Kids/Traps/Quest Mod - (Beta version)

Kids/Traps/Quest Mod - (Beta version 1.04)

EDIT NOTE: (should be working now) I made a major change to how I spawned the kids. I no longer modify the dialog and create invisible NPCs to spawn the kids. So this will now work perfectly well with 8 NPCs in your party.

There are 18 less files in this new build.

The attachments are at the end of the e-mail

I am planning to do a full mod with a LOT of other changes, but one step at a time...

I mostly made these changes to make my game play more enjoyable. I tried to make the game a bit harder without making it too hard or changing the way it was designed by much.

To get everything to work you will need to start a new game after putting my changed files into the proper folders...

I started with the last version of the Circle of Eight mod 3.0.4

I changed a lot of files so I am just including them all.

There are only 3 new lines in the Protos

line 12602
line 14500
line 14458

There are numerous changes to the Protos but most are very minor, such as adding a # tag to many items (column 22)

Most of the changes involve scripts and dialogs.

If you want to try it out without reading the spoilers than just start a new game the first kid you meet will help you out.

If you want to read the play by play of what this does then read my second post...

That's all I can think of at the moment... talk to the kids to find out more!


Livonya

[Edit: major changes to the way the kids were spawned]

IMPORTANT: After you have copied the mod files into their respective directories, you should delete all those files with weird names in the folder Temple of Elemental Evil\modules\ToEE\maps before you start the game. These files are some sort of cache for map information.

 

Mod: spoilers

Here is the exact info:

1) Adds kids to Hommlet. The first kid you meet has a lot of dialog but the others are just there for asthetics. I need to fine tune where they stand when they are indoors. Also, I didn't have a good portrait for the girls, so both boys and girls use the same portrait

2) Traps are hader to find (searching), and a bit more deadly. Plus you get NO experience for setting off traps.

3) There are new traps. I only have 3 or 4 new ones at the moment. Some use new animations that were not in the original.

4) New quest. I have added a quest to get Brother Smyth to make you master work items.

5) NPC control options. I have added new dialog options to the NPC party members. You can buy their starting equipment (non-magical) and the coins you spend will go into their inventory. Also, you can instruct them to NOT sell whatever they are holding in their inventory. This is useful to bind some item to an NPC such as a wand, scroll, or what not that you want them to use but not sell... note you can't take them back once bound. (I have added dialog for Spugnoir, Kobort, Turuko, Furnok, Zert, Lareth, Elmo, the Man At Arms, Meleny, and the Spinster... I have a few to fix yet)

6) Dialog fixes for Furnok. There were errors in the original that prevented some options.

7) The appearance of many NPCs has been altered to match their pictures.

8) I have done some tinkering with Lareth's diary and Lareth himself... he doesn't like people reading his diary!

9) Some dialog options for intimidate, bluff, diplomacy are a bit harder to pull off... added 2 points to the requirement for most...

Have fun

Livonya

 

Awesome. You seem to have fixed a number of things that bugged me (and a lot of other people) greatly. Gonna check it out!

Now I'll have to integrate all these changes into the mod pack. :shock:

 

Played around a little bit with your mod, Livonya. I like it a lot! Had a very informative chat with Kent. Good job with the writing there. And all those cute little kids make Hommlet look so much more lively. I think it's time for another playthrough of the whole game now ... Wanna try Brother Smyth's quest next.

By the way, I am nearly finished integrating all those changes into the current mod pack. Wasn't too hard to do, actually. I used Beyond Compare to figure out the changes you had made and then pasted them into my files. Protos.tab was a bitch to change, though. Lots of little fixes here and there. I think I discovered two mistakes: ID 14003, column 123 should probably read "6230", not "6203". Concerning ID 14500 (Kent), you put "228 0 0 0 0" in column 279, which normally isn't used by the game - should be 278, right?

What does the number in column 6 do actually? Something to do with dialogue?

Another question: For a lot of weapons, you duplicated the ID in column 22 (e.g. Longsword, ID 4036). Why is that?

 

Fixed error in protos

Morpheus -

Oops, I just fixed the attachments. Yes, you are right about those 2 changes in the protos.

I had to build this protos from scratch to upload it, as my actual game protos has a LOT of other changes that I didn't want to upload... I am also working on a difficulty mod where all creatures have more hit points (not more hit dice) and all the NPCs have different starting stats... so I didn't want to post all of that... I must have made those two typos in the protos.

It is fixed now.

As for column #22 in protos. This is actually a VERY important column

This column is an ID column for scripts. Column #23 is the ID column for text descriptions, but #22 is the ID for scripts. If you want to search for items via a script then #22 needs an ID number...

You will note almost all scrolls have 4002 in column #22. This so they can search for scrolls in the scripts. If you wanted to search for a more specific scroll then that scroll would need a unique number such as Wonnilon's scroll of control plants (item line 9001).

To do anything complicated with specific items then those items need an ID in column #22. The best solution for me was to just duplicate the number from column #23.

As for column #6.... Column #6 in protos control the NPC size. It scales, some NPCs were not tall enough or too tall, so that changes their size. For instance Spugnoir was taller than Kobort, I changed that so Kobort looks like a big man and Spugnoir looks smaller. Plus I made the children smaller.

Livonya

 

The children certainly add a nice touch to the town, and I really like the masterwork item quest. Parties will likely be able to complete it right before they enter the temple, a perfect time I think to start getting masterwork stuff.

 

Yeah, I didn't really want the master work items to be available too soon, but I didn't want them to be too hard to get either... so pretty much as you said they should be available right around the time you hit level 3 or are about to enter the temple.

The first giant that you kill will produce the needed head, so in theory you could receive the head much later in the game depending on when you run into a giant.

Right now I am also working on a new quest involving Brother Smyth where after you have brought him the giant's head and after you have been to Nulb then a locked metal chest appears next to his forge. He will ask your rogue to open it for him and then he will give you some sort of reward... I have most of it working, but I need to decide on the reward and difficulty level of the chest.

Also, I have figured out a way to place random traps throughout the dungeons... I have a little work to do, but it seems like it will work. I should have a test version of that done quite soon.

And one last thing... let me know if anyone has trouble with the beginning scene with a Neutral Evil party. The opening for the Neutral Evil party took some tricky effort to get it working so that the kids would show up... I think it should work fine, but it wasn't so simple to get working.

Livonya

 

I have just coded the "Book of Heroes", which - when you keep reading it long enough - transports you to the Arena map. I haven't got it all worked out yet, but in the arena you are supposed to meet an evil magician who tells you that you have to defeat a couple of fearsome enemies if you want to leave the place.

Now, that locked metal chest of yours would seem to be a good place to hide that book.

 

Morpheus -

That sounds cool.

Brother Smyth can take all the contents and then turn over the "worthless" book as a "reward."

I will try to finish the code and then I can upload it.

I might be able to finish that tonight, once I get home from work.

All I need to do is add 1 line to the protos and finish the dialog.

Livonya

 

Morpheus -

Okay, I am done.

I made 1 new protos line

line #1053

Here are the column's for that item

column #1 = obj_t_container
column #22 = 1053
column #23 = 1053
column #24 = size_medium
column #27 = mat_wood
column #30 = 1
column #34 = 11001
column #41 = OCOF_LOCKED
column #42 = 34
column #269 = 300 0 0 0 0
column #278 = 300 0 0 0 0
column #287 = 300 0 0 0 0

I am attaching the dialog and script changes. I only changed 3 files.

(there are 4 files in my attachment, I discovered an error in script py00301dresser.py so I also included that)

The only thing left to do is to set the item.

I don't know the book's ID name so I left it blank....

In the .dlg file for the blacksmith (00059blacksmith.dlg) just change line {8060}. All you have to do is put in the ID # for your book from column 23 of your new item. Right now the number is listed as ####

Here is what it looks like before you change the ID number:

{8060}{I only need this one item. Everything else is yours, though unfortunantly there's not much here. Just a few coins and this old book. You can have them.}{I only need this one item. Everything else is yours, though unfortunantly there's not much here. Just a few coins and this old book. You can have them.}{}{}{}{pc.money_adj(13072); create_item_in_inventory(12590,npc); create_item_in_inventory(####,pc)}

That should cover it. The chest will appear after some time and Brother Smyth will ask you to open it.

Column #42 controls the lock difficulty on the chest. If you want to make it harder or easier to get into then just change that... so if you make the arena area too hard for a mid-level party then just make that number higher to prevent lower level players from getting into the chest.

Livonya

 

Very impressive stuff.

Not to sound like a broken record about this, but did you take into account the trap CRs listed in the SRD or DMG when assigning the search difficulty and damage?

As for the no XP for setting them off thing, was this the only way to prevent them from granting XP every time you set off the trap? By the 3.5 rules encountered traps should grant XP once, whether triggered or disarmed. Though most traps in the official rules can only be triggered once until they're reset, too.

 

Kalshane -

The problem with searching is that you take 20 and every single person in your party can assist (for a maximum of +16 from assist).

So at level 3 you will often get search totals of 30+ (in fact it is possible to get search totals much higher than 40 if you have a large party).

That is good enough to detect every single trap in the game no matter what the CR. That makes the concept of searching pretty silly to me. At level 1 it is possible to detect every trap in the game.

The only time you do not take 20 is when you go to use a trapped item. At that point the system actually rolls a dice and it doesn't add in assists.

So the previous search difficulty level was decent for the individual search that applies when a PC character uses a trapped item, but for actual searches there was a 99% chance of success in most cases.

There really isn't a good way to make a fix that works for both instances.

In the original game searching was so easy that it was pointless to even have it in the game.

Also, with traps I just barely made them more deadly. And most are left as is at this point as I am not done testing. The ones I did change, for example, were like 2d6 damage to 3d4+4 damage. Small changes to make sure the traps were hitting in the higher ranges.

I ABSOLUTELY do not want to make it impossible. My goal is to make sure it isn't a joke, and as it has been pointed out, in the original you could actually level your entire party by failing to set off traps.

The trapped chest in Jaroo's tree will NOT kill you but, it will level your party as high as you want to go depending on how long you will play with the traps.

Traps should be dangerous not free learning experiences.

But I understand what you are saying, and as I continue to mess with the traps I will try to keep balance. I do NOT want instant death situations, I only want to make it more challenging.

Livonya

 

I understand the active search being too easy (and by the rules, any non-rogues in the party shouldn't even be able to help, as by the rules any trap with a Search DC above 20 cannot be found by a non-rogue) plus taking 20 shouldn't even be possible on a trap search role since a roll of 1 on a search means you accidently triggered the trap. (The active search works fine for secret doors and the like, though.) But I realise you're trying to work around Troika's flawed implementation here.

That said, a Rogue who keeps his Search skill maxed out shouldn't have that tough of a time finding traps of the appropriate CR for his level.

I guess it might be a difference in play styles, but I've always seen traps as a punishment for reckless parties (though even careful ones can get strokes of bad luck) with the occaisional high-tension situation rather than a constant threat.

 

Kalshane -

Actually, you just gave me a great idea.

I am at work and can't try this at the moment, but I think I might be able to make it impossible for a non-rogue to find a trap under any situation. Which would effectively end the the whole problem with assistance from other party members and taking 20.

I will give it a look see tonight.

Livonya