Co8 5.0.0 Beta - The Big 3; A poll

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

Well, it would have worked for my TRUE_NEUTRAL party. I checked the Jaroo dialog, and as you suspected, the quests were not properly implemented, so it would ONLY work for TRUE_NEUTRAL parties.

I'll make the necessary dlg/py fixes and post them within a day or so.

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

:rant:

It looks like Terjon is mixed up with this as well, and that it's entirely a Co8 quest. I don't have a "clean" Terjon dlg, as I've been hacking him pretty hard on the conversion quests. So, it may be more than just a day or two, as I'm trying to spend some time *playing* the game.

BTW, it should be a negative test -- the ambush should only occur if Quest 72 is NOT complete. The party should want the XP from completing the quest and report it asap. Once it's reported, no ambush. If a player decides to "game the system" and hold off on reporting the quest complete for some reason, that's not our problem. It's better than the current situation (not reading the diary) or a timer that may or may not be "fair" to the PC.

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

Okay, how about this: once you kill Lareth, a two day countdown is set in motion to account for the party resting inside the Moathouse and whatever (this is enough for 5-6 rest periods).

If the party exits the Moathouse within that time period, the ambush occurs.

Should the party exit through the entrance instead of the cave exit, a two hour timer will be set (or however long it takes to travel to Hommlet), so if the party rests in the Tower or something along these lines, the ambush is cancelled. Alternately, script an ambush for that part of the Moathouse as well. This would be quite a bit more labor intensive, of course, and in addition to repositioning the spawned creatures, it would involve checking that the party didn't exit through the secret passage, and that none of the Moathouse inhabitants are around, or alternately deleting them or adding them as reinforcements for Turuko and his party.

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

The Diary issue is that reading it reveals the location of Nulb, setting the story state such that the ambush won't occur. Since Lareth being dead is required for the ambush to occur, this generally means that the party has been to Lareth's room and likely obtained the diary. Having obtained the diary, the "natural instinct" is to read it right away if possible. That's what caused me to miss the ambush the first time. When I reloaded and waited to read the Diary, I got the ambush as expected.

Gaear, it sounds like your timer would be independent of the Nulb check; I thought you were thinking about replacing the Nulb check with a timer. We might consider doing both:

1) Replace Nulb check with Quest 72 != completed required for ambush. I'm considering making the Diary "unreadable", so that the party has to take it back to Hommlet for translation (in which case, we can just leave the check for Nulb as is).
2) Timer set for a "reasonable" value and sets a flag when it expires; flag unset required for ambush.

So, even if a party tries to game the system by not reporting the Moathouse cleared in a timely fashion, the ambush won't occur if the party waits too long. But reading the Diary in Lareth's quarters (a very likely occurrence) won't prevent the ambush either.

I'm working on a few other options to replace both (1) and (2), but as Gear pointed out, I am finding holes in all of them.

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

I'll make a stab at it. I anticipate letting several people "give" it out, including people who just give out rumors. I will likely make Lareth's Diary "unreadable", so PCs have to bring it back to Hommlet. Regardless of who "gave" the quest, several people (Kennet, Terjon, Jaroo, etc.) will all be able to direct the party to someone to translate. Ideally, I'd use Burne, but I think Sitra is heavily modding that DLG. I will probably end up using Terjon, as I'm already modding him. I may pick a minor character (if I can find a good candidate) to avoid the whole voiced/unvoiced mix.

I'll make sure every starting alignment has at least one opening and one resolution (which may be different). I'm also rewriting the ambush dialog (PC side -- I'm not touching the voiced NPC dialog) to make it clearer that the party is on its way back to report the clearing of the moathouse (to whom may differ by alignment, but will always be somebody that irks Turoko/Zert).

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

I'm superfly with that. My *only* goal was to prevent reading the Diary [in Lareth's bedroom] from stopping the ambush ('cause that happened to me, and I thought it was wrong, so I thought I'd try to "fix" it). I haven't tested a hotfix before, but now that I just put skirts on the Orcs and made them sweep up their cave, I'll take it out for a spin.

I still think moving the ambush to main courtyard has merit. Sneaky characters *deserve* to find sneaky ways to handle things. Can you make two optional maps? If party enters map through main entrance, party is in courtyard and surrounded. If party uses secret door, ambushers are in courtyard, and party can get a drop on the ambushers (if they choose to fight)?

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

Well, since you took your files away before I could download them , here are a few other things to consider:

in evil vocce:

1) REMOVE the ambush from the original location and set it up in/around main moathouse entrance ONLY (party is boxed in if it exits main entrance).

2) Make the tunnel exit a *very* hard to find secret door. And I mean *very*.

3) Make reading the appropriate chapter in Lareth's Diary reveal the tunnel exit (the text is there already). Now the party has two ways to find tunnel exit.

4) Put tracks (easy to see -- I'm sick of my Ranger, who is topped out at Survival only finding Ronald's and Meleny's Jackal's tracks on maps) on the tunnel exit where the ambush was originally. If party goes back to moathouse immediately, put ambushers n courtyard -- party now has *them* boxed in.

5) Possibly up the DC on the top-side secret door. A sneaky party can get out without combat, otherwise the party is at least in the open against the ambushers.

6) Add any top side bandits not killed by party earlier to the ambusher's side (if possible -- I'm not sure).

7) Of course, the python, rats, stirges, and lizard are still around if not killed earlier as well.

8) Don't make Lareth dead a requirement. What if we had a war and *everybody* showed up? I don't know if the engine can handle *three* side, or if it's always 1 side v. 1 side. Imagine letting Lareth go as an option (not killing, not in party); Lareth shows up with drow reinforcement while Zert and creq and you are "discussing" ownership of the moathouse.


--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

I like your 'just do it' approach, Gaear

Anyway, when the party exits through that secret passage, it's legitimate in my view to cancel the ambush. Odds are that no one would do so without metagaming the thing anyway, but the rationale would be that you simply snuck out the Moathouse unnoticed.

Scripting wise, you can solve this by checking the party's location on the first heartbeat of the script device. You can see the random_encounter.py for an example of this, where I added the wonnilon hideout code that checks if the party is in that part of the Temple where resting should be safe. Find the party's coordinates when exiting the Moathouse by the back entrance by using the loc() command, and change the script so that if the party is within that rectangle of coordinates on the first heartbeat, then the encounter doesn't take place.

Tech note: loc() points out the x,y coordinates of the party leader (leftmost portrait).

When this is added, I think it should be case closed :yes:

As a side note, had the unavoidable encounter thing worked 100% right, this encounter could have been staged as a wilderness encounter. Unfortunately, it doesn't fire as reliabley as one would hope. But heck, doing it in the courtyard/cave exit is cooler.


@ Arioch:

One of the problems of doing a three way fight is that the AI tends to favour attacking other, nonfriendly AI mobs before it attacks the PC. This could result in an easy fight where you just watch and pick off the survivors as needed. It's the same problem as the AI's fixation on spiritual weapons, I reckon.

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

I concur. A working solution tends to trump all manner of theoretical solutions.

BTW, I'd just focus on making the ambush itself fun and realistic. DnD 3.5 and ToEE are heavily weighted towards combat for XP -- if people want to avoid the encounter, and it doesn't break anything, let them. It's their loss -- it's not like there's any quest/roleplaying reward for avoiding the fight, so they lose out on (a) killing 3 annoying NPCs, (b) XP, and (c) loot in return for (d) nothing. Not that the "Big 3" have anything worth looting; would you mind adding a Ring of Invisibility -- I mean Furnok?

Not to mention my computer is slowing down just because I typed about it....

--thearioch

 

Re: ToEE FAQ and references

Sorry, just my dry sense of humor.

Anyway, it would be more realistic to remove Furnok from the Wench, give Zert Furnok's equipment, and have Ostler comment about Zert, Turoko, Kobort, and Furnok all leaving together.

[Checking protos.tab] Nope -- Furnok has a 14 INT -- I think he's too smart to sign up with the Big 3

--thearioch