287 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Ok, thanks, I understand now.

Still need more explanation on this (I understand why it needs to be done, but not what needs to be done.)

AdRing.itm - Ability location should be Item slots (again, not tested since last summer, but I believe it can jumble PSTs quick menu when these are wrong)

EDIT: OH! Never mind, I got it.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 January 2010 - 05:24 PM.

[Qwinn]

- Chastity.itm - Lore should be 0 (why won't you tell me about your clothes, Grace?) and AC bonus mode should be 2 (but with Grace, no difference)

Not bothering with these... Grace's own starting Lore is enough to identify her own bodice, and as you pointed out the AC bonus from all of FFG's bodices is irrelevant.

EAxe.itm, EDag.itm, EFist.itm, EHam.itm, EMace.itm - I disagree with some of the fixpack changes, actually; it looks clear these are meant to all be aspects of the same weapon, with the same efficacy, but the descriptions were just lazy cuts and have some statistics for the base weapon types (axe, hammer, etc.); meaning the only changes is that all would need +2 THAC0 (instead of +3, but doesn't really matter), and EDag.itm should do piercing damage (optional again; I also make EFist do slashing, on the premise that it's a bladed gauntlet, but more because there's already two crushing weapons and only one slashing if the dagger is changed); the fixpack currently makes changes to match the description, which ends up giving some of the weapons base (unenchanted) statistics.

Based on the earlier fixes you noted, and looking at the speeds on the various versions of Celestial Fire which are in fact consistent across all versions, I'm sold. I was wondering myself which way it should go on that but I didn't know there was a precedent already in game for what you're arguing. Done.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Okay, more on the Entropic Blade:

EFIST is pretty damn troublesome. Its description says slashing, while it actually does crushing. But the dialogue says to turn them into "spiked gauntlets". The actual item "spiked gauntlets" do piercing damage. The item "Spiked Gauntlets of Ogre Power" claim in the description that it does 4-6 Piercing -and- 4-6 crushing, but looking at the item, it only appears to do the piercing damage. Gonna have to look at that as well, actually... whatcha think? Can you apply two different melee effects to an item so it does both types of damage (setting the second one to -not- add strength modifier), and will they accumulate? Or do I do it as a damage bonus effect for the crushing damage?

Anyways, based on that evidence, I'm gonna go with both EDAG and EFIST doing piercing damage. The axe will do slashing, and hammer and mace will do crushing.

All versions of Entropic Blade will be speed 1, weight 1 (this is what they all actually do in vanilla, despite what their descriptions say). Now, as to THACO bonus, all of them actually have THACO +3, but their descriptions all say +2. I'm actually leaning toward going with THACO +3. If these are supposed to be the evil version of Celestial Fire, and I've never heard anyone argue otherwise, I say when in doubt lean in the direction of making it a more viable and balanced option.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Ahh, okay, yes, I see what you're saying now. Good, yet another thing I don't have to look at. Thanks for saving me the time analyzing, heh.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Interesting... the Entropic Dagger's unidentified description says "Not usable by priests", and the identified description says "Usable only by Fighters". Unidentified also has weight and speed 1, whereas unidentified sets them at 7 each. Replacing identified with unidentified description, as there are no other differences.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 January 2010 - 08:48 PM.

[Qwinn]

Mmm, never mind, I'm gonna leave EFIST as crushing, since when you will Celestial Fire into "spiked gauntlets", you get a crushing weapon.

The Celestial Fire dagger version is piercing, so EDAG will be as well. That is the -only- change I'm making to the actual stats of any vanilla version of the Entropic Blade. Otherwise, I'm just changing the descriptions to match the actual stats.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 January 2010 - 08:46 PM.

[Qwinn]

- SpWi107.spl - the Shake Screen effects at the four highest levels shouldn't bypass resistance (wow, look at the screen tremble; terrible, terrible damage... oh, wait: Spell Failed: Magic Resistance)

Okay, is there only one resistance check rolled for all of these effects? That is, if a spell has "shake effects" that can be resisted, and damage that can be resisted, is it ever possible that one will be resisted and the other not?

If that *is* possible, then I'm not sure that the suggested action here is any better than the original. Having the visual effect get resisted but the damage actually applying is every bit as bad as the vanilla situation, except even more confusing, with 4 possible outcomes (fail/fail, pass/pass, pass/fail, fail/pass) instead of 2 (pass/pass, pass/fail).

Another question. On JESTER.ITM... or really, any item... in the ability and effect formats, what's the "Probability 2" field for? Does it do anything? I'm pretty sure Scient said that there's quite a bit of hardcoding in the engine for JESTER.ITM, so we'd probably want a good idea of what it does before we mess with it.

Finally, for KYNAME (the Protection from Chaotic tattoo), I'm gonna run some tests... get rid of the saves, fix the bad alignment references, and give it power 20 or something like that... then walk my otherwise nekkid TNO into the Xaositect meeting room and see how much I get hit

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 January 2010 - 10:50 PM.

[Qwinn]

Incidentally, if I'm understanding the way you're saying probabilities work, then the way you handled JESTER.ITM:

Locally, I change the probability for AC -3 to 25 (so you can get AC +2, AC -3, or AC -1

... is sorta the right approach, but I don't think it's doing what you thought it was. If I'm understanding right, they expected that the two effects they coded (AC +2, AC -3) would get it's own roll, and therefore it -was- entirely possible to get -both- effects, and thus they expected that you -could- get AC -1 as well. So your goal, getting those 3 possible outcomes, is actually quite correct. But I don't think you got there. If you only changed the probability on AC -3 to 25, and left the AC 2 at 50, then no, you can never get AC -3. You can get either AC -1 or AC 2. A roll of 1-25 gets you both effects for a total of AC -1, or 26-50 gets you just the AC2. Have I understood things correctly?

If that is the case, then we need 3 effects to mimic the intended outcome, not just 2.

Both effects were intended to have a 50/50 chance. That gives us four possible and equally likely outcomes.

AC +2 pass / AC -3 fail: AC +2, 25% chance
AC +2 pass / AC -3 pass: AC -1, 25% chance
AC +2 fail / AC -3 fail: No change, 25% chance
AC +2 fail / AC -3 pass: AC -3, 25% chance

So you have 75% chance of -some- effect taking place. I won't bore you with how I got here... it was quite a logic problem, actually... but here's what I come up with to mimic those outcomes:

Effect 1: +2 AC, 25% chance.
Effect 2: -5 AC, 50% chance.
Effect 3: +2 AC, 75% chance.

So if you roll 1-25, you get all 3 effects: AC -1
If you roll 26-50, you get effects 2 and 3: AC -3
If you roll 51-75, you get just effect 3: AC +2
If you roll 76-100, you get nothing.

If I understood you correctly, that -should- mimic exactly what their intended outcome was. At least as far as just AC goes... trying to randomize the other effects -with- these starts getting exponentially more complicated, but just to confirm I've got the right idea... am I correct as far as AC goes?

Also, how do the effects attached to the ability work? Is it all just one roll for them too? And is it the same roll as for the global effects? If the ability effects all share a roll, dear Lord, that's insane, a low roll would get you +1d4 ACID, 1d10 COLD, 1d12 ELECTRICITY, 2d10 FIRE, 3d8 SLASHING and 5d10 MAGIC.

Course, 50% of the time you're just getting 1d2, and half of the remaining swings you're getting 1d2 + 1d4. There's only a 2% chance to get -all- the damages I listed in the above paragraph. Maybe this was all intended.

(Wonder if luck is affecting those rolls, too... that could make a huge difference. And actually, the item can give your -target- bonus luck, heh)

At any rate, until scient can weigh in on how the engine hardcoding is affecting all this (who knows, maybe it's giving each effect its own roll), I'm gonna leave it as is.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 18 January 2010 - 11:49 PM.

[Qwinn]

Ok, looks to me like the JESTER.ITM global effects -are- being rolled individually. I just tried unequipping and reequipping the axe repeatedly, and looking at the effects on INT and WIS.

According to what you're saying, you should only be able to get +1 INT... it has a +2 INT and -1 INT effects, both probability 35. But on various equips and reequips, starting with 17 INT, I got 16, 17, 18 and 19 INT, which is what you'd expect if they were rolled individually. Ditto Wisdom, starting at 21, I got 19, 20, 21 and 22 (it has a -2 and a +1 effect).

It's totally fluid. I can get one go up and the other go down, or both go up, or whatever. So yeah, it's behavior strongly indicates they're each rolled individually.

BTW, it's not a rare drop, there's always one in Crumplepunch's chest.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 12:54 AM.

[Qwinn]

If this works the same in PST as in BG, you don't want to fix it.

Protection from creature type renders the protected character invisible to objects of the type protected against. See([PC]) will fail. See("Nameless") will fail. See(Protagonist) will fail. Dialogue([PC]) (without even a See()) will fail. Basically, it keeps the protected creature from ever being returned as a valid object to creatures protected from (imagine every chaotic creature in the game being completely impervious to TNO's existence).

Well, I tried it. If there's a way to fix it, nothing we've discussed has worked.

I changed the alignments specced in the 3 effects to valid chaotic alignment values. I got rid of the saves. And I put probability to 100. And I upped the power to 16 on all of them.

Still got my ass kicked, quickly, by the Xaositect thugs in the Tenement. Didn't notice any difference between going in with and without the tattoo.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

It gets -more- interesting. I undid the changes to the alignment values, left all the other changes in, and guess what? I got exactly the behavior you predicted... the thugs didn't even See me.

So then I removed the bump in the Power field to 16. They saw me and kicked my ass.

So power 1, they can see me. Power 16, and they can't. Weird, eh? (This is also with the no-saves and probability 100 fixes in, just to make sure those aren't interfering.)

At least this experiment tells us two things. 1) The ALIGN.IDS file is inaccurate or at least incomplete. 2) It may actually be having a working effect when the Power is left at its original value.

So, should I do those no-save and probability fixes? Without knowing more of what it's doing, I'm kinda loathe to touch it. I suspect those values have no effect at all, actually.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 01:48 AM.

[Qwinn]

I did confirm that putting items set up with Ability Location "Weapon Slots" in the Quick Slots don't show up properly when you go into the Select Item menu, it shows a picture of the last item you had in that slot instead. Implementing those fixes. Good stuff.

Oh, as for the Anarchist Tattoo, and setting it up as a Tattoo item so you can actually put it in tattoo slots... eh, I dunno. Fact is, it doesn't do anything when it's in a tattoo slot, but reading the description, you might think it does and it's some sort of constant effect making your enemies confused. But, far as I can tell, its only use is in the Quick Slot, like a scroll, and it's got 5 charges. I can see why you'd think a tattoo should be marked as, well, as a tattoo, but I dunno that I want to create confusion as to how it can be used.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 19 January 2010 - 02:42 AM.

[Qwinn]

PHEW! Finally got through the item fixes.

First, listing the ones I've coded and will go into 4.1:

- AdRing.itm - Ability location should be Item slots (again, not tested since last summer, but I believe it can jumble PSTs quick menu when these are wrong)
- AMace.itm - Attack speed should be 5; acid damage should be 2d4
- AnEar2.itm - Cast spell effect should allow *no* save (this can lead to people saving against the casting of the spell and has nothing to do with saving against the spell itself)
- Bolt08.itm - The timing mode for the global THAC0 bonus should be 2 (although, I don't know the engine ever considers these equipped, 4 is definitely wrong)
- CFAxe.itm, CFClub.itm - Speed factor should be 3
- CFHammer.itm - is supposed to be worth 10K (not 1K)
- EAxe.itm, EDag.itm, EFist.itm, EHam.itm, EMace.itm - I disagree with some of the fixpack changes, actually; it looks clear these are meant to all be aspects of the same weapon, with the same efficacy, but the descriptions were just lazy cuts and have some statistics for the base weapon types (axe, hammer, etc.); meaning the only changes is that all would need +2 THAC0 (instead of +3, but doesn't really matter), and EDag.itm should do piercing damage (optional again; I also make EFist do slashing, on the premise that it's a bladed gauntlet, but more because there's already two crushing weapons and only one slashing if the dagger is changed); the fixpack currently makes changes to match the description, which ends up giving some of the weapons base (unenchanted) statistics.
- FangMirr.itm - Play sound effect (target self) shouldn't allow resistance (this can lead to a PC resisting the sound, which has no bearing on what the preset target hostile effect does)
- GSDagger.itm - Speed should be 1
- KKnife.itm - should be 1d3 damage, cheaters
- M1PTeeth.itm - Ingress, pray grant me Teeth of Piercing that do crushing damage! Useful! (both the ability and bonus damage should be piercing)
- OgrGaunt.itm, Rending.itm, UhrKnf.itm - these shouldn't be usable by Annah
- Plus1Im.itm, Plus2Im.itm, Plus3Im.itm, Plus6Im.itm - the immunity effect should be Mode 2 (no practical effect, but the engine will attach a new "Immunity to weapons" effect to creatures with these items equipped every time effects are applied, meaning they all walk around with tons of duplicate effects after surviving through several game saves)
- SpkGaunt.itm - shouldn't be usable by Vhailor
- SpPr304.itm - Ability range should be 50
- SpWi103.itm - Cast spell ability should be external target (2)
- Tail.itm - Ability location should be Item slots (3); why did they make all the crap items able to go into the quick slots?
- TTChr2.itm, TTDex1.itm, TTDV.itm, TTInt1.itm, - I bet you can guess, Ability location should be 3
- WidMkr.itm - should be doing +2 slashing damage, not no damage (Ability "Damage" effect, "Amount" should be 2)

Ones I'm not doing, and why:

- Bod_GP.itm, Bod_PQ.itm, Jer_BR.itm, Jer_FS.itm - these should probably be marked droppable so you can get them back when she dies (Morte doesn't hoard his teeth upgrades, for instance)

Nah. The fact that they can't be stripped may well be be the most fundamentally *canon* issues in PS:T If someone really wants to make a "Naked Annah and Grace" mod, go recruit those guys making the naked mods for Dragon Age

- Chastity.itm - Lore should be 0 (why won't you tell me about your clothes, Grace?) and AC bonus mode should be 2 (but with Grace, no difference)

Not bothering. Grace's lore is sufficient to auto-identify her bodice, and her armor's AC bonus is irrelevant due to her natural AC 2.

- Jester.itm - this item sucks; the designer clearly though this was probability per effect, but the game will only give you one random number (so if the AC +2 fires, the AC -3 *will* fire, and the axe will only ever give you -1 AC). Later versions of the engine allowed definining probability ranges (with upper and lower bounds, by separating this field into two bytes), but we don't get that here. Locally, I change the probability for AC -3 to 25 (so you can get AC +2, AC -3, or AC -1), Intelligence -1 to 17, and Wisdom +1 to 17. For the ability effects, I set the last two color glows to 15% (they're not hooked up to anything, and currently, all four will always run 25% of the time).

Testing reveals this to be incorrect, at least for this item. Effects are definitely being rolled for separately. Perhaps that is what the hard-coding in the engine specific to this spell accomplishes.

- KYName.itm - this item surely can't do anything (Protection from creature type is evil in other IEs!), but those saves can't be legit

See above posts for more discussion, but for the time being, until we can figure out what's really going on with it (and if it in fact does anything), leaving it alone.

- Lens01.itm - this shouldn't be marked undroppable (see Annah's default vest or Grace's bodice)

Nah. The reason Annah and Grace won't part with their clothes (at least without switching it out for another) is evident, and I believe the fact that they do become droppable once you've switched it out is handled in the engine... Nordom has neither the character motivation nor the engine code that would justify handling in the same manner. Besides, the fun in their clothes being undroppable is -trying- to take them off and having them yell at you for it... Nordom has no similar voiced lines that would make it interesting.

- PCheese.itm - Number of global effects should be zero, number of effects for the magical ability should be 1, and charges should be 1. Now you too may eat poison cheese and, like, be poisoned and stuff.

This is pretty neat, but I'm gonna pass on it. Two reasons. 1) Dialogue with Barkis suggests that TNO is highly resistant if not immune to poison, and 2) it only does like 10 damage, which is kinda hard to square with how it insta-kills Mantuok.

- PSCharm.itm - (optionally) this should be marked magical, and the stack size should be 1 since it's unique (also should require identify before use, but I'm skipping those for now)

I'm willing to do this the next time I put out a version that is incompatible with save games from all previous versions (which has happened, twice). For now, though, this could invalidate save games from version 4.0 (changing stackability of items in player inventory can crash the game). Not worth it for the time being.

- TTAnarch.itm - Type should be Tattoos (39) so you can put it on and stuff

As noted above, I don't want to create confusion for players who would probably think it actually does something when equipped in a tattoo slot. Since its only use is in Quick-Slots, having that be the only place it can be equipped serves as a good clue as to how to use its power. And a clue is a good thing, considering how unique it is in this regard.


So that's areas, creatures and items down. On to the spells!

Qwinn

[nevill]

Some ghouls in Dead Nations have a *very* strange walking animation, they are almost crawling instead of walking.

When I freed Morte from Lothar and went outside to pick him up, he joined my party without thanking me. He did have an interjection with Annah immediately upon joining, though, so maybe there was an interference of some sort.

I wonder what the effects of a third star in proficiencies are. My THAC0 with an enchanted hammer +1 is 2 points lower than that of an an enchanted dagger +1. I can't figure where the extra +1 bonus is from.

Edited by nevill, 19 January 2010 - 04:29 AM.