NWN HP progression

[wsmithjr02]

I've always liked the way that NWN did hit points. WIth the original BG, I always felt like I had to re-roll to get decent hitpoints ... getting 1 with a fighter was not fun. 'Course, then I would feel "guilty" when I got the max hp. NWNs system allowed me to happily live with whatever the game gave me. So, of course, I enabled that for my tweaks install.

 

That said, I've noticed that tweaks does not implement the system exactly as NWN did. In NWN, the first 3 levels, any character automatically gains the max hp for their class. According to the modded 2da files, this only applies at character creation and for levels 2-3, the hitpoints are random. I looked at the mod code to try and figure out how it worked but didn't put enough time into understanding it. However, I could easily change the 2da files in the override folder to work exactly like NWN does, by assigning 0 hit dice for levels 2-3 and changing the modifier to the max for the character.

 

Along these lines, I noticed that for some of the multi-classes could potentially add too many hp. For instance, a cleric-thief has a starting hp of 7 (no CON bonus). However, for the level up tables for cleric-thief, the NWN mod uses a d2 rolled 4 times, which could generate from 4-8 hp. While the 8 is probably pretty rare, it's possible. In my tables, I tweaked this to roll a d2 3 times and then added 1 modifier. This would always give a 4-7 hp spread, which seems more "accurate".

 

I was wondering what the mod author thinks of these tweaks and if maybe it could be added to the mod itself to be more faithful to the NWN hp allocation system?

 

One last thing ... I did a test install into BGEE with only this component of the mod installed. So, the only files in the override folder were the 14 HP???.2da files. I noticed that there is one for every class there *except* for fighter-mage-cleric. Without this table, a FMC only gains 6hp for level 2 instead of the 7 that it "should". Of course, the unmodded game has this same "bug" which I guess is a result of rounding down due to the multi-class. Having not figured out the code, I'm not sure how it's generating the hp for this class. Is it possible to add a table for this character?

 

Thanks for any comments.

[Jarno Mikkola]

In BG2, you can just adjust your difficulty level to "normal" and you get a max HP from the dice and the adjust it back to "core"/what ever.

[AstroBryGuy]

AFAIK, the tables for multi-classes aren't used. The tables for the individual classes are used, divided by 2 (or 3, for triple-classes).

[CamDawg]

That said, I've noticed that tweaks does not implement the system exactly as NWN did. In NWN, the first 3 levels, any character automatically gains the max hp for their class. According to the modded 2da files, this only applies at character creation and for levels 2-3, the hitpoints are random. I looked at the mod code to try and figure out how it worked but didn't put enough time into understanding it. However, I could easily change the 2da files in the override folder to work exactly like NWN does, by assigning 0 hit dice for levels 2-3 and changing the modifier to the max for the character.

 

Along these lines, I noticed that for some of the multi-classes could potentially add too many hp. For instance, a cleric-thief has a starting hp of 7 (no CON bonus). However, for the level up tables for cleric-thief, the NWN mod uses a d2 rolled 4 times, which could generate from 4-8 hp. While the 8 is probably pretty rare, it's possible. In my tables, I tweaked this to roll a d2 3 times and then added 1 modifier. This would always give a 4-7 hp spread, which seems more "accurate".

 

I was wondering what the mod author thinks of these tweaks and if maybe it could be added to the mod itself to be more faithful to the NWN hp allocation system?

I'm using 'NWN-Style' as an alias for 'upper half of the HP range' because it's a lot less wordy. The 2das already prevent a true implementation, e.g. 1d10 should be 1d5+5 (6-10, equal distribution, 1/5 chance for max) but we have to settle for 5d2 (5-10, bell curve, max 1/32). The component's already pretty prolific; I'm not sure if I'm ready for another option just yet.

 

AFAIK, the tables for multi-classes aren't used. The tables for the individual classes are used, divided by 2 (or 3, for triple-classes).

^^ Bang on.