Familiars (Workroom)

[Demivrgvs]

"A pseudodragon has a body about 1 foot long, with a 2-foot tail. It weights about 7 pounds." How powerful can be a Wing Buffet effect for such a creature?

About what you'd expect from your average ceiling fan, I'd guess. Is a cloudkill too thick to be easily dispersed by a ceiling fan?

EDIT: And from air blow idea... it should be a sort of special ability. Using great amount of energy, maybe minor haste spell his wings start to work very, very fast. That's why it has any sense. But yup, should work at very little range, and don't know is it possible.

In the engine, you can't just partially clear a projectile... Even the smallest ZoSA projectile would clear the most massive Cloudkill projectile.

I can't limit the Clear Air effect to a small area, that is why I'm quite unsure about implementing it (a tiny ceiling fan can't disperse a 60 feet radius area imo ), whereas a small Wing Buffet wouldn't be too crazy (e.g. a small knockback effect on a single target perhaps? ).

 

In 3rd edition pseudodragon can't grant magic resistance to anyone, whereas in 2nd edition the manual says it can but doesn't specifies how, and how much...probably a spell-like ability similar to the cleric's spell Magic Resistance.

The impression I always got, was that the magic res. is transferred by physical contact, from the familiar being perched on its master's shoulder... so it would be a semi-permanent thing. I never thought of it as spell-like, but more a case of basking in the familiar's antimagic aura... kind of like a paladin's Holy Aura, but more restricted.

I'll think about it.

 

Wizard-Fighter comparison is a good argument. But still both of creatures have many parallel abilities (chameleon/invisibility, sleep/confusion). Maybe other users will have some better suggestions about making them far more different. Because now dragons look as made from one template but with some advantages/disadvantages. One has greater disabling effect, but only at melee. Fairy got only confusion, but at range. Of course that's only my opinion, and don't take it too offensive Demi If it sounds like this, I'm really sorry. Actual revision is cool, just thinking about make creatures more unique. ;-)

No offense taken, as long as opinions are expressed politely, and you always do, I really can't be offended! Have you any suggestion to select Faerie Dragon spell-like abilities? Perhaps that can help making these two creatures much more different.

[jon-eli]

[...] a small knockback effect on a single target perhaps?

... and short-duration blindness? Like glass dust (the ability mephits use)? It might not be able to clear a cloud, but it can kick up some dust, I'd think. Small knockback, plus 2 rounds of blindness... Does that idea suck?

 

[...] Faerie Dragon spell-like abilities?

Faerie Fire! Hypnotic Pattern! Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter! ... Playful, quirky and somewhat useful is a faerie dragon

[yarpen]

These should come from Illusions, Charm and Invocation or Transmution schools. Necromantion and Summoning are reserved for imps and other evil creatures. Also I've tought mainly about non-damaging spells - faeries rarely wants to kill someone - it's better to trick or mislead him and defend me and my friends. So maybe:

 

1st level: Sleep, Shield, Mirror Image, Protection from evil

2nd level: Blur, Luck, Resist Fear, Glitterdust

3rd level: Minor spell deflection, Detect Illusion, Haste

4th level: Teleport field, Confusion

 

Or if you want to give him only very few innate abilities (non-mage familiar), then there should be spells like: Sleep, Blur, Luck, Pixie Dust

[Guest Dirty Uncle Bertie]

sozcaps commented recently in a Divine Remix thread that the mod's kits provide "a homogenized weapon and a couple abilities (which I see as toys). Abilities that some other party member very likely already has access to".

 

jon-eli responded to this with "To my mind, this is the principal failing of Divine Remix. It's too formulaic. The kits do not vary uniquely, they vary according to a template (spell x once per day, at level n, that mimics spell y; magical weapon x that does n damage, and has enchantment y that improves slightly every m levels)".

 

I think they're both right. Like yarpen said, we're probably better off avoiding using a template system for these shiny new familiars.

[Demivrgvs]

[...] a small knockback effect on a single target perhaps?

... and short-duration blindness? Like glass dust (the ability mephits use)? It might not be able to clear a cloud, but it can kick up some dust, I'd think. Small knockback, plus 2 rounds of blindness... Does that idea suck?

Ehm...

 

[...] Faerie Dragon spell-like abilities?

Faerie Fire! Hypnotic Pattern! Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter! ... Playful, quirky and somewhat useful is a faerie dragon

Conceptually, I do agree with you! Unfortunately the suggested spells didn't exist in vanilla, though I've added the Faerie Fire for V2.9 and I may use it.

 

These should come from Illusions, Charm and Invocation or Transmution schools. Necromantion and Summoning are reserved for imps and other evil creatures. Also I've tought mainly about non-damaging spells - faeries rarely wants to kill someone - it's better to trick or mislead him and defend me and my friends. So maybe:

 

1st level: Sleep, Shield, Mirror Image, Protection from evil

2nd level: Blur, Luck, Resist Fear, Glitterdust

3rd level: Minor spell deflection, Detect Illusion, Haste

4th level: Teleport field, Confusion

 

Or if you want to give him only very few innate abilities (non-mage familiar), then there should be spells like: Sleep, Blur, Luck, Pixie Dust

More or less I agree with you too, though I'm not too much into Invocation, while Illusion and Enchantment surely are the best suited ones. Why not Color Spray too? It seems very appropriate to me, ans SR's version is incredibly effective imo.

 

Edit:

sozcaps commented recently in a Divine Remix thread that the mod's kits provide "a homogenized weapon and a couple abilities (which I see as toys). Abilities that some other party member very likely already has access to".

 

jon-eli responded to this with "To my mind, this is the principal failing of Divine Remix. It's too formulaic. The kits do not vary uniquely, they vary according to a template (spell x once per day, at level n, that mimics spell y; magical weapon x that does n damage, and has enchantment y that improves slightly every m levels)".

 

I think they're both right. Like yarpen said, we're probably better off avoiding using a template system for these shiny new familiars.

Well, I partially agree with this (and I do have some cool things in mind for cleric kits when I manage to work on them ), but I must say that templates have their strengths too. The most important one imo is that by following a template Divine Remix managed to create tons of kits quite balanced, while allowing a higher degree of freedom would have made that accomplishment much more difficult.

 

That being said, I'm almost convinced familiars should be done as you're suggesting, and it seems most of you feel the same. It's more complicated, but having a few players helping me out I think it's doable.

[Guest Dirty Uncle Bertie]

I don't doubt that the template idea can work well, but if we can instead customise every kit, familiar, whatever, to taste, and make them balanced, then that's even nicer. At least you have people to help you with this, so hopefully the non-template route won't be too difficult.

 

Going OT here, I made a post in the IR Feedback thread on Mar 3rd - http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?s...st&p=144788 - with some further thoughts on various weapons, so perhaps you could take a look at it once the familiars are dealt with.

 

Ooh, and sorry to once again go OT, but I found an old post of yours that talked about revising the way Grandmastery works:

http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?s...mp;#entry128748

 

I hope to start an EasyTutu game soon, so would you consider releasing this as a mini mod?

[Demivrgvs]

Going OT here, I made a post in the IR Feedback thread on Mar 3rd - http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?s...st&p=144788 - with some further thoughts on various weapons, so perhaps you could take a look at it once the familiars are dealt with.

Will do.

 

Ooh, and sorry to once again go OT, but I found an old post of yours that talked about revising the way Grandmastery works:

http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?s...mp;#entry128748

 

I hope to start an EasyTutu game soon, so would you consider releasing this as a mini mod?

No problem, it's only a matter of two files.

[Guest Dirty Uncle Bertie]

Fantastic! Thanks a lot, matey.

[Salk]

Demi,

 

the MM reports Faerie Dragons to be Genius (Int 17-18) while in this topic you are assigning an Int value of 8.

 

Have you used alternative sources?

[DavidW]

I don't understand.

What makes you think a fireball is made of normal fire? The argument could as easily be run in the other direction: since MR protects you from it, it must be magical.

Probably, you never will...

It's not clear to me how this comment advances the debate.

And the Fireballs fire is normal fire, cause the original game would have crashed many times had it not been.

Distinguish between

(i) the game-engine distinction between two kinds of fire damage, one of which is broken (and hence has no in-game presence)

(ii) the in-game distinction between normal and magical attack forms.

 

(ii) is the relevant distinction here; it's tracked by the "ignore magic resistance" and "dispellable" setting in spell files. I don't see any in-game argument as to why fireball (say) has been erroneously set to "magical" when it's reall non-magical; I see a great deal of evidence to the contrary (not least the very-well-documented fact that the PnP version of the spell works that way.

 

Notice, incidentally, that (i) doesn't even exist as a distinction for electrical or acidic damage. (I presume it's a legacy of very early design decisions in BG1, and quickly got scrapped in favour of the "ignore magic resistance" and "dispellable" flags.

[Jarno Mikkola]

(ii) is the relevant distinction here;

Yes it is...

 

and quickly got scrapped in favour of the "ignore magic resistance" and "dispellable" flags.

Then why not use them as they were intended to? Or can you justify why, for example a mage with Robe of the x Archmagi has 5% chance of not taking any of the damage from a cloud effect like CloudkillIncendiary Cloud(+5% of taking half)... but there is still 90% chance him taking all the damage?

 

Also take note that this is far worse on dragons for example, when the distinction between magic protection and not is about 50%, and the per turn damage is about 30 (to 35... 90) hit points and 0 hit points. I would be ok if the magic resistance would work only against the saving throw DC spells.

 

Again, the Imp apologizes from Demivrgvs for the offtopicness.

 

Demi, the MM reports Faerie...

Magic Missile?

2ed AD&D Monster Manual(presumably).

 

Well, does it really matter anyway, as the spells etc are not confined by the regular rules for the regular characters... but yes the faerie dragon is most probably one of the more intellegent familiars.

[DavidW]

(ii) is the relevant distinction here;

Yes it is...

 

and quickly got scrapped in favour of the "ignore magic resistance" and "dispellable" flags.

Then why not use them as they were intended to?

By "them" I assume you mean the flags? In that case, "intended" by whom? I think it's crystal clear how they were intended to work by the developers: they were intended to work in exactly the way in which they actually do work (which, to repeat, is exactly the way they work in 2nd ed AD&D).

Or can you justify why, for example a mage with Robe of the x Archmagi has 5% chance of not taking any of the damage from a cloud effect like CloudkillIncendiary Cloud(+5% of taking half)... but there is still 90% chance him taking all the damage?

Because that's how magic resistance works in this game system. I'm not sure what more "justification" can be given.

 

Now, if you're instead saying "a mod which made elemental damage ignore MR would be cool, and here's why", that's different. (I don't agree, but it's a coherent thing to think.)

[Jarno Mikkola]

Now, if you're instead saying "a mod which made elemental damage ignore MR would be cool, and here's why", that's different.

Yeah, the only thing we need to modify is just all the items, the spells, the creatures, and to make it really well inlined, small portion of the game engine.

[DavidW]

Now, if you're instead saying "a mod which made elemental damage ignore MR would be cool, and here's why", that's different.

Yeah, the only thing we need to modify is just all the items, the spells, the creatures, and to make it really well inlined, small portion of the game engine.

You could do it in about thirty lines of TP2, actually.

 

EDIT: 36 lines. Not tested (as I say, I don't particularly think this is a good idea - but Jarno actually wants it, I gather.)

 

DEFINE_PATCH_MACRO ~elem_patch~ BEGIN
READ_SHORT ~eff_off~+~this_eff~*0x30 ~type~
PATCH_IF ~type~=12 THEN BEGIN
	READ_SHORT ~eff_off~+~this_eff~*0x30+0xa ~damtype~
	PATCH_IF ~damtype~=8 OR ~damtype~=4 OR ~damtype~=2 OR ~damtype~=1 THEN BEGIN
		WRITE_BYTE ~eff_off~+~this_eff~*0x30+0xd 0
	END
END
END

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB 
~.*\.itm~ ~override~
~.*\.spl~ ~override~
	READ_ASCII 0x0 ~sig~ (3)
	PATCH_IF ~%sig%~ STRING_EQUAL_CASE ~itm~ THEN BEGIN
		SET ~abil_length~=0x38
	END ELSE BEGIN
		SET ~abil_length~=0x28
	END	
	READ_LONG 0x64 ~abil_off~
	READ_SHORT 0x68 ~abil_num~
	READ_LONG 0x6a ~eff_off~
	READ_SHORT 0x70 ~global_eff_num~
	FOR (i=0;i<~global_eff_num~;i=i+1) BEGIN
		SET ~this_eff~=~i~
		LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~elem_patch~
	END
	FOR (i=0;i<~abil_num~;i=i+1) BEGIN
		READ_SHORT ~eff_off~+~i~*~abil_length~+0x1e ~num_eff_here~
		READ_SHORT ~eff_off~+~i~*~abil_length~+0x20 ~eff_ind_here~
		FOR (j=0;j<~num_eff_here~;j=j+1) BEGIN
			SET ~this_eff~=~j~+~eff_ind_here~
			LAUNCH_PATCH_MACRO ~elem_patch~
		END
	END	
BUT_ONLY

[Ardanis]

Sorry for maintianing OT, but I in fact agree with Jarno very much. I've played with self-made 'DD ignores MR' component almost two years ago and have found it to be quite balanced even.

 

And the magic fire damage type. You know, in my recent play (which still awaits to be resumed) I've run into a mod made thing that dealt said magic fire (could be cold as well, but I think that was fire). Out of curiousity (why the heck one would made CTDing mod) I've killed a guy with that. There was no crash, imagine that.