10 - Can be done with scripting, honestly Not even haks are needed to have it function like it does in P&P
    #11 - Not sure how you'd manage this cleanly? I'm not too familiar with the functions to know if there are ways for scripts to specifically check if you A ) have a spell in your spellbook B ) have it memorized C ) have or have not casted - maybe GetHasSpell or HasSpell covers the last?
    Post edited by Allatum on
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,727

    Not sure if posted yet but wouldn't it be cool if you can do short, local client "pause game" also in multiplayer? The game would naturally have to keep rolling in the background...but this could help for targeting etc. Naturally a pause like this would need to have a time limit also...as well as running the risk of thing not being what they seem like...still like i said again....as a tool to make targeting easier...maybe even a special kind of "targeting mode"?


    lol
    Not constructive and off-topic comments have no place in this thread, @Drewbert_ahoy
  • badstrrefbadstrref Member Posts: 124
    edited December 2017
    When releveling Palemasters and Red Dragon Disciples, they keep their class bonuses (Stats increase like draconic armor, dragon abilities and boneskin) this makes these 2 classes often restricted in PW for releveling
  • ThorssonThorsson Member Posts: 190
    Allatum said:

    #1 - currently a GUI issue but has been worked around for a while by different means (LETO, NWNx scripting)
    #2 - Needs spellbook stuff un-hardcoded
    #3 - can be done easily with haks, seen it on several servers and maybe even as a part of the Player Resource Consortum
    #4 - These would be really nice, Practice Spellcaster can be replicated with haks+scripts though
    #5 - Haks/scripting to add spells
    #6 - Would be nice to be able to replicate Pathfinder's unchained monk
    #7 - Yes please
    #8 - Workable but a non-clunky option would be nice, also a the ability to edit armors to be light/medium/heavy regardless of their AC bonus
    #9 - Very much wanted
    #10 - Can be done with scripting, honestly Not even haks are needed to have it function like it does in P&P
    #11 - Not sure how you'd manage this cleanly? I'm not too familiar with the functions to know if there are ways for scripts to specifically check if you A ) have a spell in your spellbook B ) have it memorized C ) have or have not casted - maybe GetHasSpell or HasSpell covers the last?

    To save some time I'll not repeat the whole thread:

    #2 Spirit Shaman really only has a place in Rashemen; it was kind of forced into NWN2, but really is a campaign-specific class. I would definitely not prioritise it.
    #3 Have to be very careful with 'Gish' classes, particularly with NWN rules (40 levels and Epic PrC progression).
    #4 Able Learner is not a D&D Feat. It was a NWN2 fudge. And it's a fudge that arguably makes skill progression too easy/too easy to abuse.
    #6 Not sure I agree. Monks are already close to breaking the game, being immensely hard to damage (AC, DR, SR, Saves). Make them too powerful offensively and you'll just end up with worlds full of Monks.
    #8 Armors need to be balanced, otherwise everyone wears the same armor.
  • britishjbritishj Member Posts: 44
    Bring over the new shaman class from your other enhanced addition content
  • AllatumAllatum Member Posts: 16
    Thorsson said:



    #2 Spirit Shaman really only has a place in Rashemen; it was kind of forced into NWN2, but really is a campaign-specific class. I would definitely not prioritise it.
    #3 Have to be very careful with 'Gish' classes, particularly with NWN rules (40 levels and Epic PrC progression).
    #4 Able Learner is not a D&D Feat. It was a NWN2 fudge. And it's a fudge that arguably makes skill progression too easy/too easy to abuse.
    #6 Not sure I agree. Monks are already close to breaking the game, being immensely hard to damage (AC, DR, SR, Saves). Make them too powerful offensively and you'll just end up with worlds full of Monks.
    #8 Armors need to be balanced, otherwise everyone wears the same armor.


    On all these points it's not so much "Too powerful, Too x" it's about opening the OPTIONS, not forcing it into the base game for everyone. Making all of these POSSIBLE would be ideal regardless of how balancing or unbalanced they may seem. The more people can customize with scripts and HAKss the better IMO.
  • Savant1974Savant1974 Member Posts: 303
    I would like to see a minor change to the difficulty slider. Every aspect of the higher difficulty settings is fine except for full aoe effects on npcs and party members - can this particular option become a separate switch because it often breaks modules when you damage friendly npcs, but every other aspect of the difficulty slider is excellent and I'd love to play at higher settings to get crits on players and aoe on ranged attacks etc.
  • MalclaveMalclave Member Posts: 47
    Thorsson said:

    Allatum said:


    #4 Able Learner is not a D&D Feat. It was a NWN2 fudge. And it's a fudge that arguably makes skill progression too easy/too easy to abuse.

    Actually, it is... it's a Human racial feat from Races of Destiny.
  • Drewbert_ahoyDrewbert_ahoy Member Posts: 96
    edited December 2017
    "3. Add a small number of prestige classes to the base game without requiring mods."

    My choice would be Eye of Gruumsh, as it was one the prcs they started working on but had to stop a decade ago, when Atari killed off the premium mod program. I'm also rather fond of Bladesinger.
  • MrZorkMrZork Member Posts: 8
    Another scripting hook that would be useful is a local variable set as an effect that can expire, be dispelled, last until a rest, etc. What I mean is effect EffectSetLocalInt(object oObj, string sVarName, int iVal) whose return value can be used with SupernaturalEffect(), EffectLinkEffects(), ApplyEffectToObject(), etc. This would help simplify the bookkeeping for countless scripted spells, AI, etc. When the duration of the variable is over, the variable disappears from the target object. That way, a toon that logs out while something that will later check for a variable value on him won't get confused or require more handling with OnClientEnter, etc.

    [BTW, to the BeamDog board folks, the html tag for teletype text < tt> isn't working correctly. It's doing what < pre> does, instead of just setting the font for the enclosed characters to a fixed width font.]
  • badstrrefbadstrref Member Posts: 124
    edited December 2017
    I want to be able to tag effects (spell effects, bonus, maluses), or to give them custom Effect Subtypes (extraordinary, supernatural, userdefined...), because when trying to remove an effect we may remove legit effects instead since there is no way to tell them appart but type and subtype, this becomes tricky for additions of similar effects. Right now i have reserved supernatural effect for one single effect and must track it down to OnRest, OnLevelUp and OnEnterModule events
    Post edited by badstrref on
  • sippelmcsippelmc Member Posts: 45
    badstrref said:

    I want to be able to tag effects (spell effects, bonus, maluses), or to give them custom Effect Subtypes (extraordinary, supernatural, userdefined...), because when trying to remove an effect we may remove legit effects instead since there is no way to tell them appart but type and subtype, this becomes tricky for additions of similar effects. Right now i have reserved supernatural effect for one single effect and must track it down to OnRest, OnLevelUp and OnEnterModule events

    You can tag effects as of the first release. https://www.beamdog.com/files/nwnee_release_notes.pdf
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367

    Skill points need to be fixed so you can't pool them up through epic levels, then dump them into UMD or discipline upon taking a single level of rogue or a fighter class. That's nonsense. They need to be spent before you can exit the leveling screens.

    Fully support this. It's ridiculous and basically cheating.
  • RifleLeroyRifleLeroy Member Posts: 77
    edited December 2017
    What about epic dodge ? will be fixed in EE ?
  • ProontProont Member Posts: 141

    Skill points need to be fixed so you can't pool them up through epic levels, then dump them into UMD or discipline upon taking a single level of rogue or a fighter class. That's nonsense. They need to be spent before you can exit the leveling screens.

    Fully support this. It's ridiculous and basically cheating.
    I disagree as it would break existing character builds. It could be softcoded so individual mod-makers can choose whether to include it in their mods.
  • MrZorkMrZork Member Posts: 8
    I want to echo the notion that changes (not bug fixes) to the character mechanics should be made as optional for builders by soft coding the relevant part of the game. But, please do not change the base game (by making changes to skill point rules, making things more like Baldur's Gate or NWN2, etc.) by default. Just open things up so that people who don't like that part of NWN can code things their own way.

    Sort of related... To people requesting more race options for PCs, this needs to be done in a way that doesn't muck too badly with other game mechanics. For example, how would that work with Ranger Favored Enemies? Do they need half a dozen extra FE feats so that they can still cover the extra PC races? What about weapon damage bonuses versus race? I actually would propose that any new PC races come with a "counts as" field that points to one of the existing races so that these other aspects of the game are not broken.
  • MalclaveMalclave Member Posts: 47
    MrZork said:

    Sort of related... To people requesting more race options for PCs, this needs to be done in a way that doesn't muck too badly with other game mechanics. For example, how would that work with Ranger Favored Enemies? Do they need half a dozen extra FE feats so that they can still cover the extra PC races? What about weapon damage bonuses versus race? I actually would propose that any new PC races come with a "counts as" field that points to one of the existing races so that these other aspects of the game are not broken.

    New races might also be defined as sub-races of the existing categories. Not sure how this would work for non-playable races... could a designer set up a "Vampyr" (undead race) for PCs without opening up Undead in general?

  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    I don't think there is a full type change script function but you can simulate templates like vampire. There are templates in the toolset but these aren't real scriptable templates but just one time enhancements to an npc.

    Switching type for favored enemy might require some combat scripting, to intercept attack actions and to alter bonuses appropriately.

    It would work better if there were true templates, inherited and acquired.
  • SymphonySymphony Member, Developer Posts: 142
    Favored enemy and item properties are keyed off of the races included in the racialtypes.2da, and each creature blueprint has a race specified to them that is independent of their appearance.

    This is how there are beholder aberrations and drider aberrations, but you do not have to get a favored enemy for both.

    Player characters select a race on creation, and that also auto selects their appearance from the appearances.2da.

    If there were player races (new appearances) that did not categorize into the races already in the game (creatures that don't exist in NWN at all yet), then new lines would have to be added to racialtypes.2da and somehow new feats and item properties added. However, if a player race opened up that had an existing racialtype (undead), then, no new items or feats would have to be created.

    No, there aren't subrace specific item properties specifically for targetting certain types of undead without targetting all of them, but appearances have been used for certain spellscripts, such as targetting vampires with specific effects in the Sunburst spell. This spell also checks the subrace field for "vampire".
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    The issue seems to be that you might use the subrace field for a subrace like drow to elf, while a drow can also be a vampire, as an example.
  • MalisharaMalishara Member Posts: 16
    Add the ability to restrict classes by gender at character creation.
    Why don't we have this already? GRRRRRR.
  • Barry_1066Barry_1066 Member Posts: 77
    Malishara said:

    Add the ability to restrict classes by gender at character creation.
    Why don't we have this already? GRRRRRR.

    and the ability to change gender - that existed in D&D from distant past - girdle of sex change or belt of sex change - not that I want to enforce such randomness in game but when a class is gender specific and the wrong gender, against stated policy takes the class - the problem can be remedied.
  • TheUncertainManTheUncertainMan Member Posts: 49
    Some awesome suggestions so far.
    I'd love to see a couple of new feats here and there.

    In tabletop dnd 5th edition I play as a dex fighter who uses the Protection feat. Let's me protect companions stood next to me, making an enemy attack on disadvantage. Also have the Shield Master feat which allows me to not take half damage from an effect if I make a successful saving throw.
    Having something like this would make shields incredibly useful in game.
  • FluentFluent Member Posts: 74
    Hey Beamdog and company. :smile:

    I posted this idea on RPGCodex's thread about NWN:EE and thought I'd briefly post the idea here before I go to bed.

    Basically, I'd like to see improved AI of companions, and an improved system that ties their stats and scores in various skills/talents/etc. more to their AI. Thus developing "AI Personalities" in combat.

    I think this is more interesting than yet another full party control CRPG (there are already plenty of those to choose from.) 3.5 is not only deep enough to facilitate this but it would already build on the henchmen system that's in the game already, greatly improving it.

    In short, things like Knowledge skills, Lore, Intelligence and so on could be tied to how your companions act and the damage they deal in combat. So rather than completely give total control to script my companions, they would act on their own like now yet also in ways that fit their stats and character sheet scores more.

    A Bard who knows about Undead more (Knowledge skill) may be faster to react and successfully find a weakness in a higher level Undead creature sooner than a Bard who isn't knowledgable about Undead. Maybe their hit chance increases, or their crit percentage rises. Even the spells or choice of items they use could change (they could "realize" a Mummy is weaker to fire quickly and use the spells/items accordingly, and so on.) A Fighter who even sacrifices a point or two in skills to gain a Knowledge point could benefit from it in a small way as well.

    So by doing some of this they would develop AI Personalities in combat that are more in line with their character sheets rather than default or generic scripts.

    We'd still be able to give overarching commands (stay stealthy, conserve your spells, stay close/far from me, etc..) I think this would make the experience "different" than every other full control party CRPG, since those games play to the Total Control Freak in all of us. This would be different because you sacrifice overreaching control but the AI is improved and the main hero still gets to do all the great things of leading an expedition and keeping their team alive, fighting in combat, etc. etc..

    For an example of an RPG where Total Control was removed in favor of unpredictability and AI Personality, check out The Last Remnant. That games takes it the farthest I've seen so far, even having AI companions ask you for weapons to use, or even ask what you think they should specialize in as they level up rather than having the player input every detail and decision. You can say "Focus on healing instead of attack magic", and then the AI makes their choice based on your input, but you don't get to determine the super-fine details of it. It basically changes the experience to be more like a multiplayer adventure yet still single player with the advanced, unpredictable and more organic, adventure-feeling of the AI.

    I think it provides a unique experience that can be expanded to be something much better (and still completely unique.) If you add full control it's just going to be another (yet also much slower, since D&D 3.5 and NWN in particular is more advanced) full control party RPG that we've seen already. Icewind Dale 3.5 Edition (err, Icewind Dale 2? :blush: )

    Hope you guys here will consider my idea and think about it. I can provide more info if you need it. Take care! Looking forward to more NWN (currently playing BG:EE on my channel with some mods. You guys really have improved that game so much since I last played.)

    - Flu
  • RumRum Member Posts: 10
    A very useful one.

    Enable servers to send scripts to clients and execute them (clientside) in real time (limiting them to 10 times per second).

    This can open a new assortment of possibilities, for example:

    -Ilusion system: efects, placeables, shaders, nPCs, viewed only for one afected player.
    -finetune movement and speed detection.
    -the decongestion of the server's heartbeat.



    Add some functions for clientside scripting:

    SetNoClipMode (object oCreature, boolean True/False)
    More Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noclip_mode
    For ghosts, and intangible spells.

    SetZAxis(object oCreature, int height, boolean addwalkmesh)
    For a flying/jumping system, the boolean decides to add the walkmesh height to object height or not.





    Thanks.
  • Sar_YehudahSar_Yehudah Member Posts: 135
    I really hope Beamdog will listen to this but I doubt it. I was playing NWN back in 2004. I played it for a good 2 and a half years. The game is broken balance wise. It is at least broken for epic levels. The best classes are fighting classes with devastating critical, by far. Magic does not scale past 20. It's far too weak. The 'epic' spells for wizards are fairly pathetic. Hellball, that beam thing, the summoning spells, they are largely useless. Only the epic defensive spells have any merit. I've been playing crpgs since 2001 and BG in particular. One of the biggest flaws is lack of scaling. The DnD ruleset has barely been improved after 3.0 (and 3.0 is imo the very worst version). Both damage and penetration of level 1-9 spells have to scale up in effectiveness if NWN EE is going to be more than a smattering of melee builds being effective in pvp. the min-maxing stuff is really absurd and ruins the fun.
  • RumRum Member Posts: 10

    The game is broken balance wise. It is at least broken for epic levels. The best classes are fighting classes with devastating critical, by far. Magic does not scale past 20. It's far too weak. The 'epic' spells for wizards are fairly pathetic. Hellball, that beam thing, the summoning spells, they are largely useless. Only the epic defensive spells have any merit. I've been playing crpgs since 2001 and BG in particular. One of the biggest flaws is lack of scaling. The DnD ruleset has barely been improved after 3.0 (and 3.0 is imo the very worst version). Both damage and penetration of level 1-9 spells have to scale up in effectiveness if NWN EE is going to be more than a smattering of melee builds being effective in pvp. the min-maxing stuff is really absurd and ruins the fun.

    But all of this, can be fixed with scripting and modding, I'm sure you can find some of that fixes in the vault.
    May be (I'm not sure) "Community Patch Project" do it. https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/patch/community-patch-project

    It's very easy to do, a damage script based on the high level.


    If you want 3.5 ruleset, can install this: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/35-edition-balance-changes-bug-fixes-ai-improvements-and-more
  • HunterRayder93HunterRayder93 Member Posts: 266
    Rum said:

    The game is broken balance wise. It is at least broken for epic levels. The best classes are fighting classes with devastating critical, by far. Magic does not scale past 20. It's far too weak. The 'epic' spells for wizards are fairly pathetic. Hellball, that beam thing, the summoning spells, they are largely useless. Only the epic defensive spells have any merit. I've been playing crpgs since 2001 and BG in particular. One of the biggest flaws is lack of scaling. The DnD ruleset has barely been improved after 3.0 (and 3.0 is imo the very worst version). Both damage and penetration of level 1-9 spells have to scale up in effectiveness if NWN EE is going to be more than a smattering of melee builds being effective in pvp. the min-maxing stuff is really absurd and ruins the fun.

    But all of this, can be fixed with scripting and modding, I'm sure you can find some of that fixes in the vault.
    May be (I'm not sure) "Community Patch Project" do it. https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/patch/community-patch-project

    It's very easy to do, a damage script based on the high level.


    If you want 3.5 ruleset, can install this: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/35-edition-balance-changes-bug-fixes-ai-improvements-and-more
    BD says they are working together with several modders and former employees of the original game, among these are the guys from NWValut ... one thing I wonder, for years the CEP and NWNX are the basis for playing NWN in multy and molty PW, why then does not BD implement them? would not it make more sense? instead of having to download all the files every time?
  • ildaronildaron Member Posts: 52

    Rum said:

    The game is broken balance wise. It is at least broken for epic levels. The best classes are fighting classes with devastating critical, by far. Magic does not scale past 20. It's far too weak. The 'epic' spells for wizards are fairly pathetic. Hellball, that beam thing, the summoning spells, they are largely useless. Only the epic defensive spells have any merit. I've been playing crpgs since 2001 and BG in particular. One of the biggest flaws is lack of scaling. The DnD ruleset has barely been improved after 3.0 (and 3.0 is imo the very worst version). Both damage and penetration of level 1-9 spells have to scale up in effectiveness if NWN EE is going to be more than a smattering of melee builds being effective in pvp. the min-maxing stuff is really absurd and ruins the fun.

    But all of this, can be fixed with scripting and modding, I'm sure you can find some of that fixes in the vault.
    May be (I'm not sure) "Community Patch Project" do it. https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/patch/community-patch-project

    It's very easy to do, a damage script based on the high level.


    If you want 3.5 ruleset, can install this: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/35-edition-balance-changes-bug-fixes-ai-improvements-and-more
    BD says they are working together with several modders and former employees of the original game, among these are the guys from NWValut ... one thing I wonder, for years the CEP and NWNX are the basis for playing NWN in multy and molty PW, why then does not BD implement them? would not it make more sense? instead of having to download all the files every time?
    I would also add to the last question, would it not be best to make it easier to customize. Every DM does things differently (Every PW as well). One of the things I enjoy most about games such as these is tailoring things to my taste. I might see a balance issue where another does not (or vice versa) or simply disagree on how a rule should be implemented. By opening things up to be easily altered in modules I create would easily follow 3.5 as I understand it while another DM could customize their modules to their version of 3.5, 4e, 5e, or tinker with 3.0. (No THAC0 because I am not that tolerant). ;)
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