Spolier Questions: Livonya's Mod

Yeah, I knew it would come as a surprise!

Awesome that someone found it!

Glad you liked it!

I've got more in store for 2.0 as well... lots of new stuff... some devious.

- Livonya

 

This has nothing to do with me. All enemy NPCs use defensive casting. Troika made it that way.

Bad luck on your part. Trust me the AI is not intelligent enough to do what you think it did. I wish I could make it that smart, but I can't. The AI is very primitive, and it was just pure luck that the AI for the skeleton actually appeared to be doing something smart.

- Livonya

 

Request: Require parties to play the nodes

Hey Livonya,

Any chance that you might make this mod work like the old module did where you had to collect the gems for the orb of golden death before you can fight Zuggtomy? It would certainly make the game more difficult and provide a purpose to running through the elemental nodes.

Thanks!

 

Livonya - do you think there is room for an alternate strand to the Dead Sheep quest? The ending I got to the quest was good, but it seems to only make sense if certain NPCs are still alive by the time the resolution triggers.

 

Zebedee -

To be honest I have no idea how it resolves yet. I haven't gotten that far in my game yet. All I did was fix it so that it would trigger.

Once I play through the game and reach the resolution then I will be able to comment... it shouldn't be too hard to put in an alternate ending if Troika's ending doesn't always make sense... I just wouldn't be able to do that until I actually play through what they have so far...

- Livonya

 

Hmm....any idea of how to make them actually have to make Concentration Checks, as I noticed they didn't have to do so?

Hmmm....ok. Ah well....

 

My intention is to put a lot of changes into the end game, and your suggestion might be one of the sorts of things I do...

However, at this point I haven't played through that far. I need to actually finish the game.

It is really hard to mod things towards the end without actually playing through to the end.

Right now I am playing a game to completion, and as I go I am making notes on things that need to be changed...

So I will put this idea in my idea book. It is a good one.

- Livonya

 

Actually, they do make Concentration checks. I've seen enemies fail before, though rarely.

The problem is ToEE sets the DC for all Concentration checks at 15 instead of 15+Spell Level. Which means they eventually become impossible to fail. (Much like the basic DC 15 tumble to avoid AOOs rule, though those are actually true to the book, even if most people house rule them.)

 

idea

Livonya,

If you're looking for ideas for tweaks later on in the game, one instance I've thought a little spotty is the fact that two powerful enemies (Smigmal (sp?) and the wizard across from her, the one with the quasit) wouldn't hear the other getting slaughtered and cross the corridor to help. Those two too-easy battles would be livened up a lot by a fireball exploding behind the party (in one case) or by a fighter slashing in (in the other), behind-the-party being where the low-defence spellcasters usually stay. And given the loot these two have, and their importance in the module, it seems appropriate to me that way, that it should be more difficult. Let alone the logic of role-playing perception and behavior.

More fancifully, there could be a chance of one 'visiting' the other, and thus the party encountering both at once.

The first time I played through toee, when I went to Imerdys Run for the gar, for some reason (I think it was maybe my spread-out party formation) the frogs and the seahag/lizardmen attacked me at the same time, and having to handle a two-front situation was very challenging, and lots of (exasperating) fun. So that's what gave me the idea. In general, given how wily the toee human population is supposed to be, this might be an interesting situation to try and spring now and then elsewhere as well. Maybe, along the lines of the paratrooper green slimes (from the moathouse), give one or two bigwigs a fungus guardian, even?

Just my 2 cents.

 

Sorry, but I don't agree for 3 reasons:
1 - the fight with the sorcerer with the quasit may be reached almost immediately after defeating the ambush that there is in the tower ruins of the temple, so it is an encounter that may be done both from a lucky party that immediately finds the secret door in the tower ruins and that is still a low level one, or another one that instead entered the temple from the main door, cleaned the whole first level, part of the second one and then is of an higher level. Making that encounter harder just means removing the possibility to enter the temple form the tower entrance and venturing with an easier one. I think that Liv did already a great work maing the spellcaster smarters.
2 - there is the problem that those 2 characters has their personal dialogues and making a fight involving both may result in a dialogue mess.
3 - as role-playing reason, the temple is filled by chaotic evil characters that would often enjoy having a rival wipped out by the party.

About the giant frogs, you may be right but don't forget that that hag is really strong. Sometimes it happens that some of the hag party spots the PCs party and joins the fight, in other opportunities it does not happen.
More, I don't see why an hag and troglodites should help a giant frog.
I think instead that it should be an all vs all fight for getting more food and , since the frogs must eat too, no surprice that, in such a desolated place, an hag wouldn't care too much about the activity of such a giant animal that is just hunting everyday. More, try to image those swamps a bit bigger than the area showed in the game: I image the encounter hag+frog like a coincidence.

 

LOL sounds like me Liv. a year ago or so i completely finished it but since then the closest i got was an accidnetal evil ending before finishing the temple. im trying to play a new one through right now to check out all your stuff. im also keeping notes of things to report to you when i get through it all

 

Orion,

1-well, I think the whole rush-in-and-grab strategy SHOULD be hard, so I disagree here. I do agree with you, though, that Livonya did fantastic work improving the spellcasters' AIs.

2-good point, I agree.

3-another good point, though if this is the case, wouldn't that make the case for some bodyguard or two for Smigmal even stronger?

As far as the frogs/lizardmen, I don't think they should always work together at all--I was just offering an example of a battle that turned out really interesting, and saying maybe adapting the mechanics of why (encirclement) into more encounters would add some spice to the game, and shake up the meat-shield front-line/spell-casting back-line strategy a little.

 

I think you are right on with that.

I will keep that in mind and see if I can't add some "ambush" or "surrounded" scenarios to add a bit of variety to the combats...

- Livonya

 

Early map bug?

I've just encountered the effects of bullying the gnolls out of the moathouse (hence why in the spoiler section) and was wondering if this was new or an error in my installation of the maps folder.






Namely, the gnoll massacre site of the caravan doesn't link with the world map. I was heading from Hommlet to the Moat House Exit, and the massacre site popped up automatically, ala the assassin or the meeting with Zaxis. I haven't found any doors out and the empty chest was not helpful.

Anyone know what's wrong, or can somebody just give me the console code to add a scroll of teleport?

BTW, shouldn't we get XP rewards for bypassing a threat like the gnolls? I'd like to see the social skills not end up reducing party progress too much, and it is technically in the D&D rules that defeating an opponent doesn't neccesitate violence.

Bardbarian

 

This sounds like a new addition Liv made.

As it seems to work like an encounter, can you not open up your world map and leave it that way?