Help replicating this pathfinder ability in BG2 EE?

[dbianco87]

I'm creating an NPC mod that has its own custom kit. I very badly want it to have a custom ability similar in flavour and function to the Paladin "Smite Evil" ability from Pathfinder tabletop RPG (Link below) but am struggling with it. Here's how I'd like it to function based on my limited knowledge of this game's engine:

The character has an innate ability, Smite Evil Creature.

Smite Evil Creature is like a fast to cast a spell which checks if the target is evil, and if so, activates a flag via an eff on the NPC which serves as a sort of "hunter's mark".

The NPC would then get a -1 to -5 thaco bonus and a 1-5 damage bonus on attacks made by the NPC against the marked creature.

The NPC would receive a +1 to +5 armour class bonus against attacks made by the marked creature only (I could live without this part if it's not doable, although it would be nice flavour wise, this character's defining trait is his tankyness).

The 1 to 5 bonuses would come from different versions of the spell effect, version would be based on the NPC's level.

My half-baked, big idea on how I was going to execute this was to make my own version of the Ranger's favored/hated enemy ability, one that is always active and looks for the flag that would be set by the hunter's mark, but I can't seem to figure out how favored enemy works at all, or even find it in Near Infinity.

The ability which inspired this is here (Use control f to jump down to the "Smite Evil (Su)": http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/ It's a very fun to use and strong ability (one that would be way too strong in bg2 most likely, the changes I've made are based on balance, to make it fit in better with existing abilities, and hopefully be easier to implement. I haven't ruled out making a stronger HLA version as well, but one thing at a time.)


I'd be very grateful for any ideas on how to do this or something functionally similar.

[Angel]

Mm, I don't think what you described is possible within the constraints of the engine. The best you could do is create an innate spell that uses opcode 177 to set effect files with opcodes 178 and 179 to increate THAC0 and damage against evil creatures for a few rounds. I've experimented with this and it works, but unfortunately I lost the code. I could recreate it though, if you are interested.

 

Alternatively, you could give your character a Heart of Winter-style Smite Evil. In HoW, paladins can once per day blast an evil creature with holy energy, dealing 1d6 magical damage for every three paladin levels. I actually have implemented this for one of my own mods (a small thing to give paladins in general a few extra abilities) and I would be happy to share it.

[subtledoctor]

My only thought is to spawn an invisible creature from the target, and run a ChangeAIType script to set the target's race to some value (assuming that only changes the target's IDS reference, and not the animation or other race characteristics), and simultaneously apply a bonus to-hit against that race on the caster. And then apply another invisicre + script to change the target back to normal.

 

Could theoretically work, but I hate the idea of triggering scripts like this during battle...

[dbianco87]

I tried something similar to what subtledoctor described. I used a spell effect #72 (0x48) IDS: Set IDS Stated(I copied the Doom spell, gave it to my PC as an innate ability and replaced it's effects with said state. According to what sparse documentation I could find, the way I have it set up should supposedly should change the target's "SPECIFIC.IDS" entry to one I added called "300 holymark" (entries are numbered). I then gave my NPC an innate ability similar to the ranger racial enemy ability but specifically looks for that entry. It's not working unfortunately, and I'm not sure which part of it isn't working properly or if it just doesn't work because I can't figure out a way to detect if said creature has the ability (I gave it to him with shadowkeeper just to test it and had him use the marking spell and rough up imoen a bit to see if the extra damage/thaco was functioning did not seem to be), adding passive abilities seems to be very unintuitive though. Some tutorials I've read say that you just need to make a spell file with the correct effects but shadowkeeper seems to expect eff files(something I know only a little about) for this function).

#178 (0xB2) Spell Effect: THAC0 vs. Creature Type Modifier

#179 (0xB3) Spell Effect: Damage vs. Creature Type Modifier

These are the spell effects from the iesdp that I used for the passive. Once I've completed the kit, I should be able to add a thaco penalty vs. the kit to the mark spell to simulate the AC bonus. Unfortunately none of this is working so far and I can't figure out if the problem is the passive ability I made, the set IDS state effect just not working, or if those bonus effects just aren't working or if I failed to add them properly to the character...

Some of these effects may be new/unique to Enhanced edition btw, when I was looking at SPECIFIC.IDS most of the effects seem to pertain to the Shaman class or other EE content.

[dbianco87]

Mm, I don't think what you described is possible within the constraints of the engine. The best you could do is create an innate spell that uses opcode 177 to set effect files with opcodes 178 and 179 to increate THAC0 and damage against evil creatures for a few rounds. I've experimented with this and it works, but unfortunately I lost the code. I could recreate it though, if you are interested.

 

Alternatively, you could give your character a Heart of Winter-style Smite Evil. In HoW, paladins can once per day blast an evil creature with holy energy, dealing 1d6 magical damage for every three paladin levels. I actually have implemented this for one of my own mods (a small thing to give paladins in general a few extra abilities) and I would be happy to share it.

Thank you for the reply. I think I could do the Heart of Winter style thing myself and may go that route because this small issue has cost me a lot of time, and I didn't plan on spending more than a week on this mod. Flavour/tactics wise though the way I described it would be far better. The plan for this character is he's a flails and shield user(he has kit bonuses that only kick in when he has a shield equipped), who has somewhat low strength (he's old). I want him to be good in melee despite this because there are a couple really good flails and in my opinion not a lot of great flail using npcs.