175 replies to this topic

[Miloch]

Fond though I am of PnP yugoloths, I'm not sure that this major chunk of work is worthwhile just for the sake of sorting out neutral spellcasters. If the PC wants to summon both Baatezu and Tanar'ri, that's their funeral; the AI won't do it in SCS and I don't think it will cause serious problems to the vanilla AI either.

Has this been changed then? (quoted from aVENGER's Gate description above):

If the caster is neither lawful nor chaotic aligned, either one of the aforementioned Fiends may appear (50% chance each). In any case, the spellcaster has no control over the actions of the summoned Fiend.

If it's true, it gives lawful and chaotic casters an advantage over neutral ones, in that they can summon multiple fiends without there being a chance of infighting. I'm not sure if that's what Loz was getting at, but it sounds like it, and I think it should be addressed (though also I'm in favour of yugoloths for their own sake).

Edited by Miloch, 19 January 2011 - 12:08 PM.

[Wisp]

How about a *cringe* spell-selection screen (à la Spell Immunity)? It seems you can hook that up to the alignment filter aTweaks uses, so LCNEUTRALs can choose between summoning a tanar'ri or a baatezu.

[Galactygon]

I have doubts on the feasability of this; you want to make a spell selection for neutrals but not for the others. You can either make a spell purely a spell selection spell or as a non spell-selection spell. You can't mix the two. The best thing you could do (IMO, for neutrals) is have the spell summon an invisible .cre which triggers a fialogue with the player.

-Galactygon

[Wisp]

No, you can mix. The same spell can directly summon a tanar'ri when cast by someone of chaotic alignment, or summon a baatezu when case by someone of lawful alignment, or bring up a selection screen when cast by a LCNEUTRAL.

[Galactygon]

You are going to force the player to keep the character selected. Otherwise, the spell-immunity type menu is wasted.

-Galactygon

[Wisp]

RE: yugoloths. Both arcanaloths and ultroloths are medium-sized, robe-wearing humanoids, so maybe the least silly way of implementing them is by simply using human avatars. You can give them hooded robes to make it less painfully obvious they aren't very fiendish but at least it won't look totally stupid. Or am I wrong?

RE: spell-selection screens. In lieu of the hybrid approach I presented above, I think this optional add-on (this was always going to be optional) works better if everyone gets spell-selection screens. If yugoloths are implemented, lawful and chaotic people could even have a choice between summoning tanar'ri/baatezu and summoning yugoloth. LCNEUTRALS could get to choose between all three.

[Miloch]

RE: yugoloths. Both arcanaloths and ultroloths are medium-sized, robe-wearing humanoids, so maybe the least silly way of implementing them is by simply using human avatars. You can give them hooded robes to make it less painfully obvious they aren't very fiendish but at least it won't look totally stupid. Or am I wrong?

Do you need different types of yugoloths? Will the caster be able to choose which or does it get determined by level or something?

Like I said, the nycaloth would be most sensible as you can just use the balor tanar'ri. Eventually I could recolour the NWN pit fiend greenish and apply that in Infinity Animations. There is already a greenish tanar'ri used for nabassus. For ultraloths, you could probably get away with using a robed human animation with dark grey skin and hair. For arcanaloths, I dunno. They obviously have dog or jackal heads, the snouts of which would be visible even through a hood. I thought maybe the rakshasa, but it looks too much like a tiger. The gnoll animation might work, since you can palette it, meaning you can assign whatever colours you want to it. Gnolls have hyena heads, arcanaloths jackal heads, close enough.

The element of choice is good, because that's the way the Gate spell works in PnP (you can actually name the being you wish to gate, though it's not always accurate, it will always gate in something, and age you five years as well).

[Wisp]

Do you need different types of yugoloths? Will the caster be able to choose which or does it get determined by level or something?

I need three, for the three fiend-summoning spells.

The gnoll animation might work, since you can palette it, meaning you can assign whatever colours you want to it. Gnolls have hyena heads, arcanaloths jackal heads, close enough.

I'm not sure I could take a gnoll-looking fiend seriously.
No, barring something miraculous I think robed, hooded human is the least unsatisfactory animation for arcanaloths.

[Miloch]

I'm not sure I could take a gnoll-looking fiend seriously. No, barring something miraculous I think robed, hooded human is the least unsatisfactory animation for arcanaloths.

Well, I don't know if it's "miraculous" but it turns out the NWN Community Expansion Pack actually has several yugoloth animations.

L-R: ultroloth, mezzoloth, yagnoloth and what could work for a nycaloth (actually an alternate green abishai, for which we've already animations from PS:T)

No arcanaloths unfortunately. Maybe one of these would work?

L-R: werecoyote, jackal guardian and cloaked gnoll

I think I'd prefer the first. Ideally it should be robed or cloaked, but the second looks too much like something out of Egypt and the third probably too much like a gnoll. A hooded human would just look like another thief or cowled wizard though.

The animations probably are not so much aTweaks' concern, but if you're going to put in the work on the creatures, the least I could do is try to find suitable animations. I haven't yet converted any from NWN but I've got instructions from Erephine at least, so I could give it a go if folks think it'd be worth the effort.

[Daulmakan]

That sounds very promising.

[Galactygon]

RE: spell-selection screens. In lieu of the hybrid approach I presented above, I think this optional add-on (this was always going to be optional) works better if everyone gets spell-selection screens. If yugoloths are implemented, lawful and chaotic people could even have a choice between summoning tanar'ri/baatezu and summoning yugoloth. LCNEUTRALS could get to choose between all three.

I like this solution. You will have to patch AI scripts so that they cast the fiend summoning spells and not the menu spell (which can be unmemorized by RemoveSpellRES()).

The animations probably are not so much aTweaks' concern, but if you're going to put in the work on the creatures, the least I could do is try to find suitable animations. I haven't yet converted any from NWN but I've got instructions from Erephine at least, so I could give it a go if folks think it'd be worth the effort.

I really like and encourage this idea.

-Galactygon

[Wisp]

No arcanaloths unfortunately. Maybe one of these would work?
[...]
I think I'd prefer the first.

Either the first or the second one would work well, I think.

The animations probably are not so much aTweaks' concern, but if you're going to put in the work on the creatures, the least I could do is try to find suitable animations. I haven't yet converted any from NWN but I've got instructions from Erephine at least, so I could give it a go if folks think it'd be worth the effort.

If you were to port one or more of the ultroloth, the dog-man or the green dude (or a recoloured tanar'ri/pit fiend) and make them available via IA, that would just be amazing.

I like this solution. You will have to patch AI scripts so that they cast the fiend summoning spells and not the menu spell

Yeah, that's one of my projects for today, as it happens.
It's turning into a rather good component, I think. And it'll be pretty fancy being able to choose what sort of fiend you summon.

Edited by Wisp, 21 January 2011 - 08:37 AM.

[Miloch]

No arcanaloths unfortunately. Maybe one of these would work?

L-R: werecoyote, jackal guardian and cloaked gnoll

After failed attempts at trying to "robe" the werecoyote, I retextured the jackal guardian to look less like Anubis.

Still messing around with colours (not sure I like the red and gold - maybe I'll go with blue ), but a more fitting arcanaloth perhaps?

[Wisp]

It looks very nice

[Shaitan]

Well done Miloch.

[Andrea C.]

New animations through IA + PnP components from aTWEAKS = pure WIN.

[Wisp]

So anyway, I ended up creating a "PnP Color Spray" spell for the Ultroloths. But there's nothing that prevents me from applying the same code to the Wizard spell, in case anyone's interested in a component like that. I guess this "PnP Spells" component could be expanded in the future, if I come across any other spells that deviate from PnP for no good reason. I imagine there'd be significant overlap with Spell Revisions (e.g. I wouldn't be surprised if Spell Revision's Color Spray is nearly identical to aTweaks').

For reference, PnP-in-BG2 Color Spray works like this:
If the target's level is equal to or lower than the caster's level and lower than level 6, the target is struck unconscious for 5 rounds.
If the target's level is equal to or lower than the caster's level and level 6 or higher, the target is struck unconscious for 5 rounds unless he saves vs. spell.
If the target's level is 1 or 2 higher than the caster's level, the target is blinded for 2 rounds unless he saves vs. spell.
If the target's level is 3 or more greater than the caster's level, the target is confused for 1 round unless he saves vs .spell.

Plain-BG2 Color Spray strikes the target unconscious if he's level 4 or lower and fails a save. If he's higher than level 4 the spell has no effect.

Edited by Wisp, 28 January 2011 - 08:04 AM.

[Miloch]

Cool. Are the fiends invisible or are you just waiting for the proper animations?

[Wisp]

Cool. Are the fiends invisible or are you just waiting for the proper animations?

They just hadn't shown up yet; gating takes a round (it will also be optional).