Orb of Golden Death, Destroy? Keep?

I haven't gotten quite that far in KoTB... But if it's doable, here's one workaround for the skull problem. Skull necessary to enter, and gems scripted to go directly to skull.

 

I'm guessing you've tried messing with the py00218golden_skull script?

It seems like a simple matter of setting 4 flags, one for each gem. What went wrong?

Also, regarding summoned demons' AI being bad - that's actually in line with the module, sort of:

 

interesting...
I noticed that every demon I summoned from the orb used AoO spells that harmed me and did practically nothing to my enemies... The elementals worked normally (since all they can do is hit things)... although they tended to hit things immune to their own damage instead of things not.
I wonder if that is on purpose...

 

From my experience with ToEE's AI, I can say with reasonable confidence that it's just crappy AI at work

 

lol

so there is the perfect solution... if the AI is ever fixed, keep the old AI for the summons from the skull

 

Is it just me, or does the orb not get all the powers from the elemental gems? I inserted the after inserting the earth gem, the radial option to teleport to the earth node didn't seem to be available anymore.

 

all the "teleport to node" abilities disappear when socketed into the orb.

 

Which I suppose makes slight sense. As I remember the teleporting is a side affect of just touching the gems. If they're concealed and contained within the orb you can't supposedly touch them.

 

sure you can, they are on the "forehead" of the orb, just reach out and touch them.

PS. what happens if you touch two gems at once?

 

You cause time-space distortion and the universe collapses.

Or maybe two halves of your body get transported to different nodes hehe.

 

Module notes on gem powers
+ another interesting bit I found about magic modifications in the nodes (should make the Ice Tyrants & Salamanders quite the formidable foes!)

Sounds like indeed only the loose gem should grant the 'teleport to node' power, while an inset gem only lets you teleport to the elemental plane.

 

Oh, man! You guys gotta do the modification to magic thing in the nodes. I don't know how much work that would be but it would be hard thinking of anything better than that to beef up the nodes. Them nodes with that magic modification would severely enhance the whole experience. High level parties would be fighting to survive instead of bull-rushing through everything.

That group of 8 or 10 freaking salamanders always is a PITA. The only really viable spell that comes to mind would be cone of cold, and the wizard/sorcerer would have to be right up front with it unless you want to hose down your own party. Them salamanders would tear up a magic-user up who thought they were cool enough to be in the front. They might get off one round of cone of cold but then they would be all over him like hair on a gorilla! Make it more of a melee fight and them pitchforks can hurt if you're not careful. And of course, Ice Storm sucks. I hate that spell. I never use it.

BTW, I also think the Galeb Duhrs should go back to the way they were. It only makes sense that they would be brutally difficult to kill in their own element. 1 point of damage per weapon and +1 damage for each magical plus of the weapon! And there's 12 or 15 of them in one area, lol. Actually make healing spells needed and necessary for just plain survival and not just to "top them off".

How would the magic modification affect the elemental bursting crafts? Just a straight 25% damage of each 1d6 type of element? 25% of 1d6, 3 times, lol. That's amusing.

AND there's another benefit. This modification would also make Magic Missile the MAIN damage source of a lot of the enounters in the node, specifically for the old school Galeb Duhrs and the demons. Make people craft an asston of magic missile wands for the nodes.

 

Doubling or halving the number of damage dice should be easy enough for the spells.
Modifying the enchanted weapon effects requires DLL hacking, something we cannot do.

 

Another thing I see is that in the module the gems summon small elementals while in CRPG they summon big ones.

 

Ya, and it don't summon no balors or hezrous.

It really kind of sucks as an artifact, doesn't it? It's not the kind of powerful an artifact is supposed to be, like the eye and hand Vecna or things like that.