I'm back, and......

Hello fellows, at last I'm back from Krakow. The city is great, as well the polish girls inside. I had a great vacation even if comming back home was both a joy and a pain at once.

About ToEE, I want to write some basic stuff about my situation about Co8 and ToEE.

1 - I like very much ToEE because it is a cheap game that runs fine on my old PC and that entertains me, since I love D&D 3.5 and I like modding very much, but probably I'll have to quit the forum soon since I have to graduate this year and I'll not have much time to play the game nor to spend hours in front of the keyboard modding (or learning how to mod). This means that I'll be lucky if I'll be able to read messages in week end without answering.

2 - before I leave, there are some things that I would really like to do with the game, leaving the proper modding to others. Those things are basically rules fixing and improvements and may be listed as follows:

Since, after many years of experience, I know that altering D&D without knowledge brings to unbalanced game that drives players to discard some tactics and solutions for others that proof more effective. In other words, why should a player create an enchanter wizard, with mind-effect spells, when all monsters have huge will saving throws that completely negate the effect in case of success? See Lamia, that is almost impossible to charm, as many other monsters. That's why I would like to definitively fix:
- monsters HPs
- monsters saving throws, skill points and stats that has been coded unpropely
- missing feats and abilities
So that everything fits the core rules and even fighting monsters is somehow more challengening (because restoring missing attributes) and less repetitive.

This involves fixing NPCs too, since many are missing feats or skill points.
But this implies that some p&p fan will describe me te original AD&D NPCs so that I may see who's really out of role and who's not. This leads to another problem: let's say that a original NPC had STR 17: in AD&D it granted a +1/+1 like actual STR 12 or 13, but that ability score, like many others, was probably assigned because of the bonus related to that score, not because of the score itself nor using dice rolls. Then the question is, if it is possible to know each NPC ability scores, is it better to adapt them keeping untouched the scores or assigning new scores that grants the same bonus? I prefer the second one.
Is it worthy of fixing Elmo and Otis? About Elmo, I like very much moosehead that proposed a small battle axe as secondary weapon.

And, since some of you writed more about the debate between me and Shiningted, I want to be clear that I went mad only for a lack of communication that didn't allow me to make any further change, not because he had different tastes than mine.
In other words:
"I don't like your changes (fine) because they don't fit the original NPCs description (great) since XXXXXXXX (missing information) and I think that, in order to improved them, you should do A, B, C and D (other missing information) because ZZZZZZZZZ (other missing information)." That' all.
And, wonder what? I understood that it is nearly impossible to make any change to NPCs that is accepted by everybody, so I give up about this and I'll do changes for myself only when I'll decide to play again this game.

A secondary problem is that one mentioned from moosehead: my english is good but not without mistakes. It is more than fine for me to understand people or to have a good conversation, but even the smaller distraction may make the game to QTD accordingly with the version, even if the changes are right accordingly with the core rules. The problem is that I can't "see" my own errors even because my game never QTD. Somebody that speaks english as mother language should make a check up of my protos, probably only in the monster/NPC and fix them. I fixed many things that maybe you won't see but will feel while playing and, looking about how much time is needed to do one thing and another, it would be quicklier to fix my one and then to copy cujo's items in it than to re-fix everything in the last relase with the possibility of making new errors that I can't detect. The same for my brother smith dialogue and some items description: I will never get offended if somebody likes my ideas and want to improve them.
Allyx didn't like the silver thing idea and, if really nobody likes it, restoring my last official post to previous rules is only a 30 seconds fix since I only modified 3 or 4 monsters, even if I don't think that it has much sense. And, moosehead, yes: some items that I made were effectively masterworks and silver weapons. It was not a mistake.

Then there are several things that I would like to make myself but I don't have time to learn how to use the new tools. This involves:
- adding as many feats, armors & weapons abilities, spells and stuff as possible to the game and to unseal everything that is already coded but cripted.
- improvinng NPCs & monsters' equipments and merchant's stock with some magic items appropriate to their levels and CR.
- fixing the balor so that, at last, he will fight with a vorpal longsword and a fire whip.

At last, I ask you this: I've seen that a lot of things have been done in those almost-3 weeks and I'm very happy of it but, for the reasons made above, I can't read the posts so I'll ask somebody of you to kindly tell me in short what's happened. And yes, I alread red about Liv's return.
Hope that everybody of you is fine, hugs.

Mattia/0rion79

 

Good to see you back Mattia, and sorry to hear that it may not be for long.

The biggest news (from my limited point of view):

1) Cujo has done some great work on new armors and items, and is trying his hand at character races.

2) Shiningted has finished his new voices and is working on a mod that will include Cujo's items.

3) Agetian is close to finishing his ToEE Front End (alowing mod switching and more) and has released his ToEE World Builder modding tools for beta testing.

4) Darmagon is still making progress on his spells.

5) Gaer has posted that getting rid of the fog of war may help reduce the node lag problem. This could be huge.

As far as I know that's about it.

Sorry if I've missed anything.

-Bob

 

yeah i think that pretty much sums it up...

I'm going to start looking at quest/dialogue writing within the next month or so. I'm super insanely busy arranging a festival and a number of concerts, as well as promoting them, as well as doing my regular job (gotta pay the bills!), so i''m kinda swamped at the moment.
bleh i haven't actually played any games for more than a month now, just tested a few toee things out. life sucks lol.


but anyway, welcome back man and many thanks for the feedback on my suggestions

 

Hey Orion, welcome back man. I know your gonna be real busy, but if you haven't already, check out my Werewolf thread and when you got time let me know what you think



http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=2062

 

Hey man, Sup? good to see ya back. You've missed alot on you're holiday but nothing that interesting...

 

guys thanks so much. When every part of your work is ready and Liv's 2.0 is out, I'll try to give my best to make the change above without making any error while typing. Moosehead, will you assist me?
Would be some good soul so kind to post a short descriptions of original ToEE NPCs or a link to them?
If there is something wished about items & monsters, please post a wishlist for it.

 

sure thing!
i don't have the original ToEE module anymore though... I sold it years ago (pretty dumb, huh)
If there are any dialogue additions/changes, I'll be happy to spice them up too

 

I've got a large collection of old D&D stuff including T1 Hommlet. The entire town section needs to be re-written and I think Liv was working on it. If she is going to be out of action for months(hope not), then someone needs to pick up the ball and run with it. We need new content BADLY for the game to continue and expand. I've done some stuff with the widow Mathilde, Fruella, Meleny, Lodriss and Elmo is next. Instead of 200gp it's ,i need some drinkin money! There's lot's of room for changes in Nulb. I don't mean the sex scence from GTA for the brothel either. Hillary Clinton will sue. Lot's of possibilities.

 

Yes. I just downloaded the original AD&D ToEE adventure and there is really a lot of missing stuff in the Troika's game.
More, really many NPCs are out of their role.
Just to make some example:
Taki is described as a brute fighter when now he is an archer, Otis is described as a ranger with a knight rank and now he is a fighter, Grank is a cleric when he has been changed into a rogue, elmo is a pure ranger and now he starts as a fighter that multiclass to ranger (even if he is described as a man-at-arms and for this I like the idea of Elmo with 4 fighter levels to get weapon specialization in battleaxe, then multiclass to ranger forever), just to name some.

More, I would like to ask you an advice:
Take the dear Elmo as sample. Those are his original values, followed by AD&D bonuses and 3.5 bonuses.

STR 18/43; DEX 16; CON 17; INT 15; WIS 15; CHA 11
AD&D +1/+3 (hit, damge); +1/-2*(hit,AC); +3 (lore)**; +1; +0
3.5: +4; +3; +3; +2; +2; +0

*for readers not familiar with AD&D, read it as +1/+2
** for wizards it is completely impossible to compare old and new INT bonuses
As you see, they are really different: do you want to
1 - keep original values even if bonuses are different?
2 - changes the values so that the bonuses are aproximatively the same?
3 - use the ones that are in Troika's even if they don't match the original game in any way?

note that with Elmo is not so difficult, but in 3.5 the first +1/+1 bonus comes with a score of 12, in AD&D the first bonuses usuallu came with a score of 15 or 16, really high.

 

If you look at the excitement and interest that Liv's mod generated, the increase in modders/modding, etc, it's the wave of the future. I've even tried my hand at protos/.dlg files editing. I would like to see more quests, new monsters and more challenging encounters like a lot of other people. Progress is slow but at least there's progress. That's a good thing. Stay within the rules and context of the game and no money changes hands and everything will be cool.

 

One thing does not exclude the other, even because I leave that part to people that have the inspiration for it.

 

this is true, however when comparing the max stats in AD&D 2nd ed. with the stat system in 3.5, you have to remember that 25 was the max score for anything in the universe/multiverse, including gods.
in 3.5, there is no real limit to how high the stats can actually go.
so when comparing a score of 18/43 with the max of 25, elmo was supposed to be a really strong person. i don't think he was just given 18/43 because of the bonuses attached to those attributes, i think he was given 18/43 to indicate that this man had some serious muscle on him.
so i think a score of 18 still fits his character pretty well.
however, i do think he was given a bit too high of an INT score overall, but that's just me. i mean, let's face it, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, however his intentions are both noble and wise, so 15 WIS is pretty suitable (also needed because he's a ranger).
Likewise, a con of 17, and the dex of 16 considering he's supposed to be a ranger is right on.
a CHA of 11 fits well too, considering he's a blubbering but lovable drunk

so... hm... maybe you should just keep his stats the way they are in troika's version lol