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WTP Familiars (revised Find Familiar spell)


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(LATEST BUILD AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST)

 

Hello!

As usual, I find myself with an idea in mind (have had it for quite some time actually) but I am short of any coding skill so here I am again looking for a kind soul who volunteers to help me realize what is going to be my last modding project.

The idea is basically an overhaul of the Find Familiar spell. The goal is to take it closer to its PnP interpretation, adding some personal flavour in the process.

Practically, everything is ready, I just need a coder that turns ideas into working code (of course, suggestions would be welcome).

Going into details, here are the baselines for the modification:

 

  • Familiars start at Level 1 - EasyTuTu and BGT players can finally use this spell without unbalancing the game
  • When casting Find Familiar, the caster will select one familiar close to his alignment [see Table under]
  • The Spider has been added as ninth familiar making it so that each alignment is represented by a different familiar
  • Casting time for the spell is 12 in-game hours and the spell can only be cast outdoors
  • Familiars acquire the summoner's level when the spell is cast and level up subsequently together with the caster (only the mage class advances the Familiar's level)
  • Familiars Pseudodragon and Imp grant the summoner a minimal base magic resistance (2%) if within a 10 feet range
  • The caster receives half of the familiar's HPs (rounded down). This number changes dynamically when the caster levels up
  • Familiars will have soundsets and portraits associated to them
  • New/recolored bams
  • Familiars will nag when they feel enough time has been spent in the backpack
  • At the death of the Familiar the summoner loses the extra HPs. If the summoner is still alive and he must save against system shock or fall unconscious for a brief period (see table under). Regardless, he loses 1 permanent point of Constitution until a new Familiar can be summoned for 3 in-game days. A new Familiar can be summoned only after 7 3 in-game days have passed (mourning period)

CON System Shock
------------------------
1 25%
2 30%
3 35%
4 40%
5 45%
6 50%
7 55%
8 60%
9 65%
10 70%
11 75%
12 80%
13 85%
14 88%
15 90%
16 95%
17 97%
18+ 99%



Familiar HPs progression Table
---------------------------------------

Lvl 1-9 10-18 19+

HPs 4 +2 +1



Familiar Summoning Table: Selection by alignment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
LG: LG, NG, LN
NG: NG, TN, LG, CG
CG: CG, NG, CN
LN: LN. LG, LE
TN: TN
CN: CN, CG, CE
LE: LE, NE, LN
NE: NE, TN, LE, CE
CE: CE, NE, CN

 

Familiars by alignment:
Familiar Alignment Change
Rabbit Lawful Good - was TN
Pseudo_Dragon Neutral Good - no change
Fairy_Dragon Chaotic Good - no change
Ferret Lawful Neutral - no change
Spider True Neutral - new addition
Cat Chaotic Neutral - no change
Imp Lawful Evil - no change
Dust_Mephit Neutral Evil - no change
Quasit Chaotic Evil - no change

 

 

Okay, that is all.

If somebody is interested in helping me with this, please contact me via PM or by posting here.

Thanks!

 

LINK TO TOPIC AND LATEST BUILD: http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?showtopic=5278

Edited by Salk
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I encourage any efforts to bring game mechanics closer to PnP whenever possible, so great idea here! :) When you say the familiar gains the caster's level when summoned, don't you mean HD equivalent to the caster's level? That's PnP...but I haven't checked iesdp yet to see if this can be done. I would scrap the system shock portion, but that's just me ;) Also, do you have a list of specific kinds of familiars? Are you using the vanilla selection, or would you want to add or change any of them?

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Hello ericp07!

 

It's right. The familiar gains the HD equivalent to the caster level. We are speaking of fixed amounts though: Lvl1 1D6, Lvl2-Lvl9 1D3, Lvl10-Lvl18 1D2 and a +1 from Lvl19 onwards.

 

The system shock portion is something I am actually very fond of because it's one of those PnP parts I am trying to restore/emulate.

 

The familiars selection would remain the same.

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Hello!

 

I resurrect this own thread of mine to announce to the very few interested that I am trying to put things together myself (once this is out, calling it Alpha is probably going to be an overstatement).

 

There are several amendments to the original plan above and I will list them once they are finalized.

 

As base for this mod I have been using Rabain's WTP Familiar 0.5 Beta. The mod itself has several issues (bugs) that I have uncovered testing it on a BGT installation. I tried contacting the original author several times to get permission to release a new version of this mod with my own changes. But Rabain and the website hosting the original mod disappeared a few years ago leaving no trace.

 

In the Credits & Copyright information of the mod it's possible to read the following:

 

This mod may not be sold, published, compiled or redistributed in any form without the consent of its author. WTPFamiliars is ©2007 Rabain.

 

I must therefore assume that it won't be possible for me to make this new version public unless by some miracle I can find a way to contact Rabain.

Edited by Salk
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I don't think there has ever been a problem in resurrecting mods so long as you take a full responsibility of the faults in the previously coded content... and so direct the questions towards your way. So the AUTHOR flag is correctly set.

The copyright statement is there probably because of the time, that it was that times IE equivalent to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 like it's in Wikipedia today... besides the moding has barely anything to do with the actual copyrights, cause so long as you won't cross the black line(selling the end result), you are unlikely to get sued, but any of us still could.. of course it would then be up to the prosecution to prove the malicious intent. :D .. or whatever else there's to gain from releasing a product of obviously unfinished conjecture.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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Hello!

A small update: things are proceeding quite nicely although there is much work left to be done (for which I am going to need help). I am in fact checking whether or not someone might be willing to write some lines of dialogue to be included in the modification.

 

Namely, the familiars' replies to the "You wouldn't happen to have any advice, would you?" question to cover the missing BG/TotSC chapters.

 

Thanks!

Edited by Salk
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A public release is very imminent, provided there is a minimum of interest in the project.

 

If anyone is interested in playing this modification, a link for beta testing it will be provided.

Despite my very limited (almost non existent) modding knowledge, I feel proud of what has been accomplished and the result, while being far from ideal, feels a definite improvement over the existing spell, especially for Baldur's Gate Trilogy players.

 

PS EasyTuTu or BG:EE support is not offered at present time

Edited by Salk
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Lovely thing Salk, judging from .tra file. I don't really like the 50% poison resist on spider (I'd vote either fully immune, or no resistance - why would a spider be immune to poison anyway?), but others are indeed cool. Guess I should finally play a mage of sorts now.

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The copyright statement is there probably because of the time, that it was that times IE equivalent to the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 like it's in Wikipedia today...

 

 

 

 

This mod may not be sold, published, compiled or redistributed in any form without the consent of its author. WTPFamiliars is ©2007 Rabain.

 

"not... redistributed in any form" seems pretty clear as to the author's wishes.

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I must therefore assume that it won't be possible for me to make this new version public unless by some miracle I can find a way to contact Rabain.

 

There is a Rabain at Baldur's Gate Forums who was active as recently as Feb 2014. http://forum.baldursgate.com/profile/comments/10815/Rabain Might be worth dropping them a line.

 

*fingers crossed*

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Thank you, Thimblerig.

 

I will check it right away.

 

UPDATE: Sent PM - Rabain has not logged in since Feb 2014 though...

 

kreso,

 

the poison resistance of the spider is going to increase with the spider's level until it becomes immunity. I was unsure myself about granting this kind of resistance to it because it indeed does not have any real or PnP reference. On the other hand, the spider familiar's attack doesn't deliver poison damage (it's type of huge spider known as "Watch Spider" from the Monstrous Manual) and I found cute to think it might have developed a resistance to poison by not being poisonous itself.

Edited by Salk
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