When I finally got Temple+ installed a few months ago, I tried to play with my old party which was in the nodes. The party had some commanded undead bugbears, a charmed bugbear, and a charmed ogre. I assume someone figured out how to make charmed critters behave more like RAW. I'm curious about what circumstances trigger them to fight. Part of the reason I ask is that I want to create the Wiz 2 spell Command Undead, which should follow compulsion mechanics I suppose. What is the current status of Suggestion? https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm
I imagine fixing duration is an easy fix that even I could manage. I have @anatoliy's module SGoS installed, and I am wondering about variations in spell effects: I put suggestion on the spell list for my Favored Soul, and it appeared on the character as Dominate Monster, which I remember was a very old Co8 fix. On the first encounter, the party charmed (person) a hobgoblin who then hacked and slashed his former allies. I thought, based on what I think I read about T+ and based on my aforementioned experience of my party in the Nodes, that the spell basically makes them neutral and stay out of combat. So, I am guessing that this module is not accessing the revised spell files. Would putting spells into overrides fix this problem? Is there a larger problem happening with how modules work?
I finally got to use Calm Animals for the first time (1st level spell). The effect was stunning them. I'm not sure if I could coup de grace, but I know that even with stunning, they are not helpless. Here is the relevant srd text: The affected creatures remain where they are and do not attack or flee. They are not helpless and defend themselves normally if attacked. Any threat breaks the spell on the threatened creatures. So my question is how to fix it. Again, if I remember correctly, Charm was modified in Temple+, but I'm still not sure. My party in the nodes have Charmed ogres with them who will not attack. However, my party in SGoS has had hobgoblins killing their allies as per the norm pre-Temple+ Edit: How would Calm Animals (functioning correctly) differ from Animal Trance (fascinated condition, Druid 2nd level)?
Calm Animals is presumably supposed to be similar to Calm Emotions. It doesn't stun. It just prevents them from being hostile. In a combat scenario, that's probably similar to stun, where you just forfeit your actions. But you're fully aware of your surroundings, and can do stuff as long as it isn't attacking something, or similar. Animals don't have a lot to do besides attacking, though, so the game probably just removed all their actions as a shortcut. Animal Trance is supposed to make the targets less aware of their surroundings. So other people could sneak past without them noticing. Realistically, neither one is much of a combat spell, because taking hostile action against the targets breaks the spell. The first one should probably allow you to escape combat against animals (if you get them all), because they become disinterested in fighting. I don't know how well escaping from combat actually works in ToEE, though. And you can't fix them without patching the conditions, or using different conditions in the spell script.
The problem with the stun effect on Calm Animals is that the effect does not end when the animals are attacked. So is the fix as simple as copying the relevant parts from Calm Emotions? Ah, but not! The latter requires concentration to maintain whereas the former does not. Speaking of Calm Emotions, I tried to use the console to add it to my beguiler's known spells but the console doesn't like spells with numbers less than 100. Adding it to the .py took effect after levelup
I'm confused about the -5 penalty on Charm Person. I'm playing Paladin's Cove - and I am aware that Marc is blocking the effect on named characters (which makes me wonder if Anatoliy did something like that too) - but I tried to charm a mook pirate while he was flatfooted and still got the -5 to the DC, which was 9. I seem to recall in the game that flatfooted avoided the penalty. Would it be different if I selected my wizard, pressed C to initiate combat, and cast charm before the music starts? I have also seen that some of his spells have not been updated to 3.5 through Co8 fixes. May I ask for a bit of background about the fixes for Charm Person / Monster?
My understanding is Marc has nerfed Charm Person/Monster on all targets, not just named characters, under the theory that the spell was never meant to make the target a combat ally (c.f. Dominate Person). My experience is the charmed target will lash out at the nearest target - whether friend or foe. If the charmed target is already engaged in melee, they will continue to attack that target. So, the spell is usually wasted in melee although I have had some success charming enemies using ranged weapons - they will re-engage with the closest target, which is usually one of their own kind.
I have never had that experience. My charms either wouldn't engage (ToEE with Temple+) or they would attack all of my party's enemies Something different....The Sleep spell. I'm fighting Marc's dire bats, which are 4HD A sleep spell causes a magical slumber to come upon 4 Hit Dice of creatures. Creatures with the fewest HD are affected first. Among creatures with equal HD, those who are closest to the spell’s point of origin are affected first. Hit Dice that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted. From what I can see happening and based on the roll history - after the nearest bat makes its save, the other bats don't need to make a saving throw. I had always thought that the spell would go to the next creature inside the radius, i.e. "affected first", next, etc.... Perhaps I am misunderstanding "Hit Dice that are not sufficient to affect a creature are wasted." I had always thought that meant a 2x goblins go to sleep but their bugbear friend with 3HD is unaffected. An example of what just happened: The sorceress casts Sleep on my half-elf and a dire bat. She is immune (only 1HD) and the bat doesn't need to save. Elven tactics would be completely ruined by this interpretation. Is this spell rules compliant or not? In which installation? EDIT: I think I found something in ToEE4/data/scr/Spell438 - Sleep.py hit_dice_max = hit_dice_max - obj_hit_dice This line occurs before the saving throw rather than after the saving throw fails. Looks like something I can test. EDIT: It appears my test did not work. Only one bat is required to save.
I'm thinking I need to create a loop from # subtract the obj.hit_dice from the max (which is 4 in 3.5 but was variable in 3.0 (2d4)) hit_dice_max = hit_dice_max - obj_hit_diceto if (obj_hit_dice < 5) and (hit_dice_max >= obj_hit_dice): Oh great ones! How do I do it? Also, do I need to put the modded file from TOEE4 to data/scr?
I have tried and failed to find a solution for Sleep. Humbling! In PC, I loved the expected ambush caused as a result of my greedy party while rescuing the cat. I don't recall ever facing a druid with an animal companion before, but the gnoll shaman Calmed Animal his own companion. Maybe it was targeting the bounty hunter NPC's companion but, thankfully, it saved. Is there an AI problem because they would have won if that doggie had been free to attack? If I play it again, I'll write more feedback. Lot's of fun!
I think the spell follows the rules. The actual game book has an example, which are usually left out of the SRD description. It says if the AoE contains a rat, a kobold, two gnolls and an ogre (1/4, 1, 2, 4 hit dice), then it will affect the rat, kobold and one gnoll, and the caster cannot decide for it to affect the two gnolls or the ogre. And the description doesn't talk about saving throws at all. "Affected" creatures are the ones that are subject to saving throws, not just the ones that fail. It also has a list of things that are avoided from consideration (already unconscious targets, constructs, undead), but not everything immune to sleep is on the list. Hard to know how intentional that is. I don't know exactly what you were doing. The file you posted is indented wrong (I think). Since python is layout sensitive, you need to be careful about mixing tabs and spaces, but the line you changed was indented with (double) spaces and the rest with tabs (which probably count as 8 spaces). If I had to guess what was going wrong with your modified version and elves, I think that elves are just immune to the sleep condition. So, they could still be targeted and fail a save, using up hit dice in your logic, even though it won't make them fall asleep. But I'm not certain.
Incidentally, I think it's reasonable to put more stuff on the exclusion list. It seems like the one given is shoddy editing. In 2E it says "other than undead and certain other creatures specifically excluded ...." 3E gives an exhaustive looking list, but didn't seem to account for other rules where they gave blanket immunity to other categories of creature (like plants, or mindless vermin). Also they changed (half-)elves from having (30%) 90% resistance to complete immunity. Some of this might be taken care of by the particulars of how ToEE works. For instance, certain types of immunity are checked before the spell logic runs, and the creatures are just removed from the spell list. Those will never use up hit dice. However, I don't know exactly which types of immunity to sleep everything has. It might just be condition immunity, in which case it isn't automatic. (Spell resistance is an example that would work like this, even though maybe it shouldn't in this case. Also Globe of Invulnerability, which does make sense.) Sleep was gradually weakened over the course of 3E, so it could probably use fewer weird caveats like this.
