Troika needs your help if... (please read)

Alright, so we know Troika's working on a new patch for TOEE and they'd like for us to help out and make sure everything is fine. They'll also give us credit for helping them, by the by.

If any of you guys are from Orange County or are from a nearby area and willing to take trips there, please get in touch with me about going over there and overseeing the development of the patch and make sure everything we want in it goes in.

Contact me on ICQ at 101527

 

Well, I suppose we could pass on to them all Co8 changes made till v2.0.
I believe if we documented/described each change in detail it would be pretty easy for Troika to put them in and this would sort out quite a number of bugs.

There are also quite a few changes that various community members have made after v2.0 that could be applied. That includes of course the looting fix (though Troika might want to tackle it differently). The list of these other minor fixes:

ITEMS:
-Holy Longsword (Meleny's dowry) now corrected to +1 from +3
-Great Cleaver's price corrected and base damage reduced to 1d6
-Dagger of Venom price corrected
-Misc item prices/weights/magical quality flags corrected
-MW items skill check penalties corrected to reflect changes in official patch
-Plate Gauntlets and Plate Boots added to Brother Smyth's store inventory
-Pouch of bullets added to Brother Smyth and Otis's store inventories
-Oohlgrist's Emerald Belt can now be equipped (Thieves' Tools slot) and gives Protection Vs Acid
-Elven Chain now given as reward for saving elven princess
-All javelins are now 1-handed thrown weapons
-Monks are now proficient with Halfling Sianghams
-Initial items for certain characters (paladins) altered to better reflect PnP settings

SPELLS:
-duration for Ice Storm reduced to 1 round instead of 2
-duration for Guidance reduced to 10 rounds instead of 60

QUESTS:
-Romag's 1st quest corrected.

CREATURES:
-A more realistic Scorpp (details needed)

To include once settled:
-Obex's Prince Thrommel's fix regarding meeting his envoy.
-Partial fix for Rope of Entanglement (as Hold Person spell)
-Inclusion of Composite Bow (Str+2) (details needed regarding placement and whether item actually works as specified in the game)
-Undoing Gnoll damage reduction


I sincerely believe we can tackle many of the item and quest issues and some creature and spell bugs as well. However Troika may be able to certain things better and I prefer not to propose non-optimal fixes.

For example, I've fixed {4134}{Javelin of Lightning} to be able to cast a Lightning Bolt as per 3.5e SRD and its description. Currently this item does nothing (just vanishes) when used from the radial menu.
Col213 was changed from 'Javelin of lightning (INTERNAL)' domain_special 1 to 'Lightning Bolt' class_sorcerer 3
However, although the item now works and the damage is correct (5d6), the DC is still wrong (dependent on thrower)

It seems there is a .py script for Javelin of lightning which is:
Spell712 - Javelin of lightning.py
which has the correct damage and DC inside but somehow the game engine doesn't seem to use it properly.

Same goes for heroism potions and other items in which the spell at Col213 has an (INTERNAL) label.

 

If the mod community is going to work with Troika on this it would more efficient for Troika to concentrate on fixing the .exe or other binary files. We can modify .tab, .mes, .dlg, and .py files but we can't update the source code.

 

-A more realistic Scorpp (details needed) :

1) His natural armor bonus is downed from 20 to 9

2) His character level is now Fighter 10

3) His new hitpoints are 1d1+9 (=10)

4) He has new added feats : Power Attack and Weapon Focus (greatclub)

Now reasons of these changes :

1) According to the SRD, his natural AC bonus is 9. (-1 with his size) 20 gives him sort of god-like AC... (Scorpp can wear armors BTW)

2) As well, a level 1 hill giant fighter's effective level is 12(racial hit dices)+4(level adjustment)+1(class level), Scorpp must be considered as a level 17 character already... So he shouldn't get advance in class any further... in ToEE

3) Now he is a level 10 fighter, the game engin adds 10d10+40 to his racial hit points that is 12d8+48... whereas his hit dices should be 12d8+1d10+52... Now I figured out that statistically, 10d10+50 equals 12d8+1d10+52... Please do feel free to do the math yourself.

4) Again, according to the SRD, by the way, Scorpp and other NPCs have Cleave feat without power attack feat, which is quite disturbing is Power Attack is pre-requisite for Cleave, if we consider that the *cough* AI *cough* never uses Power Attack, I can pass for other NPCs, except this particalar one.


Wanted additional changes that I didn't/couldn't add :

1) Greatclub instead of the crossbow in his hands when the PC party first encounters him

2) Give him a hide armor, to make his AC more accurate when the PC party meets him

PS: I'm not sure if you guys are having the right version of my proto.tab

The fact is : it could be that Rex Blade added the masterwork armor corrections in my former version of proto.tab... Well, I hope Rex or anyone else can check it out and bring my Scorpp corrections in the *patch candidate* proto.tab files.

 

Oh, and I just had a thought of it.

For now, in ToEE, there are 2 katanas, 1 is normal one, and the other is a masterwork.

BUT, in D&D, isn't a katana considered as a masterwork by default?

A very simple change tho. I wouldn't bother insisting on this but would be nice if it could get into the official patch, since this one is a VERY easy fix.

 

@Shin:
Thanks for clarifying. I completely agree with changes 1), 2) and 4). I also feel strongly that the two other changes which you want to implement but have not done so should also be in.

As for change 3), let me see:
Scorpp was originally a level 7 fighter with racial hps 12d8+48
so that means he gets (7d10+28)+(12d8+48) hps.
Assuming 1d10 averages 5.5 and 1d8 averages 4.5, that means he gets about an average of 168.5 hps

If we didn't change 3), but still made him a level 10 fighter,
he would get (10d10+40)+(12d8+48) which averages 197 hps

Now if we also change 3) to 1d1+9 and made him level 10 fighter,
he would get (10d10+40)+(1d1+9) which only averages 105 hps

Sounds like he's getting a lot less than he originally had. Am I understanding it correctly?

 

The correct Hit dice Scorpp shooud have is 12d8+1d10+52 and in average, 1d8 equals 4.5 and 1d10 equals 5.5

So Scorpp's corrected average HP would be 111.5

With my suggested values, Scorpp would have 10+10d10+40, in average, 105... Errr, doh. OK, OK, let's make it 1d1+15 instead of 1d1+9...

To tell I'm following Math master degree...


edit : to answer your question, yes, Scorpp has been the most powerful being of ToEE for *stupid* reasons such as that.

 

Hmm... I think I get it now. Since Scorpp is essentially already effective level 17 you are making him a level 10 fighter so that he no longer advances. But you are giving him a level 1 Hill Giant hps because he's not supposed to have more (being already effective character level 17).

Yeah, I suppose that makes sense too, though 111.5 hps (which does seem correct for a level 1 Hill Giant) is still considerably lower than the original score of 168.5

Don't forget he's not a newbie Hill Giant. He's had campaigns in other places before this if you listened to what he had to say. Maybe giving him a level or two isn't such a bad idea. I dunno. I just feel that nerfing his hps so much makes him a little too vulnerable especially when his AC has been corrected as well.

I do hope that his Greatclub and Hide armor makes it in, otherwise he'd be a complete pushover.

Anyhow, nice work. :thumbsup:
I hope we can pass a list of proposed changes to Exitium soon, finalize the changes with the rest of the modders and pass them via PM or something straight to Steve Moret.

 

Considering the big ammount XP required for Scorpp to increase in class levels and the fact that D&D monster manuals give the WEAKEST versions of monsters... I'd be inclined to add him additional stat bonuses and some hit point dices instead of adding him class levels.

However, 115.5 HP and lowered AC are more than enough for him in ToEE, in fact, the first time I took Scorpp in my party, the game suddenly became too cheesy, since no one, Hedreck, Iuz, Balor, you name it, could stop Scorpp/troll armor/frostband/fire longsword combo tank. The new Scorpp brings some balance into the challenges as matter of fact...

And also, the glance at the proto.tab shows that every monster in ToEE is portraying the weakest version (the manual version) of its species...

 

Very well, I accept your reasoning on change 3). I still hope the other 2 changes which have not been made can be done though. Any particular difficulties in doing this or does Scorpp simply refuse to equip a GreatClub and Hide armor?


The reward for rescuing Sargen does not appear to have been explicitly corrected by the patch and this issue has once again cropped up in the buglist.

Cerda posted a correction here quite some time ago.
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=578

Shin, was it Ok after the fix? What does this fix actually do (actual lines of code and what was changed) and why was this bugged in the first place.
Anyone else who downloaded it and tried it should feel free to comment.

 

I can't really remember, but I think it's OK. Will tell you rather if I make a new encounter with him in my new game.

 

I tried to edit the inventory file for NPCs. The Scorpp's line number being... 108? I removed the crossbow from the line, it won't help, Scorpp keeps having his crossbow in his hands. For the armor, I didn't really try it because I was too frustrated with great club thing...

 

Tried to edit Scorpp as well without any effect. Perhaps it's because the crossbow is a quest object? The code on line 108 doesn't make any sense to me. He should be holding his spiked hillgiant club, not the crossbow. And he doesn't have any bolts to fire from it anyways. Is InvenSource.mes really the right file to edit?

Perhaps NPC get automatic bolts? And perhaps they automaticly equip the most powerful magic weapon they have in their inventory? Would make sense in a way, and explain why Elmo switches from dagger to axe when he joins. Perhaps the NPC simply are too clever for their own good?

 

AFAIK invensource is used whenever npcs resuply (stores and some npcs like Dala). There is probably something somewhere that states what items npcs start with when the module starts but I havent found out what yet, probably in the module .dat. Something good in the next patch would be to give us control over what npc resuply and when if that's not already possible.

 

It appears the problem may lie with the InvenSource.mes file not being commented out properly. Aginor37 suggested adding // to all comment lines which precede the actual inventory lines.

Read here for more info:
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=207

Hope you guys can figure it out.


EDIT : Not having much luck here. Tried editing Col44 for {14272}{Scorpp} of protos.tab to other figures - 107, 31 but his inventory doesn't change when he joins up. Curiously there's a Tribal necklace and some bolts which were not coded into {108} of InvenSource.mes

Tried changing:
Col34: 1096 (model) to 1097
Col35: 30 (target size) to 45
Col123: 6020 (pic) to 3980

All changes were implemented. Scorpp now looks like a regular Hill Giant (portrait and 3d model and size). BUT he is still wielding that stupid crossbow and his inventory still doesn't change when he joins.

Tried editing out the comment lines in InvenSource.mes by adding // to all lines and deleted the empty line between the commented lines and the inventory lines.
Still no go. I must be missing something here.

EDIT2: Decided to just delete all commented lines in InvenSource.mes. Nope, still doesn't work. Hmm... wonder if InvenSource.mes does anything at all?

EDIT3: Saw 1 more comment line at the end of line {91}{Tolub} in InvenSource.mes. Deleted it as well but had no effect.

EDIT4: Even editing Col44 in protos.tab to blank has no effect on Scorpp. Somehow that crossbow sticks to him like glue. I wonder if a saved game saves certain info regarding characters which is not altered by protos.tab changes. Or perhaps another parameter or file is responsible for Scorpp's equipment. Need to work on some bug updates. Hope you guys have more luck than I did.